[robbo203]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

 I guess the same argument can be applied to musicians and other types of artists. In fact, i am sure CEOs would also endeavour to claim their "talents" as a special resource, although that is much more debatable.

 CEOs might well claim that, Alan, but in their case, at least as far as the top ranking CEOs commanding many millions of dollars income per year, it is much more straightforwardly a case of surplus value extraction via, for instance, a stock options component in their compensation package as well as the grossly inflated "salaries" they receive (as was also the method by which the Soviet ruling class took their share of surplus value to fund their lavish lifestyle) This is where Michel's argument gets questionable as an attempt to refute or marginalise the labour theory of value.  The income CEO's receive bears no relation to the socially necessay labour time required to produce and reproduce their skills..  But why should it if such CEOs are not strictly part of the working class but rather that capitalist class – or at least on the lower rungs of the catalist class

[robbo203]

Hi Michel.  A few more comments… 

MBellemare wrote:

Robbo, you do state think-points that deserve consideration. May be I am exaggerating, but I don't think so and I think with time you'll come around. Working myself in the artworld, I can say that with almost perfect certainty that labor-time expenditures have nothing to do or very little to do with how the artworld functions as an artist. Network, networking and image is paramount, labor is secondary to creativity and conceptual-perception, i.e., what one thinks and what people think. Now, you may think that the artworld is an exception, but I don't think so, I think it is a central economy/ sphere of production and consumption in post-industrial, post-modern capitalism, that flows into other spheres like other the art-form economies, advertising etc., it is usually celebrated as a diamond of western societies to show the world, how democratic, inclusive, cool and multi-cultural, bourgeois, neoliberal capitalism is.

Well, there are several points I would make here by way of response. The first is to question your cut-and-dried distinction between art and labour as if the one does not involve the other (and vice versa).  That, I think, is to diminish and impoverish both. Working in the art world you would probably have heard of the great Victorian artist and revolutionary socialist, William Morris. The SPGB long go published a pamphlet on Morris which I would recommend to you.  Here's the link – http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/art-labour-and-socialism Secondly, while it is perfectly true that networking, image manipulation, advertising hype and so on can add monetary value to a particular product, what you overlook is the labour theory of value is, and can only function as, an economy-wide theory of value.  It is not a theory of the value of any particular product.  Your approach to the subject matter, with respect, unfortunately suffers from the shortcomings and myopia of methodological individualism which does not permit you to see the wood for the trees.  Of course there are many reasons why the price of any particular product can diverge from its value and you cite some of these.  But at the end of the day, the sum total of prices must equate with the sum total of values generated.  This is absolutely crucial to understand. If some goods sell at prices above their values this necessarily means other goods selling at prices below their values.  In that regard we are talking about a zero sum game  

MBellemare wrote:

    The fall of communism is related to how seemingly free-spirited western societies and their artistic productions looked to those behind the iron curtain. But this art-economy and those related to it, were constructed on networks designed to manufacture, value, price and wage on conceptual-perception, and not labor-time. For example, supposedly the CIA, funded the arts in America during the 1950's, which enabled abstract-expressionism to take off. Now, I am not into conspiracy theories, but there seems to be good evidence, that CIA backed certain galleries to purchase abstract art, i.e., they socially constructed value and price, primarily in the arts price dictated value. This may be an exception, but the art-world functions like this to this day. Gone is the CIA, but networks of galleries mutually support each others' stable of artists in essence artificially and arbitrarily sustaining socially constructed prices, values and wages, labor-time is truly secondary. There is a propaganda element to this, where media, universities etc., in a post-industrial, post-modern societies indoctrinate and normalize us to certain preconcieved, artificially fabricated values, prices and wages that are in essence emphemeral.

I am not quite sure what you mean by this statement.  In practice prices have always been ephemeral or changeable because of constantly shifting interactions of supply and demand, post modernism notwithstanding.  Of course, ideological considerations make themselves felt in artistic constructions.  I don’t know enough to comment on your suggestion that the CIA might have funded the arts during the 1950s to promote a particular kind of art form – abstract expressionism – to serve as a kind of ideological tool.  Of course Soviet state capitalism, for its part, also strove to promote its own particular forms of artistic expression – notably so called “socialist realism”.    However, I cannot see how any of this invalidates the labour theory of value as an economy wide theory of value.  The art objects from the so called Cold War era may now attract astronomical prices in some cases but, as I said, as one off orginals they are not strictly commoditities in the Marxian sense.  They are merely exceptions that prove the rule.  Insofar as artistic effort is appplied in advancing that rule, this does not add value in the Marixan sense over and above the labour that it involves.  It merely allows those products that are more attractively packaged to be sold at the expense of those that are not.

MBellemare wrote:

     CEO salaries function in this manner, its fundamentally about belonging to certain well-connected networks, via these well-connected networks, these individuals are able to circumvent the regulatory mechanism of socially necessary labor-time and establish their arbitrary obscene salaries in the realm of conceptual-perception. And as long as average people do not rebel, these artificially constructed salaries, founded on whim and nonsense, continue to persist.

But as I explained in my earlier post, the “obscene salaries” that some of these CEOs enjoy has got very little to do with their labour input and a great deal to do with the fact that in large measure these so called salaries represent their cut of the surplus  value generated by their employees.  There is nothing whimsical about this at all! These CEOs, insofar as they constitute minor capitalists in their own right, are substantially drawing an income based on the exploitation of the working class and their so called labour contribution serves merely as a fig leaf to hide this exploitative relationship.  This is what your suggestion that they “circumvent the regulatory mechanism of socially necessary labor-time” boils down to.  Of course the income of the capitalist class circumvents this mechanism for the very simple reason that it is substanitally based on the exploitation of those who provide that socially necessary labour time in the first instance  

MBellemare wrote:

  I do believe that what Marx thought about all these types of fabricated economies was an exception. However, I've come to believe that artificially, fabricated prices, is now much more prevalent and central. 

But in a deeper sense all prices are artificial and fabricated and always have been.  The labour theory of value fully allows for the divergence of individual prices and values.  The capitalists have always sought to get as a high a price as they could possibly get by whatever means available including stylistic adornment as a way of promoting product differentiation.  Indeed, so called “Veblen goods” named after the late 19th century economist who write a seminal work called “The Theory of the Leisure Class” (1899) are basically goods, the demand for which rises as the price rises – thus inverting what is normally supposed to happen.  This is because the ability to afford such high prices imparts high status to the individual purchasing them and separates him/her from those unable to afford such goods (http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/1164/economics/veblen-goods/).  There is nothing really new about post-modernist theory though it likes to market itself as some kind of unique insight into our contemporary condition, that displaces or has rendered redundant all other explanations

MBellemare wrote:

     I know this may sound like there is one ideological edifice of bourgeois capitalists, dictating the value, price and wage to us, deciding everything. YES!, I agree there is much in-fighting between capitalists, capitalist-entities, capitalists-networks, capitalist-industries, which gives credence to the coercive laws of competition, Marx spoke about, which eventually destroy capitalism. There is not one power-block of capitalists governing. However, it seems to me that there is one unifying logic to these seemingly, at war, capitalists, namely, the logic of capitalism, "to maximize profit by any means necessary, at the lowest financial cost, as soon as possible". So, I do agree with you that there is not a singular body of people dominating us and that this body of people is constantly at war between themselves, however, I do posit a totalitarian unitary logic, i.e., the logic of capitalism, as directing the actions and thoughts of people living within the confines of capitalism, specifically in the upper levels of capitalism. There is no cabal deciding world-affairs and world-market affairs, but their is a totalitarian logic, the logic of capitalism, call it what you will, an ideology or an ideational comprehensive framework, directing world-affairs and world-market-affairs. Yes, there are many conflicting ideologies out there, but (in the last) instance, the logic of capitalism, to maximize profit by any means necessary, at the lowest financial cost, as soon as possible, decides, determines and governs. The logic of capitalism, expresses itself in different manners, it is imprinted on all sorts of activities, thinking processes, institutions, social relations etc., it is pluralized across the stratums of everyday life, but, in last instance, it is always about maximizing proft by any means necessary, at the lowest financial cost, as soon as possible. The outer-shell of the logic of capitalism is plural, it expresses itself in many different ways, and has done so throughout history, but its inner kernel, its inner logic, is always the same, to maximize profit by any means necessary, at the lowest financial cost, as soon as possible.  Those fundamental, ruling networks of people, who govern, can change, and do change their stripes, their make-up,  these ruling networks are plural and in certain instances they are unified, but in the end it is the logic of capitalism that always remains and determines value, price and wage, according to what serves its imperative best.   

 Yes, it is perfectly true that capitalists are united by their desire to maximise profit by any means possible but the point I am trying to impress on you is that this very imperative brings them into irreconcilable conflict with each other.  The desire to increase their market share is necessarily and logically, a zero sum game in which some may gain only at the expense of others.  There is no way around this.  Increasing your market share is accomplished by undercutting your rivals, encouraging consumer’s to switch loyalties from them to you. Lower prices, whether for consumer goods or producer goods, is the apple that induces them to make this switch. This is the basic reason why I am somewhat critical of your whole approach, sympathetic though I am to some of the points you make.  Your whole argument seems to be based on the idea that capitalists can just arbitrarily or whimsically raise prices in the face of declining unit production costs resulting from technological innovation.   But you cannot just arbitrary raise prices above what your competitors charge or what the market can sustain because, if you do, what you will end up is a stock of unsold products languishing in the warehouse. To get rid of that surplus , to clear the market s to speak , you will be forced in the end to lower your prices.  It’s like water finding it own level, notwithstanding the best  efforts of the capitalists to impose what your call their “ideational comprehensive framework” of thought on the consuming public. 

[robbo203]

Hi Michel, Welcome to the forum.  Here are few random thoughts in response to your post 

MBellemare wrote:

 1. The Art-world, completely operates outside the bounds of labor-power and Marxist economics. And I quote Andy Warhol, although I am not a fan of Warhol, he is correct on this point "Its not how much labor that goes into artifact/aesthetic-commodity that determines its value/price, it is how much you can get for it!". I can place a useless object with absolutely no value whatsoever, completely damaged or rusted out etc., in a well-connected gallery and if I can convince a patron or collector that this is a significant art-piece and worth 1 million, presto! you have a sale of a useless object, with little to no labor-time involved, now fetching 1 million on the art market. This is not fashioning value out of thin air. It is fashioning value in and through conceptual-perception, "creatively". (There are many other forms of profiteering out there like this.) 

You make a valid point but the point that you are making has to with those exceptions that prove the rule.  An original Warhol work of art is not strictly a commodity in the Marxian sense since it is not reproducible. Certainly, it can be bought and sold and at a price some would say is totally out of proportion to the effort put into making it but even so, you cannot really talk of it being a commodity.  Marxian value or socially necessary labour time would not be applicable here since this refers to a sort of industry wide average whereas the work of art we are talking of is unique and one-off.  However, should print copies of this work of Art be manufactured on a large scale, you would indeed have a case of commodity production and unsurprisingly, this will be reflected in the huge price differential between the original and the (multiple) fakes attempting to imitate the original on a semi industrial scale.   So it is not quite true that “The Art-world, completely operates outside the bounds of labor-power and Marxist economics”. The reproduction of art products, I would argue, is indeed subject to the law of value and even the production of originals though, by definition, not reproducible, involves the application of labour power.  Moreover, beyond that relatively small segment of human activity you call the Art World, and for all the hype surrounding it, the vast majority of products do indeed take the form of commodities ans as such are subject the law of value governing their exchange  

MBellemare wrote:

2. The same scenario and logic applies to CEO salaries, Sport-Star salaries, Reality-Star salaries etc., their value/price/wage have nothing to do with "quantifiable labor-time expended within the production process". It has everything to do with the networks they belong to, the conceptual and material networks of power. To quote, an important saying of mine, "whatever one can get away with in the market-place" is valid and legitimate. When it comes to value, price and wage, if you or your network have the power to back up, artificially fabricated values, prices and wages, then it becomes normalized over an extended period of time and space, through routine. Sport stars exist in an oligarchical, highly-controlled-market, where competition is very lax between clubs, i.e., there is an oligarchical network controlling the sport, while competition is fierce between players. I cannot start a club in any city, I cannot move a club where there is already one in place, unless I get approval from the league, i.e., the oligarchical network, etc. The rules are endless, nonetheless, through these rules professional sports artificially fabricates an oligarchy with highly inflated, highly obscene, highly arbitrary wages, prices and values, that have nothing to do with labor-time or labor-power and everything to do with conceptual-perception, namely, creativity in maximizing profits. People are conditioned, both materially and conceptually, via media, and other enterprising-networks/social relations to flock to sport stadiums to pay exaggerated commodity-prices, to support exaggerated wages, concerning a completely useless set of activities, that if abolished, wouldn't change a thing. The reason is that these artificially fabricated pseudo-economies produce nothing but useless empty-spectacle. These types of pseudo-economies, which are now almost everywhere, are outside the traditional Marxist factory and theory, and operate based on much that is (unquantifiable), subjective, artificial and most importantly, arbitrary. If the league gets together at its annual meeting and decides to charge 15 dollars extra for tickets or 15 dollars for a beer etc., (which happens with hockey in Canada and North America) then this has nothing to do with socially necessary labor-time and everything to do with "what one can get away with" in a sphere of production and consumption. In a post-industrial, post-modern socio-economic formation, like neoliberal-state-capitalism, power and control are paramount in determining value, price and wage, and when this is the case, everything is skewed, slippery and arbitrary, subjective, artificially fabricated. That is, all the conditions, the old post-modernists have been describing in language have come to infect and have infected economics, and the economy, for better or worst. Consequently, the fount of value is not per say strict scientific quantifiable labor-power/labor-time, although this has not totally gone away, it is, in my estimation, creative-power, a fount that is both quantifiable and unquantifiable. For example, you cannot put a scientifically measured value on "networking", being well-connected, being born in a wealthy family etc. If I marry the US presidents daughter and as a result, have the president's ear, I can have an enormous amount of influence on policy, that, in turn, influences/determines value, price, wage and profits in a particular sphere of production and consumption down the line. And if I am influencing value, price, wage and profits down the line, thus I am involved in the manufacturing of surplus value, a type of manufacturing beyond the factory floor, that is unquantifiable and creative, such is, creative-power, a power greater than yet encompassing labor-time.       (The only thing unifying these post-industrial, post-modern economies and wacky phenomena is the logic of capitalism, to maximize profit byany means necessary, at the lowest financial cost, as soon as possible.)    

Again there is an element of truth in what you say but you grossly exaggerate the significance of what you are talking about.  The overwhelming majority of us are not sport stars but wage slaves and our wages being the price of working ability which we sell to our employers are indeed subject to the law of value.  Sports stars play a role analogous the production of original works of art in the Art World.  They are merely exceptions that prove the rule. It is the rule that should interest us in the formulation of social theory rather than the exception, fascinating though the latter may be.  Social theory is, or should be, focused on generalisations that seek to capture the main outlines of the object of our study.  Disregarding the circumstances of the great majority, the lives of “ordinary” folk and what they do, as if they did not really matter in the larger scheme of things, betrays a kind of elitist outlook which to some extent is endemic in the Art World itself with its snobby name dropping and rich well connected patrons. Allow me to make one or two further points under this heading.  Firstly you say to “CEO salaries, Sport-Star salaries, Reality-Star salaries etc., their value/price/wage have nothing to do with quantifiable labor-time expended within the production process". Well, according to the American trade union AFL/CIO website, median compensation for CEO's in all industries in the US early 2010 was $3.9 million; $10.6 million for companies listed in Standard and Poor's 500, and a staggering $19.8 million for the companies listed in the Dow-Jones index.  Now if you happen to have an annual income of nearly 20 million dollars then certainly that would place you in the capitalist class, albeit in the lower rungs of that class.  In that event, it is entirely to be expected that your income will not reflect your labour contribution but will greatly exceed it.  This is precisely what the Marxian theory of exploitation states.  CEOs, of course do contribute some labour but the remuneration they receive in the guise of a compensation package will bear little relation to this labour contribution, a major component of which derive from the fruits of other people’s unpaid labour. This is not that different from the situation in the old Soviet Union where the nomenklatura or de facto soviet capitalist class took their share of the surplus value in the guise of inflated and multiple salaries as well payments in kind of all sorts.  The fact that they formally received their income as a “salary” only served as an ideological fig leaf to hide their status as an exploiting class. As for those grotesquely overpaid sport stars, though their income may not appear to derive from the exploitation of others you can be certain that a large chunk of this will find its way into the capitalist investment cycle where it will reproduce itself through precisely the process of exploitation.  Finally, you refer once again to “quantifiable labor-time expended within the production process”.  But again I would point out that socially necessary labour time is not something that can be measured with a stop watch.  It is an industry wide social average which only manifests itself post sale in the ratios in which commodities exchange.  It is not something that lends itself to empirical quantification – though some commentators have attempted to quantify Marxian labour values in a rough and ready sort of way    

MBellemare wrote:

3. I also describe two trends happening across the post-industrial, post-modern economy, 1. The cutting of production costs to increasingly new lows. 2. The raising of prices, pertaining to these specific commodities, within a specific sphere of production.The result is increasing debt for commodities our parents and grandparents could pay outright and the result is ever-increasing financial inequality. I mention two, Apple and the Car industry. Apple wants to cut production costs, thus they move their factory to china etc., pay less for workers etc., (Marx is in accord). Apple then sells these cheap products for exaggerated sums in North America, because they operate in a closed-economy and sphere of production, a type of oligarchy, where they and their competitors, which are not in my estimation competitors but friendly jousters, agree (wink wink, at arm's length) to sell according to a certain similar range of prices, which every year or so, magically rise, across the board (the same applies to insurances, bank rates, mortgage rates etc.), due to the fact that all companies must maximize profit by any means necessary. Via a closed-economy and/or sphere of production, shared among a select few, competition is pushed to periphery and down to the grassroots of the specific closed-economy/sphere of production, where the global working class is located and at war with each other for jobs, better living conditions, human rights etc.  Contrary to Neoliberals, we do not live in free markets, where everyone gets an equal kick at the can, markets are highly controlled affairs, value, price and wage are highly controlled machinated affairs. Economic laws hide the backroom machinations, behind, a seemingly unbiased, invisible hand that somehow always bestows its favor on the same select few. Financial inequality is not the product of any invisible-hand or economic law, i.e., law of value, it is the product of people in positions of power, exercising their creative-power, both material and conceptual, based on the fundamental imperative of capitalism, "to maximize profit by any means necessary, at the lowest financial cost, as soon as possible". All sort of economic gimmicks spring from this because if an entity, human or otherwise, can fashion a closed-economy/sphere of production, they can set prices, values and wages whereever they like. It has nothing to and/or very little to do with labor-time expenditures in production. It has to do with what conceptual-perceptions of the public are, what they are willing to live with. And as we know, the general public can tolerate a lot of shady stuff, maybe indefinately.   

Once again, yes there is something in what you say here but you exaggerate.  Producers will strive to charge monoply prices if they can get away with it but even with closely knit cartels there is always a temptation to break rank.  You can’t just set prices, values and wages as you like, completely arbitrarily.  There are countervailing pressures.   You talk of production costs (including wages presumably) falling and prices of commodities rising nonetheless.  But this is misleading.  At some point if wages steadily fall and commodity prices steadily rise, you will end up with vast  amount of unsold stock (which will in turn will exert a downward pressure on commodity prices) Some prices have risen but others have fallen in real terms and adjusted to account for inflation .  Have a look at this chart supplied by the Bureau of Labour statistics  covering the period the period 1997-2013 https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2015/long-term-price-trends-for-computers-tvs-and-related-items.htm.  This is precisely what Marx means by the cheapening of commodities brought about by technological innovation and enhanced productivity per worker.  A fall in the rate of profit through mechanisation is compensated by an increase in the resulting mass of profit through an increase in the sheer volume of output making for a decline in individual prices You mention China and Apple again.  You say “Apple wants to cut production costs, thus they move their factory to china etc., pay less for workers etc”.  Yes the wages are low and the shifts appalling for workers but again it is misleading to suggest that Apple can just get away with doing whatever it wants with impunity.  The very fact that this case is highlighted shows pressure is and can be brought to bear on those concerned.  See for example this https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/feb/20/foxconn-apple-china-wages Generally speaking as I said wages have been rising in China and this is in part a reflection of the greater degree of militancy among workers.  And it is because of rising wages that Chinese capitalists are showing an interest in forms of mechanisation such as robotisation   

MBellemare wrote:

4. We are stuck between the chicken and the egg. Does value create price ( I think Marx might be situated here)  or price create value (Crank economists)? Marx agreed that price could create value, although he theorized that this was an exception. I am inclined to state within the arrival of post-industrialism, post-modernism that increasingly mechanisms and networks of power, both conceptual and material, are fashioning price, value and wage, not out of nothing (like crank economists) but out of creative-power, i.e., the ability to set price, value and wage and sustain these artificially fabricated values, prices and wages over an extended period of time and space, via powerful networks both conceptual networks and material networks. Marx, stated that the connection between value and price was an ideal one, meaning it was localized in the mind (I state exactly where in a prior DV article). I have followed Marx's logic and I took the next logical step that price, value and wage is based on conceptual-perception and moreover a ruling ideational comprehensive framework, or a ruling ideology, i.e., how an ideology defines reality, favors certain phenomena over others etc., how ideology is produced, reproduced and functions at all levels of human existence to fashion a bias framework of comprehension and understanding, both to what constitutes value, price and wage, including what constitutes labor-time, productive and unproductive labor etc. The concept of creative-power both acknowledged Marx's concept of labor-power, and humans as the producers of their social existence and, broadly speaking, the many unquantifiable energy expenditures that cannot be measures, such as creative-innovation, art making, networking, control, oligarchy, child rearing etc., whereupon one cannot scientifically measure the quanta of influence. Creative-power gets radical economic theory out of certain theoretical jams, without falling into the crank economist trap, and explains certain economic phenomena, which can be considered post-industrial and post-modern. 

I am not quite sure what you mean when you say “Marx agreed that price could create value, although he theorized that this was an exception”.  Could you elaborate on this possibly with a reference from Marx? I don’t really understand what you mean by creative power or how it “gets radical economic theory out of certain theoretical jams, without falling into the crank economist trap, and explains certain economic phenomena, which can be considered post-industrial and post-modern”.   You say that “Marx, stated that the connection between value and price was an ideal one, meaning it was localized in the mind” and that you have followed Marx’s logic and have taken the “next logical step that price, value and wage is based on conceptual-perception and moreover a ruling ideational comprehensive framework, or a ruling ideology”.  I might be misreading you here but this seems to be suggesting a single monolithic source that exercise determinative influence over these magnitudes of price value and wage.    I would argue to the contrary that the magnitudes are emergent properties resulting from the interactions of multiple agents.  The ruling class, the supposed source of this “ruling ideology” is not a monolith but is endemically prone to factional infighting and competing interests.  It confronts a working class that is also able to exert an influence in these matters 

[robbo203]

I have looked at Michel Luc Bellamare retort to the discussion on this subject on this forum,  Here are a few thoughts of mine in response.  Michel's comments are in bold First and foremost, for structural-anarchism, value is not created out of thin-air. It is created via a ruling ideational comprehensive framework, namely, when an idea and/or activity, emanating from conceptual-perception and/or physical exertion, is validated by the ruling ideational comprehensive framework of a socio-economic formation as having value, specifically, as having a specific number value, which is agreed upon by the governing representative-agents of the ruling ideational comprehensive framework, and later grudgingly accepted by the masses. In our current, capitalist socio-economic formation, it is the logic of capitalism, expressed through various governing entities, human or otherwise, that predominantly determines and allots specific numerical values to things, services and/or manufactured images  I am still not quite sure that the writer means by all this. Yes, there is an “ideational aspect” to the process of assigning numerical values – prices – to “things, services and/or manufactured images”.  Entrepreneurs settle on a price for a particular good which they bring to the market, which price they believe will be low enough to enable the commodity to be sold while at the same time high enough to enable them to make a profit. What price they settle on will be based on informed guesswork – not scientific certainty – since they cannot be certain how the market will respond.  That involves having to “think” about what ought to be the appropriate price and amongst other things it involves looking at what other entrepreneur capitalists are selling their commodities for.  If you pitch your price too high you will lose out to your competitors. Of course, you might try to get round this through product differentiation, by suggesting that your particular product has some particular ingredient or quality which your competitors’ products lack. This also requires “thought” – ideas  However, this idea that a “specific number value” is agreed upon by the “governing representative-agents of the ruling ideational comprehensive framework, and later grudgingly accepted by the masses” seems to imply that price makers are a monolithic body and that price takers are likewise a monolithic body that “grudgingly” go along with whatever numerical value the former determine should be the case and never engage in such subversive activities as switching brand loyalties.  But capitalist entrepreneurs are not liberty to assign whatever price they chose to the product they are trying to sell – except perhaps in the rare instances of monopoly situations and, even then, there will be other constraints that will be brought to bear on them (originating notably from the capitalist state which is concerned with the interests of the capitalist as a whole including those capitalists that would have to bear the costs of these higher prices). Prices are in other words emergent properties resulting from the interactions of multiple agents  Scientifically quantifiable labor-time, which is so central to any Marxist analysis, is only one possible avenue for determining value, price and wage, namely, it is only one consideration among many, when ruling enterprising-networks have consolidated their governing power over a specific sphere of production. It is in this regard that, contrary to Marx’s estimations, production costs can steadily decrease across a sphere of production while prices steadily increase across a sphere of production.  Again I am not absolutely certain what the writer is saying here.  If you define value as socially necessary labour time then you can’t have different avenues for the determination of value where only one of these is “Scientifically quantifiable labor-time”.  What the writer is doing is mixing up qualitatively different concepts of value. Moreover, he seems to be unaware of the basic Marxian axiom that the sum total of prices must equate with the sum total of values, however much individual prices may diverge from individual values.  To the extent that some commodities sell for a price above their value that necessarily means other commodities sell for a price below their value.  Production costs also involve prices – namely the price of the inputs required to produce the goods in question (including of course labour power).  Why one set of prices should steadily decrease and another set of prices should steadily increase is not explained   For Marx, numerical value-sums, price-sums and wage-sums are the product of scientifically, quantifiable, expenditures of labor-time, there is no ideological influence involved in value, price and wage-determinations. For Marx, values, prices and wages are completely independent of ideology. Everything for Marx depends on socially necessary labor-time and scientifically quantifiable expenditures of labor-power within the capitalist production process I question this statement on several grounds. I would say that the value content of particular commodities – in the Marxian sense of value – is not something that can be directly measured with a stop watch but only reveals itself in a post hoc sense in market exchange – in exchange value, in the ratios in which commodities exchange and even then only in a general sense,  You cannot say, for example, that because a particular pair of shoes sells for the same price as ten pairs of socks, that the value content of that pairs of shoes is literally tens greater than a pair of socks.  Other factors beside value influence price – namely supply and demand – as Marx pointed out.  The Marxian labour theory of value is a rationalist and deductive one and though there have been various attempts to measure value in the Marxian sense, these can only ever be rough approximations  I would also question the claim that for Marx there is “no ideological influence involved in value, price and wage-determinations”. There is one case in which Marx clearly envisaged a role for ideological influence to have a bearing on the determination of value – namely labour power itself Labour power is different from other commodities as Marx points out in chapter 6 of Capital vol 1:  :On the other hand, the number and extent of his so-called necessary wants, as also the modes of satisfying them, are themselves the product of historical development, and depend therefore to a great extent on the degree of civilisation of a country, more particularly on the conditions under which, and consequently on the habits and degree of comfort in which, the class of free labourers has been formed.In contradistinction therefore to the case of other commodities, there enters into the determination of the value of labour-power a historical and moral element. Nevertheless, in a given country, at a given period, the average quantity of the means of subsistence necessary for the labourer is practically known.     In fact, it is those capitalist-networks, capable of controlling specific spheres of production, which are able to establish arbitrary values, prices and wages, that is, values, prices and wages which have nothing to do with actual expenditures of socially necessary labor-time and/or scientifically measurable quantities of labor-power, and everything to do with power and an entities control over a specific commodity and/or sphere of production. Once again, we find here the writer jumbling different conceptions of values.  If he is talking about establishing arbitrary values etc. which “have nothing to do with actual expenditures of socially necessary labor-time”, then clearly he is not using value in the sense that Marx uses this term.  He is actually advancing a subjective theory of value in my opinion and as such his argument is subject to the same devastating criticism that can directed at the subjectivist school of thought such as that it is based on a circular reasoning Moreover to say that prices and wages have “nothing to do” with actual expenditures of socially necessary labor-time is way over the top.  Nothing to do at all? That’s absurd! Granted the prices of commodities don’t, and cannot, exactly correspond with their value content but there is surely a rough correspondence here.  Why would a Rayleigh bicycle consistently sell at a price below that of a Ford Escort?  Answer: because their values are markedly different, amongst other things     It is in this regard that APPLE Inc. can grind wages down in China to almost nil, while charging ever-increasing sums for products in North America and Europe, where production costs are relatively minor and/or miniscule in comparison to commodity-prices and profits  If production costs in North America and Europe are “relatively minor and/or miniscule in comparison to commodity-prices and profits” why would business corporations bother to relocate their operations to low wage economies? As for Apple Inc grinding down wages to “almost nil” in China, what we have seen in China is a rise in wages in recent years and relatedly, a switch to more capital intensive production.  It is no coincidence that China is a major centre for developments such as robotics.  China used to be a low wage economy based on abundant supplies of labour.  This is what attracted the capital that financed China’s spectacular growth.  But in the race to the bottom other countries like Vietnam or Cambodia have overtaken China as low wage economies attracting inward investment from the Multinationals   It has been argued that inflation/deflation have a part to play in all of these seeming arbitrary value, price and wage-determinations and fluctuations, but for structural-anarchism economics, the effect of inflation/deflation are simply a by-product and/or an effect of the practical applications of conceptual-commodity-value-management. That is, inflation/deflation are effects of the artificial fabrication of arbitrary values, prices and wages by ruling enterprising-networks and not the other way around The writer has based his argument on the fact that there has been a steady increase in prices because of some arbitrary determination of values whereas I have pointed out that this could at least in part be the consequence of inflationary policies – increasing the currency in circulation.  Now we are told that this inflation is the effect of this “artificial fabrication of arbitrary values, prices and wages by ruling enterprising-networks and not the other way around”.  I don’t get this at all. Am I reading this right or is what is being suggested here is that prices rise because the powers-that-be desire it, that they attach more value to commodities being sold?  If so why would not the producers of production goods, the inputs of the final goods producing sector not also want to see an upward re-evaluation of their goods?  This is odd because the whole argument presented by the writer seems to be based on the alleged widening chasm between the prices of commodities and the costs of production  For example, a Black Friday Fire Sale, which is a deflationary microeconomic situation, is not the product of autonomous, law-like, market mechanisms. It is a conscious decision by an enterprise of some sort to artificially lower its commodity-prices, thus manifesting a microscopic deflationary situation, whereupon, through the practical application of conceptual-commodity-value-management, purchasing power is significantly increased for consumers temporarily, resulting in a mad rush and/or a purchasing frenzy. Inversely, when prices are manually increased after the Black Friday Fire Sale to their former levels or higher, thus setting the stage for next year’s anticipated Black Friday Fire Sale, an inflationary microeconomic situation is manufactured, whereupon, consumers shy away from purchases, due to their artificially decreased purchasing power But if consumers shy away from purchases then this rather defeats the whole purpose of the exercise, doesn’t it?  In fact what you would find is other businesses jumping at the opportunity to increase their market share by underselling their competitors. Hence the periodic price wars between the big supermarkets.   Consequently, from the Marxist perspective, value is something definite and scientifically quantifiable. It is something that can be scientifically measured in the sense that one can measure the exact labor-time socially necessary to manufacture a particular commodity. And for Marx, this scientifically measured labor-time, embodied in a commodity, is the basis of value; i.e., it is value, itself. And being true to the scientific method, for Marx, value, which cannot be neatly translated into quantifiable labor-time; i.e., exact temporal units of labor-power, or specifically, a scientifically determined socially necessary labor-time, which governs a specific economic branch, is in the end not value, it is unproductive Again I don’t think you can “measure the exact labor-time socially necessary to manufacture a particular commodity” because socially necessary labour time is an industry wide average, generalisation.  It’s like saying the average family consists of 2.3 children.  No such actual family exists  Producing more cheaply means the ability to sell more cheaply and this also means the capacity to sell more goods and to appropriate a greater segment of the market, and “if [the capitalist] attains the object he is aiming at…[and] prices his goods only a small percentage lower than his competitors. He drives them [i.e. his competitors,] off the field, he wrests from them at least a part of their market, by underselling them”.10  In this regard, according to Marx, competition drives capitalists to ever-increasingly produce below the average production time limit set by the regulating mechanism of socially necessary labor-time.  Yes and selling more cheaply as a condition of competition itself, is a countervailing influence against the desire to just arbitrarily raise prices because you have revaluated upwards the worth of the commodity you are sellingNotwithstanding, this Marxist concept of a law-like mechanism; i.e., socially necessary labor-time, regulating capitalist production, is predicated on the assumption that value, by Marx’s own definition, is only scientifically quantifiable labor-time and nothing else. For Marx, “the substance of value [is] labor-time”11, specifically socially necessary labor-time, measured in scientifically exact quantities of time deemed socially necessary, pertaining to a specific sphere of production.  However, is Marx correct in his definition? Or has he missed the amplitude, multitude and magnitude of value; namely, has Marx reduced the concept of value to the narrow confines of scientific measurement and by doing so, missed the importance, malleability and fluidity by which multi-dimensional value, informs, shapes and influences price, wage, profit, production, consumption,  distribution and capitalism, in general, etc.   This is somewhat misleading.  Marx does allow a role for use value. In fact a commodity that possessed no use value would not be sold.  The desirability of a commodity to a consumer will therefore influence its price through the interaction of supply and demand.  However in the long run – but only in the long run – there will be a tendency for supply and demand to equilibrate.  At that point, use value only explains why commodities exchange not the ratios in which they exchange.  As Marx notes:  If supply equals demand, they cease to act, and for this very reason commodities are sold at their market-values. Whenever two forces operate equally in opposite directions, they balance one another, exert no outside influence, and any phenomena taking place in these circumstances must be explained by causes other than the effect of these two forces. If supply and demand balance one another, they cease to explain anything, do not affect market-values, and therefore leave us so much more in the dark about the reasons why the market-value is expressed in just this sum of money and no other (CapitalVol 3 part 2, ch 10)   

[robbo203]

jondwhite wrote:

Thanks. Just read the letters in today's issue. Robbo, have you joined or is that a bit of Leninist license? Also good to see someone complain about letters from Freeman and Downing.

 No its licence on the part of the Editors  LOL

[robbo203]

Here's one interesting response from the above site.  So could the NRA being playing left off against the right to  boost small arms sales?:     "I'm pretty shallow and generally just post my gut reaction to the various articles RS posts. I have been wrestling with my feelings regarding this story since yesterday morning.I agree with all of the politics of the Redneck Revolt. I side with the working class, I abhor white supremacists, I hope for an end to racism. Woody Guthrie was my earliest hero. I've visited Ludlow, Colorado and cried for the striking miners and their wives and children, etc, etc. So the article got me all excited… these guys are speaking my language.I have always been a pacifist and believe in strong gun control. I'm tired of living in a country where the populace is so easily gunned down. I don't believe in open carry. I want to live in a civilized nation where the populace doesn't go to the grocery store armed to their teeth. So I wrestled with the Redneck Revolt and their desire/need to arm every member of the left. I went to their site and saw that some of their fund raising is dedicated to purchasing arms.FWIW here is where my wrestling with the issues of working class heros and guns took me:We all know that the NRA's main purpose is to sell arms for the arms manufacturers. These last 8 years the NRA has used the trope "Obama is gonna come and take your guns" to drive up the sale of guns. And it worked. There are now more than 300 million guns in the hands of civilians in the US. That's one for every man, woman and child.But the Obama threat is gone so what is the NRA going to do to keep the gun manufacturers churning out weapons and reaping profits? I think I know.I've seen the recent NRA ad which tells the right that the left is armed and dangerous. And now I've seen the Redneck Revolt, which has grown by leaps and bounds in the past 6 months, saying the left needs to become armed and dangerous. And I smell a big, fat capitalist rat:The NRA is pushing a narrative to get the Right AND the Left to purchase their product.And all this talk of being armed to withstand capitalism and tyrannical government? I've seen it before and, no matter how well armed, the little guy ALWAYS loses because the guys with the money and the power ALWAYS have bigger and better weapons. They lost at Blair Mountain when the government started bombing them. They lost at the Bonus March when the government rode in on horses and destroyed their encampment. They lost at the Tulsa Race Massacre when incendiary bombs were dropped from crop planes. They lost at Occupy Wall Street. The only thing that being armed guarantees is more injuries and deaths at home and in our communities during the regular course of day to day activities. And being armed also guarantees more and swifter and deadlier punishment when we dare to question the status quo.Until we are 100% automated the working class has the means to gain control. All they have to do is unite. And they don't need guns to unite."

[robbo203]

robbo203 wrote:

The argument the writer seems to present is that there is a flaw in Marx s thinking.  Increasing automation and the replacement of living labour by dead labour, should have the effect of reducing the value content of commodities  – the amount of socially necessary labour time embodied in them,  This is because only living labour can create new values; machines only transfer the value already contained in them,  So as machines replace human labour, the effect should be a reduction in the value content of commodities,  That in turn should result in a lowering of prices since on average and over the long run commodity prices reflect their values,  That is not happening according to the writer .  Hence the flaw in Marx's theory:" In fact, increasingly post-industrial, post-modern bourgeois-state-capitalism is abandoning, with the advent of ever-increasing automation, the limited parameters manufactured by socially necessary labor-time in favor of the unlimited parameters manufactured by conceptual-commodity-value-management, namely, arbitrary, socially constructed value, price and wage-determinations. " 

 A further thought occured to me.   Michel Luc Bellemare bases his whole argument – that the labour theory of value  is being rendered increasingly irrelevant by a process of arbitrary valuation –  on the grounds that automation is reducing the value content of commidities but the prices of commodities are steadily rising,  If value ultimately determines prices this shouldnt be happening.  Prices should fall along with value, Here is where he explains this:  This is the reason why value and surplus value can be progressively decreasing within post-industrial, post-modern bourgeois-state-capitalism, with less and less value being spread unto commodities, while commodity-prices simultaneously are ever-increasing. Two quick points : Firstly , presumably he is not taking into account the effect of inflation which would obviously distort the picture.  What we need to know ifs the movement of real prices not inflated prices caused by monetary policy Secondly, the prices of numerous commidiities  have indeed been falling along with technological innovation.  I'm reading through Paul Mason's book on Postcapitalism at the moment and he cites several examples particularly in the area of information technology.  The whole argument about capitalism's supposed trend towards  zero marginal cost promoted by people like Mason and Jeremy Rifkin is actually quite a striking confirmation of the labour theory of value and Mason goes out of his way to point this out

[robbo203]

The argument the writer seems to present is that there is a flaw in Marx s thinking.  Increasing automation and the replacement of living labour by dead labour, should have the effect of reducing the value content of commodities  – the amount of socially necessary labour time embodied in them,  This is because only living labour can create new values; machines only transfer the value already contained in them,  So as machines replace human labour, the effect should be a reduction in the value content of commodities,  That in turn should result in a lowering of prices since on average and over the long run commodity prices reflect their values,  That is not happening according to the writer .  Hence the flaw in Marx's theory:" In fact, increasingly post-industrial, post-modern bourgeois-state-capitalism is abandoning, with the advent of ever-increasing automation, the limited parameters manufactured by socially necessary labor-time in favor of the unlimited parameters manufactured by conceptual-commodity-value-management, namely, arbitrary, socially constructed value, price and wage-determinations. " The writer states that Marx acknowleged that some forms of valuation can take a money form without any labour content being involved e.g honour or prestige  but felt that this was the exception to the rule of commodity production.  According to Michel Luc Bellemare, however,  this kind of arbitrary valuation has now become the rule rather than the exception Moreover;"Notwithstanding, returning to our analysis of the falling rate of profit, whenever the profit rate falls, an arbitrary/artificial application of the price-form/money-form can be applied, in order to avert profit rate decline indefinitely. One such example, straight out of Marx, is his idea that in order to rectify and/or avert a fall in the rate of profit, capital resorts to devaluation in order to overcome the falling rate of profit. Devaluation is an arbitrary/artificial application of the price-form/money-form in an effort to re-evaluate/re-price constant-capital according to a subjective and/or arbitrary standard that has nothing to do with the real, actual value embodied in the elements of constant capital; i.e., building, machinery, raw materials etc" Ths sounds to me almost like a kind of left wing anarchist version of the subjective theory of value endorsed by mainstream economists, Its equivalent to the idea proposed by currency crank theorists that banks can create money out of thin air,  If that was the case no bank need ever go bankrupt.   The example of capital devaluation to counteract the falling rate of profit  is misconstrued/ misunderstood because it is not considerd within the dynamc context of changing market conditions i.e the capitalist trade cycle.  The capital may be devalued now at a time of economic recession but as market conditions pick up it will be revalued accordingly The counterargument I would put is that ultimately this "arbitrary price form" that  Michel Luc Bellemare refers to, which he caims is now dominant, has to be derivative from the normal commodity price form based on socially necesary labour time.  You cant just conjure a price out of thin air.  The price of the good you want to sell has to adjust to the market conditions and therefore the purchasing power of your customers which in  the case of workers is based on their wage income .i.e employment.  Market competition ensure this if nothing else. Also, the writer seems to overestimate the extent to which dead labour has replaced living labour i.e. technological unemployment – partly because he is overestimating the extent of the productivity gains by looking at only one small segment of the process of socialised production immediately affected by automation .  I  find this argument  about automation bringing about mass unemployment a little puzzling because we have had a  continuous process of new technologies being introduced yet employment levels have risen to record levels,  Moreover , in the USA there was a siginificant increase in the legnth of the working day  in recent decades (see for example  http://www.nytimes.com/books/business/9806schor-overworked.html) Something does not quite add up about this whole argument pesented by Michel Luc Bellemare  and I am not convinced

[robbo203]

 

LBird wrote:

 Yes! My typical working class experience, of being an uneducated adult, who received a late education, who then came across 'Marxists and Socialists', at college, who talked about workers, class consciousness, Marx, Engels and Lenin, democracy, etc., and who eventually joined a Trotskyist organisation, has had big effect on me. Like most (no, all) of the workers I knew who joined these organisations, I left when I realised that they were bullsitting us workers, about democracy and workers' power, and they really had an idea that they, and they alone, had the requisite 'consciousness' to effect their 'practice'. Of course,as Trotsky helpfully pointed out, 'they' moves from 'workers' to 'party' to 'party machine, to 'central committee'… It's nothing to do with Marx, workers' power, democracy, class consciousness (not 'party' consciousness), and the democratic control of social production in a socialist society.Of course, this political experience helped me to question what Marx, Engels, Lenin, etc., actually said, and actually meant. I long ago got to the realisation that many of the things that the Trots claim can be supported by reference to the genius unity of 'Marx-Engels'. I'm fucked as a class conscious worker, if I start from the god-like mythical unified being of 'Marx-Engels'. I will always lose an argument with the Trots.Imagine my surprise, when I found out that the SPGB embrace exactly the same ideology as Lenin. And for the same reasons, and with the same results. Engels' materialism is a bourgeois ideology, which is suited to 'elite consciousness' (especially the ultimate elite, of The Sovereign Individual, who has Biological Senses), and has the result, as Marx warned, of dividing society into two. You've guessed it, the SPGB talks about 'Specialists' and 'Generalists', and pooh-poohs democracy, where the Specialists do as they are told by the Generalists.So, Tim, I ask a genuine question – are you a 'very different organisation' to the SWP, Militant, etc.? On the surface, certainly, but…

  The extraordinary thing about this rambling piece of muddle-headed thinking.is that LBird STILL doesn’t seem to realise that he hasn’t abandoned his erstwhile Leninist view of the world at all. He merely wants to present this image of having moved beyond Leninism to embrace what he calls “democratic communism” by projecting the charge of Leninism onto the SPGB instead.  The SPGB, "embrace exactly the same ideology as Lenin", according to LBird.  That’s rubbish.  Only someone who knows precious little about either Lenin or the SPGB can make such a preposterous claim The laughable thing about all this is the SPGB are also accused of embracing “bourgeois individualism”.  That’s the last thing you would accuse Lenin of embracing as a fervant advocate of state capitalism – bourgeois collectivism!  Essentially LBird’s conception of communist society is not unlike that of an ant colony.  It thinks and acts as a single organism.  There is only one single body of decision-making in this society – the global population – and no other.  LBird enthusiastically endorses Lenin’s idea that the “whole of society will have become a single office and a single factory"  (State and Revolution)  but the necessary corollary of this idea is that such a society will be a deeply undemocratic one since there is no way the population in general will be able to participate in decision-making  if there is only one single body of decision-making in the world and if there are millions of decisions that need to be made in the world on a daily basis. Necessarily, those decisions will have to be made by a tiny elite supposedly “on behalf of” the general population – namely Lenin's – and LBird’s – vanguard elite I’ve put this argument repeatedly to LBird but typically he has ignored it imagining perhaps that it would somehow go away if he puts his head in the sand for long enough.  It wont. The other point I would like to make concerns LBird’s constant jibes about “bourgeois individualism”. The plain fact is LBird does not understand what he is talking about.  In truth, Marx would qualify as an extreme “bourgeois individualist” by his reckoning if he thought about it for one moment Now of course it goes without saying that individuals are social individuals.  Marx quite rightly made the point that "It is above all necessary to avoid postulating 'society' once more as an abstraction confronting the individual. The individual is a social being." But just because individuals are social beings does not mean that they cannot be free to express themselves or assert their own needs in a communist society. A society can no more exist without individuals than individuals can exist without society.  It’s always a two-way thing.  LBird commits the same mistake as Margaret Thatcher when she said there is no such thing as society, only individuals, whereas for LBird it’s the other way round.  “Individuals” don’t exist according to him even though he as a minority of one on this forum sticks out as a sore thumb for being what he claims to want to abolish From a Marxist point of view, communism is about the empowerment and self-actualisation of individuals in a social setting.  It is about the optimisation of human freedom NOT the obliteration of self-expression under some kind of totalitarian faceless tyranny euphemistically called “society” I don’t think L Bird has really got his ahead around what communism is about at all.  Hopefully one day if and when he becomes a communist he might see this.  You cannot even begin to understand what communism is about if you do not understand such a basic concept as “from each according to ability to each according to need”, means.  That implies a degree of individual choice, freedom and empowerment to an extent unimaginable under capitalism.  It implies we voluntarily contribute our labour according to our abilities and we freely take from the common so according to our self-determined needs.  We are not rationed by dictate from above with respect to what we may consume or coerced into doing something against our will.  We do it as individuals because we want to do it, because we recognise we depend on each other as social beings But then LBird will doubtless dismiss this Marxist conception of communism as just another example of “bourgeois individualism” which only goes to show how far removed he is himself from a communist way of looking at the matter.  He is no communist, democratic or otherwise

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

The bottom line, robbo, is how one chooses to understand what Marx's whole body of work was about.For you, because you are an individualist, you argue that Marx was talking about 'individuals'.For me, because I'm a Democratic Communist interested in 'social production' and its history, I argue that Marx was talking about, not 'individuals', but 'social individuals', their socio-historic production, and their attempts to build for Democratic Communism.This is a choice for workers to make. They can either choose your political interpretation of Marx, or my political interpretation of Marx.You have an ideology; I have an ideology. Workers, now, have an ideology. It's up to them to decide which ideology is best suited to their needs, interests and purposes.One clear difference between us, though, that all workers should take note of: I'm open about my ideological beliefs, whereas you try to hide yours. If workers choose to 'remain non-ideological', then they'll probably stick with what they have now.

 I dont think you are open about you ideological beliefs at all.  Lets face it LBird you are fundamentally a Leninist at heart  – no surprise there since I understand you were once a member of the SWP and, boy, does it show!  Like a good Leninist you enthusiastically endorse the concept of democratic centralism in the belief that this somehow makes you a democratic communist.  It doesn't  In your frankly totalitarian view of "communism" , there  will only be one descisiomaking  body permitted  – ostensibly the whole of global society – and no other.  Since this is clearly preposterous as 7 billion people cannot possibly be  involved in the millions upon millions of decisions that need to be taken every day, what you are actually advocating, though you lack the honesty to admit it, is that these decisions should be made on their behalf by a tiny elite – your Leninist vanguard Whats worse still ,you will not permit any kind of countervailing power to exist that might temper the extreme concentration of power in the hands of your elite .  For instance, you will not permit  any form of local  democracy to exist since this conflicts with your fervant  belief in total centralised planning.  Local communities  will not be allowed to make decisions  that affect them.  All decisions  will have to be taken at the World Planning Centre and handed down to local communities for implementation.  Similarly, scientists and others will not be permitted to promote their ideas or theories that conflict with the offically designated Truth. Since hardly anyone is going to bother about voting on some arcane scientifc theory  (and there are tens of thousands of these)  in effect what you label the officially designated the Truth as  a determined by a vote will inevitably be merely be the opinion of an infinitesemally small  fraction of the population  What really would be the point of the exercise? This is not democracy, LBird,  This is Orwell's 1984 ,  What you are calling for in de facto terms – though you apparently lack the wit to see  this – is a totalitarian fascist state in its purest form

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

. It's my opinion that 'science' is one of the key arenas that workers have to seek to understand, along with individualism and markets. I see those three areas as the tripod of ideology that supports capitalism.

 I presume that means LBird  would oppose Marx who would qualify as an " individualist" in his terms for writing things like this : “Communists do not preach morality at all…They do not put to people the moral demand: love one another, do not be egoist etc; on the contrary, they are very well aware that egoism, just as much as self-sacrifice, is in definite circumstances a necessary form of the self-assertion of individuals.  Hence, the communists by no means want…to do away with the "private individual" for the sake of the "general", “self-sacrificing man”.  and this "the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.”  Not that I expect an answer from LBird.  He doesnt answer questions that refute his arguments

[robbo203]

robbo203 wrote:

 

LBird wrote:

I'll try once more with you, robbo, but since I've said these things before, I think that you already know what you're about to read. But, there might be others who actually do want to see workers' democracy.

 Let’s go through these points one by one again, LBird, since all too predictably you have completely evaded them in the deluded belief that you have somehow answered them.   Point number ONE.  I asked you what was the point a universal vote on the Truth of some scientifc theory.  “How is it going to make any difference if you support a theory and it gets voted down by a majority?  Does that mean you must henceforth abandon the theory?”  To which you answered as follows 

LBird wrote:

 Because we know from the actually history of science (not the myth of 'science' put about by bourgeois scientists, anti-democrats all) that science by its social theory and practice can produce ideas and policies which are dangerous to the majority. For example, eugenics. This was a socio-historical product of science, and had the status of a 'scientific fact', and produced 'official policies' which led to the sterilisation of those deemed by the elite to be 'inferior'. Clearly, it would have made a difference if this 'theory' had been voted down by a majority, if it had been produced in a society where the social activity of science was under democratic control. So, yes, those 'eugenicist' scientists in a society of that sort would be forced to abandon the theory. They would be prevented from advocating the sterilisation of humans.

 Firstly, do I really need to state the obvious – that you don’t force 'eugenicist' scientists to “abandon the theory” by preventing them from advocating the sterilisation of humans.  These are two quite different things. It was quite possible for them to continue believing in the theory even if they are prevented by your thought police from advocating it.  Unlike you, I am democrat.  I take the view that the most effective way to dispel and disarm a repugnant idea is not by driving it underground but by confronting it and defeating it through rational argument.  Repugnant ideas flourish because of the conditions that allow them to flourish, exist.  Unless you remove those conditions, those ideas will continue to flourish. Those conditions include the lack of opportunities to question received wisdom or the established Truth (which is precisely the kind of social fascism you are advocating). I note that you automatically assume workers will vote against eugenics theory but what happens if they don’t? What would you do then? You would be forced by the logic of your own argument to advocate or at any rate, condone, eugenics Secondly, you completely ignore my all -important point that democracy is about practical matters, it is not about the truth status of scientific ideas, meaning it is pointless voting about on whether such ideas are “true” or not.  If the proposal was made that human beings should be forcibly sterilised as a policy decision then, yes, of course this should be opposed by a democratic vote precisely because this is a practical matter.  I repeat democracy is about practical matters that have a practical effect on us Thirdly, though you give the example of eugenics theory to support your argument on the grounds that it could lead to socially undesirable consequences, there are hundreds of thousands of other scientific theories which according to you all without exception need to be voted upon by the entire world population but which theories have no discernible socially adverse consequences whichever way the vote went.  To give the example I used – what possible socially adverse consequences could arise from a vote on a new scientific theory on the asexual reproduction of tape worms which you expect the world population to participate in? Point number TWO.  You state this in opposition to my point that the science as a self-critical enterprise and that what you are advocating substitutes for science a kind of quasi-religious authority 

LBird wrote:

This is a repetition of the bourgeois myth about their 'science', that it is a 'self-critical enterprise'. It is often not 'self-critical' whatsoever, and almost everyday in the newspapers we can read accounts of 'scientists' ignoring evidence, manufacturing evidence, and suppressing evidence that clashes with their 'theory'. And even where there is 'criticism', criticism is always from the perspective of a 'theory', and so their so-called 'criticism' never criticises their social power as 'scientists'. Bourgeois scientists never accept the need for democratic controls on their socio-political activities. All science involves power. . 

 It is remarkable LBird that you cannot see just how similar you are to the very “bourgeoisie” you criticise.  You witter on about the bourgeois myth about their 'science' being a 'self-critical enterprise' and how they go about “suppressing evidence that clashes with their 'theory'”.   But what are you advocating? The truth is you are advocating the very same thing! You admit it yourself! You are saying that when a theory gets voted down by the people, proponents of the theory will not be allowed to continue advocating it or present evidence in support of it because it conflicts with the Truth as established by a democratic vote Point number THREE.   You completely misrepresent my view on the role of science and democracy when you argue, thus

LBird wrote:

 robbo gives his game away, here, because I always argue for democratic authory, and robbo, because he is an individualist and thinks 'elite scientists' should simply be trusted, wants any democratic political interference to be deemed 'quasi religious'. Of course, robbo is hiding the fact that there is a quasi religious authority in science today – the 'elite scientists' themselves. They are the modern priests, conducting a religious order, separated and hidden from most of us workers. 

 Firstly, I feel I need to repeat once again the point that the role of democracy has to do with the practical affairs of society not with with the Truth status of scientific theories.  My point is that there is simply no point in voting on the truth of such theories.  To do so is indeed a quasi religious attitude to science Secondly, not once did I ever suggest that scientists “should simply be trusted”.  Of course, it is desirable for there to be a two channel of communication between scientists and laypersons. I am opposed to an elitist views of science that treats scientists as if they were some kind of anointed priesthood.  However, let’s be clear about this.  No one person including even the most gifted scientist on the planet can ever know more than a tiny fraction of the sum total of human knowledge.  My view of science in socialist society is that individuals should be completely free to pursue whatever line of scientific enquiry that might interest them.  There should be no barriers placed in the way of this happening which is why I opposed to an elitist model of science which serves precisely to enforced such barriers.  At the same time I recognise that there will be such a thing as a social division of labour in socialism.  Some people will inevitably be more accomplished in some things than others in such a society and it is stupid to deny this.  In your fantasy world, there will be no such differences.  Everyone will be exactly the same in ability and aptitude and we will all know evertthing there is to know about everything so as to vote comfortably on the thousands of new scientific theories that come into circulation each and every day.  In your fantasy world, we will spending all our time voting on each and every one of these new theories although sadly even we will not have time enough to vote on even a tiny fraction of them Point number FOUR.  You bring up the thorny question of “materialism”

LBird wrote:

 I've  always argued that Marx was correct on this point. We should 'doubt everything' including supposed 'objective science'. robbo pretends to agree with Marx, but when robbo is asked should the nature of the sun be put to a vote, he denies this power to the majority, and insists that an elite of 'materialists', which includes robbo, already know what the sun is, and that the majority can't know this, because otherwise robbo would have no problem with a vote.Marx claims that we create our object. I agree with Marx, but the materialists, like robbo, don't. The materialists claim that we don't create matter, whereas Marxists claim that 'matter' has a history, and we can study when it originated, and why, and how it has changed, by looking at the various modes of production within which the social product of 'matter' has been socially produced. 

  Firstly, what is this “power” that LBird refers that is being mysteriously denied to the majority by them not being able to vote on the question of what is the nature of the sun?  LBird doesn’t say.  He doesn’t say because he can’t say,  because quite simply he seems to be completely clueless about what he is talking about.   Words just gush out of him mindlessly in some unstoppable stream of gibberish.  “Power” refers to ability of someone to impose their wishes on someone else against their will.  But how is not feeling it necessary to vote on the nature of the sun an exercise in “power”.  This is just so daft.  What I am saying is that if you want to believe the sun is one thing and I think it is something else then go ahead and be my guest.  I am not trying to impose my interpretation on you.  I can’t anyway and that surely is the point.  Power has to do with practical matters, not the truth of a scientific theory Secondly, Marx did not say “we create our object” e.g. the sun.  Once again this is a really stupid argument LBird is presenting because he is trying to put it in a form that appears literal while pretending to mean something else  The sun is billions of years old and homo sapiens is only – what one hundred thousand years old or so – so we cannot have literally created the sun. Now LBird knows very well that this is the case but likes to play word games.  If he had said “we create the IDEA or interpretation of the object” I would have little or no difficulty in agreeing with him – and he is lying through his teeth if he thinks I believe our interpretation of the world around is not socially produced – but it seems he is once again just intent on drawing out this whole sterile argument about materialism for the sake of it Point number FIVE.  LBird contends

LBird wrote:

 robbo is an anti-democrat, and an individualist, so robbo can see no good reason for democracy in science. robbo trusts an elite, especially the ultimate elite for individualists, their biological senses. robbo doesn't agree that our knowledge of everything, including the sun, is a socio-historical product, and so we can change it. Marxists argue that those changes must be controlled by society, by democratic methods. robbo wishes to determine what the sun is, by looking at it, by feeling heat upon the skin. This is the bourgeois method, of individual biological sensation. It is not a suitable method for democratic socialism, and its aim to democratically control all social production.

 Firstly if I am an individualist ( I still don’t think LBird knows what this means and is confusing “individualism” with “individuality”) then so is Marx and both of us are vehemently opposed to LBird’s totalitarian view of society which stems from his core Leninist ideology and his endorsement of society wide central planning.  Actually if anything Marx was even more of individualist than I am  in LBird’s sense of the word .  For example in the German Ideology we find him saying: “Communists do not preach morality at all…They do not put to people the moral demand: love one another, do not be egoist etc; on the contrary, they are very well aware that egoism, just as much as self-sacrifice, is in definite circumstances a necessary form of the self-assertion of individuals.  Hence, the communists by no means want…to do away with the "private individual" for the sake of the "general", “self-sacrificing man”.  I would never go that far since I believe the case for socialism is both a  moral one and one based on self interests”.  I would however endorse Marx when he say “the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.” But LBird would oppose Marx on this because he would consider this statement of Marx’s to be an expression of “individualism” Secondly, LBird declares that I am an “antidemocratic”.  This demonstrates that LBird is willing to stoop to outright dishonesty to score a cheap point.  I have made it perfectly clear that I fully support the concept of democratic decision making in socialism but where it is needed – in the practical affairs of society – and not here it is not needed such as in the determination of the truth of scientific theories.  Democracy therefore has clearly defined limits and I advocate democracy up those limits. LBird does not.  Local forms of democracy will be banned or prohibited in LBird’s totalitarian society which recognises only one single decision-making body – namely the entire global population deciding in concert.   Since this is a totally impossible then, in de facto terms. what this means is LBird is calling for is a form of extreme fascism in which all power perforce will be concentrated in the hands of a tiny few and against which no countervailing powers must ever be allowed to emerge

 Will I get a response from LBird to these detailed criticisms  of his ideas which I took the time and trouble to write up?  Nope, it seems not.  It seems there is indeed a predictable pattern – as Tim pointed out –  to LBirds involvement in this forum which demonstrates his contempt for democratic debate.  As soon as the heat in the kichen gets too much he escapes, leaving a trail of unaswered questions in his wake, only to intrude on some other hapless thread a few days later,  repeating the same old mantras as before and when challenged once again, repeating the same old lame  excuse as before  that "you will have to read what I wrote elsewhere".  In  this way he immunises himself against all criticism – by  a calculated tactic of evasion and deceit Tim was quite right to point all this out and it really begs the question as to whether there is any point in engaging with this individual at all

[robbo203]

 

LBird wrote:

I'll try once more with you, robbo, but since I've said these things before, I think that you already know what you're about to read. But, there might be others who actually do want to see workers' democracy.

 Let’s go through these points one by one again, LBird, since all too predictably you have completely evaded them in the deluded belief that you have somehow answered them.   Point number ONE.  I asked you what was the point a universal vote on the Truth of some scientifc theory.  “How is it going to make any difference if you support a theory and it gets voted down by a majority?  Does that mean you must henceforth abandon the theory?”  To which you answered as follows 

LBird wrote:

 Because we know from the actually history of science (not the myth of 'science' put about by bourgeois scientists, anti-democrats all) that science by its social theory and practice can produce ideas and policies which are dangerous to the majority. For example, eugenics. This was a socio-historical product of science, and had the status of a 'scientific fact', and produced 'official policies' which led to the sterilisation of those deemed by the elite to be 'inferior'. Clearly, it would have made a difference if this 'theory' had been voted down by a majority, if it had been produced in a society where the social activity of science was under democratic control. So, yes, those 'eugenicist' scientists in a society of that sort would be forced to abandon the theory. They would be prevented from advocating the sterilisation of humans.

 Firstly, do I really need to state the obvious – that you don’t force 'eugenicist' scientists to “abandon the theory” by preventing them from advocating the sterilisation of humans.  These are two quite different things. It was quite possible for them to continue believing in the theory even if they are prevented by your thought police from advocating it.  Unlike you, I am democrat.  I take the view that the most effective way to dispel and disarm a repugnant idea is not by driving it underground but by confronting it and defeating it through rational argument.  Repugnant ideas flourish because of the conditions that allow them to flourish, exist.  Unless you remove those conditions, those ideas will continue to flourish. Those conditions include the lack of opportunities to question received wisdom or the established Truth (which is precisely the kind of social fascism you are advocating). I note that you automatically assume workers will vote against eugenics theory but what happens if they don’t? What would you do then? You would be forced by the logic of your own argument to advocate or at any rate, condone, eugenics Secondly, you completely ignore my all -important point that democracy is about practical matters, it is not about the truth status of scientific ideas, meaning it is pointless voting about on whether such ideas are “true” or not.  If the proposal was made that human beings should be forcibly sterilised as a policy decision then, yes, of course this should be opposed by a democratic vote precisely because this is a practical matter.  I repeat democracy is about practical matters that have a practical effect on us Thirdly, though you give the example of eugenics theory to support your argument on the grounds that it could lead to socially undesirable consequences, there are hundreds of thousands of other scientific theories which according to you all without exception need to be voted upon by the entire world population but which theories have no discernible socially adverse consequences whichever way the vote went.  To give the example I used – what possible socially adverse consequences could arise from a vote on a new scientific theory on the asexual reproduction of tape worms which you expect the world population to participate in? Point number TWO.  You state this in opposition to my point that the science as a self-critical enterprise and that what you are advocating substitutes for science a kind of quasi-religious authority 

LBird wrote:

This is a repetition of the bourgeois myth about their 'science', that it is a 'self-critical enterprise'. It is often not 'self-critical' whatsoever, and almost everyday in the newspapers we can read accounts of 'scientists' ignoring evidence, manufacturing evidence, and suppressing evidence that clashes with their 'theory'. And even where there is 'criticism', criticism is always from the perspective of a 'theory', and so their so-called 'criticism' never criticises their social power as 'scientists'. Bourgeois scientists never accept the need for democratic controls on their socio-political activities. All science involves power. . 

 It is remarkable LBird that you cannot see just how similar you are to the very “bourgeoisie” you criticise.  You witter on about the bourgeois myth about their 'science' being a 'self-critical enterprise' and how they go about “suppressing evidence that clashes with their 'theory'”.   But what are you advocating? The truth is you are advocating the very same thing! You admit it yourself! You are saying that when a theory gets voted down by the people, proponents of the theory will not be allowed to continue advocating it or present evidence in support of it because it conflicts with the Truth as established by a democratic vote Point number THREE.   You completely misrepresent my view on the role of science and democracy when you argue, thus

LBird wrote:

 robbo gives his game away, here, because I always argue for democratic authory, and robbo, because he is an individualist and thinks 'elite scientists' should simply be trusted, wants any democratic political interference to be deemed 'quasi religious'. Of course, robbo is hiding the fact that there is a quasi religious authority in science today – the 'elite scientists' themselves. They are the modern priests, conducting a religious order, separated and hidden from most of us workers. 

 Firstly, I feel I need to repeat once again the point that the role of democracy has to do with the practical affairs of society not with with the Truth status of scientific theories.  My point is that there is simply no point in voting on the truth of such theories.  To do so is indeed a quasi religious attitude to science Secondly, not once did I ever suggest that scientists “should simply be trusted”.  Of course, it is desirable for there to be a two channel of communication between scientists and laypersons. I am opposed to an elitist views of science that treats scientists as if they were some kind of anointed priesthood.  However, let’s be clear about this.  No one person including even the most gifted scientist on the planet can ever know more than a tiny fraction of the sum total of human knowledge.  My view of science in socialist society is that individuals should be completely free to pursue whatever line of scientific enquiry that might interest them.  There should be no barriers placed in the way of this happening which is why I opposed to an elitist model of science which serves precisely to enforced such barriers.  At the same time I recognise that there will be such a thing as a social division of labour in socialism.  Some people will inevitably be more accomplished in some things than others in such a society and it is stupid to deny this.  In your fantasy world, there will be no such differences.  Everyone will be exactly the same in ability and aptitude and we will all know evertthing there is to know about everything so as to vote comfortably on the thousands of new scientific theories that come into circulation each and every day.  In your fantasy world, we will spending all our time voting on each and every one of these new theories although sadly even we will not have time enough to vote on even a tiny fraction of them Point number FOUR.  You bring up the thorny question of “materialism”

LBird wrote:

 I've  always argued that Marx was correct on this point. We should 'doubt everything' including supposed 'objective science'. robbo pretends to agree with Marx, but when robbo is asked should the nature of the sun be put to a vote, he denies this power to the majority, and insists that an elite of 'materialists', which includes robbo, already know what the sun is, and that the majority can't know this, because otherwise robbo would have no problem with a vote.Marx claims that we create our object. I agree with Marx, but the materialists, like robbo, don't. The materialists claim that we don't create matter, whereas Marxists claim that 'matter' has a history, and we can study when it originated, and why, and how it has changed, by looking at the various modes of production within which the social product of 'matter' has been socially produced. 

  Firstly, what is this “power” that LBird refers that is being mysteriously denied to the majority by them not being able to vote on the question of what is the nature of the sun?  LBird doesn’t say.  He doesn’t say because he can’t say,  because quite simply he seems to be completely clueless about what he is talking about.   Words just gush out of him mindlessly in some unstoppable stream of gibberish.  “Power” refers to ability of someone to impose their wishes on someone else against their will.  But how is not feeling it necessary to vote on the nature of the sun an exercise in “power”.  This is just so daft.  What I am saying is that if you want to believe the sun is one thing and I think it is something else then go ahead and be my guest.  I am not trying to impose my interpretation on you.  I can’t anyway and that surely is the point.  Power has to do with practical matters, not the truth of a scientific theory Secondly, Marx did not say “we create our object” e.g. the sun.  Once again this is a really stupid argument LBird is presenting because he is trying to put it in a form that appears literal while pretending to mean something else  The sun is billions of years old and homo sapiens is only – what one hundred thousand years old or so – so we cannot have literally created the sun. Now LBird knows very well that this is the case but likes to play word games.  If he had said “we create the IDEA or interpretation of the object” I would have little or no difficulty in agreeing with him – and he is lying through his teeth if he thinks I believe our interpretation of the world around is not socially produced – but it seems he is once again just intent on drawing out this whole sterile argument about materialism for the sake of it Point number FIVE.  LBird contends

LBird wrote:

 robbo is an anti-democrat, and an individualist, so robbo can see no good reason for democracy in science. robbo trusts an elite, especially the ultimate elite for individualists, their biological senses. robbo doesn't agree that our knowledge of everything, including the sun, is a socio-historical product, and so we can change it. Marxists argue that those changes must be controlled by society, by democratic methods. robbo wishes to determine what the sun is, by looking at it, by feeling heat upon the skin. This is the bourgeois method, of individual biological sensation. It is not a suitable method for democratic socialism, and its aim to democratically control all social production.

 Firstly if I am an individualist ( I still don’t think LBird knows what this means and is confusing “individualism” with “individuality”) then so is Marx and both of us are vehemently opposed to LBird’s totalitarian view of society which stems from his core Leninist ideology and his endorsement of society wide central planning.  Actually if anything Marx was even more of individualist than I am  in LBird’s sense of the word .  For example in the German Ideology we find him saying: “Communists do not preach morality at all…They do not put to people the moral demand: love one another, do not be egoist etc; on the contrary, they are very well aware that egoism, just as much as self-sacrifice, is in definite circumstances a necessary form of the self-assertion of individuals.  Hence, the communists by no means want…to do away with the "private individual" for the sake of the "general", “self-sacrificing man”.  I would never go that far since I believe the case for socialism is both a  moral one and one based on self interests”.  I would however endorse Marx when he say “the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.” But LBird would oppose Marx on this because he would consider this statement of Marx’s to be an expression of “individualism” Secondly, LBird declares that I am an “antidemocratic”.  This demonstrates that LBird is willing to stoop to outright dishonesty to score a cheap point.  I have made it perfectly clear that I fully support the concept of democratic decision making in socialism but where it is needed – in the practical affairs of society – and not here it is not needed such as in the determination of the truth of scientific theories.  Democracy therefore has clearly defined limits and I advocate democracy up those limits. LBird does not.  Local forms of democracy will be banned or prohibited in LBird’s totalitarian society which recognises only one single decision-making body – namely the entire global population deciding in concert.   Since this is a totally impossible then, in de facto terms. what this means is LBird is calling for is a form of extreme fascism in which all power perforce will be concentrated in the hands of a tiny few and against which no countervailing powers must ever be allowed to emerge

[robbo203]

twc wrote:

 Now, the masterstroke…  To overcome the elitism he believes is inherent in materialism, LBird needs a universal thought police.  It becomes everyone’s duty under “democratic communism” to enforce the Truth of every social idea that determines social production (= social materializations).All science, all art, all social intercourse (bedroom not exempted ) will be voted on for its social Truth, indexed against subversion, and socially enforced by everyone. 

 Yes for me this represents the very epitome of LBird's daft way of looking at the world. Not once has he ever explained the need for a universal vote on the Truth of some scientifc theory.  How is it going to make any differnce if you support a theory and it gets voted down  by a majority?  Does that mean you must henceforth abandon the theory? But thats dumb,  It undermines the very basis of science as a self critical enterprise and substitutes for science some kind of quasi religious authority.  Marx argued that we should "doubt everything", LBird, by complete contrast, would have us "accept everything" providing it is formally sanctioned by the proletarian majority.  Majorities can never be wrong, you see; neccesaarily they speak the Truth.  Since the great majority currently vote for capitalism, according to LBird's reasoning they must be right and we should accept this and embrace capitalism as the Truth,  Why then is LBird hypocritically professing to be a "democratic comunist".  Shouldnt he be affirming the need for capitalism since the proletariat has  pronounced on the matter and declared in favour of capitalism? After all,the proletariat can never be wrong according to LBird The truth is LBird  has no understanding  about what democracy is for, whatsoever..  He just does not have a clue. Democracy is about practical matters such as the allocation of resources to different ends which has practical consequences for the people involved,  Its not about the truth of a scientifc theory,  Thats not democracy, thats just an opinion poll.  LBird wants us to have millions upon millions of opinion polls in a socialist society for some unspecified reason known only to himself And finally of course we come to the pacticality of his harebraned scheme.  LBird sneers at the word "practical", suggesting it reeks of bourgeois ideology,  Be that as it may he still has to explain how his ideas can be put into practice otherwise there would simply be no point, woud there?   How are tens of thousands of decisions – a gross underestimate if anything –  to be voted on every day by billions of people right across the globe as LBird suggests?  The idea is just so childish I can only assume LBird has not even begun to think about the implications of what he is suggesting.  And here's the killer,  Snce its is highly improbable that even one of these multiple decisions will attract the votes of anything more than infintesimally small fraction of the global population – quite seriously, how many people in the world are going to vote on the merits of some startlling new theory concerning the asexual reproduction of tapeworms?  – what does mean for LBird's bizarre notion of Scientific Truth as something that has to be rubber stamped  by the votes of a proletarian majoroty? In de facto terms LBird is necesarily and inescapably an advocate of an elitist form of science Until LBird answers these questions forthrightly and honestly he will continue  to be rightly regarded and dismissed as a crank, Im afraid.

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

 The materialists – twc, robbo, Vin, Tim, YMS, etc. – claim that Pluto itself tells them that it is a 'planet'. They claim that this is an 'objective fact'. They deny that humans created 'the planet Pluto', and can change it. They deny that 'the planet Pluto' has a history, dependent upon social factors..

 More stupidities from LBird.  I find it difficult to resist the conclusion that he is deliberately lying through his teeth simply  to score cheap points Once again LBird and please pay attention .   No one is saying that " Pluto itself tells them that it is a 'planet'"  "Pluto" by which you mean "the idea of Pluto" ,we all agree, is a social construction or an interpretation conditioned by social factors.  All this is perfectly well understood But what you need to understand is that in  order to have an idea about Pluto there has to be a physical object revolving around the sun to which we have assigned the label "Pluto" in the first place.  Its as simple as that.  True, we cannot  apprehend this thing-in-itself  (in its noumenal sense) outside of our theory or interpretation of what "Pluto" means to us.  We can only apprehend "Pluto" on the basis of a set of preconceptions which preconceptions are socially conditioned,  But even so, Pluto has an objective existence.  Its existence can be independently verified by multiple observers viewing it through a  telescope. That being so I regret to have to inform that contrary to your delusional belief that we created this physical object in outer space called Pluto, we did nothing of the sort.  What we created was the ideas that this object evokes in us.  The fact that you put the expression  'the planet Pluto' in inverted commas shows that you understand this distinction but prefer to play silly word games and waste peoples' time, including your own, in the process

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