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Yes, this is the essence of Marx’s scientific critique of capitalism:
Capital itself is the moving contradiction, [in] that it presses to reduce labour time to a minimum, while it posits labour time, on the other side, as the sole measure and source of wealth.
Leftist agitation can’t resolve the contradiction. The inexorable working out of capital can transcend it.
Marx is saying that capital compels its puppets, the capital-accumulating class, to progressively devalue (in capitalist economic terms) the social means of production.
Capital is inexorably ushering in the demise of its own mode of production — its own possibility of existence. That is Marxian materialist dialectics!
Despite of, and in the teeth of, the liberal ‘philosophical’ doubters and academic ‘politico-economic’ deniers, Marx is here saying nothing more than the implications of his general scientific materialism and of his specific labour-time theory of capitalist value.
To comprehend why Marx can say this is a sure-fire way of comprehending the necessity and inevitability of socialism.
We’re no further forward in our discussion about economic reform in China
No, you aren’t.
You will stick to your fond delusion that the benevolent Chinese ruling class will — throughout economic good times and bad times — charitably tender to your reformist desires.
Such is the wilful blindness of rusted-on leftism.
Could you give us any clue as to when this ‘invariably turns true‘ in China
Yes, when its markets are “put under stress” — in times of economic downturn when its ruling-class can’t afford to lavish charity on its working-class.
The Chinese ruling-class operates under the same market conditions as its US and UK counterparts, whose captive governments are propping them up at the expense of their working-classes.
Perhaps, you surmise, that the Chinese capitalist-class will remain forever under the heal of a working-class beneficent Chinese government.
But, if its oligarchs are under the heal, what hope can there really be for its working-class.
Of course, your ignorant scientific sarcasm was triggered by my using your sacred epistemological term “true”.
In defence, my phrase “invariably turns true” is scarcely serious epistemology.
It is an outdated expression that prosaically conveys the same logic as “returns to type” (when poked) or “true to form”, which are readily understood in common English usage by normal people.
It’s not bad-mouthing to expose a leftist as a leftist — an anti-socialist.
Here’s the evidence for your ‘leftism’ from my posts on “Economic Reform in China”:
- Post #260444. A sentence-by-sentence critique of your abuse of the term ‘market’ — of your working-class beneficent “Tool Market” (your neologism) and your working-class maleficent “Free Market” (circulation of commodity capital).
- Post #260779. A Marxian economic comparison of actual market compositions (export, import, investment, retail, government) of the GDPs of China and the US — their historical change over 1995-2025, and recent rates of exploitation (a critical indicator of capitalist growth — accumulation and reinvestment).
- Post #260862. A Marxian economic statement that a growing economy with a trade surplus (such as China) can ‘alleviate poverty’ in the reformist sense of ‘benefitting the workers’. A country running a trade deficit is largely bereft of this economic freedom.
- Post #260944. The indispensable case for socialism is the working-class’s recognition of its exploitation by the capitalist-class (in China and the US). The perennial case against socialism is the case for capitalist reform.
A socialist doesn’t fall for capitalist-class reform agendas, no matter how momentarily well-intentioned.
The actual capitalist system of markets, when put under stress, invariably turns true to its dominant capitalist-class interests, leaving your leftist, working-class beneficent, “Tool Market”, in its wake.
First time I appreciated how muddled a leftist you are.
So cock-sure when bad-mouthing the socialist party (day in, day out for a decade) but so diffident when silver-tonguing capitalist reform to the socialist party. What do you expect?
Social evolution as continuation of biological evolution
Marx sees modern industry as continuing the biological evolution of an animal’s “organs of labour” such as claws, teeth, wings, etc.
Continuity from the biological to the social is obvious enough when it comes to the reproduction of life, because we and animals, alike, are compelled to labour in order to survive.
Furthermore, we humans are theologically condemned to live “by the sweat of our brows” (Genesis 3:19), except for the social class that owns the means-of-production.
Those privileged persons have discovered the way to survive by the sweat of other people’s brows (Capital, Vol. I, Ch. 26. Primitive Accumulation).
It is precisely the working-class’s recognition of its exploitation by the capitalist-class that makes the only indispensable case for socialism.
All the rest can be dispensed with to varying degrees.
Meanwhile LBird sweats over the even-more dispensable case for evolutionary reform (in China and most everywhere else).
Capitalism rudely mocks him, like Shakespeare’s roisterer, Sir Toby Belch:
I’ll reform myself no better than I am.
The perennial case against socialism is the case for capitalist reform.LBird reveals his leftist stripe.
The real question is can the Chinese reformers keep reforming capitalism, as they seem to have successfully done since the 1980s in China?
If Marx’s Capital has scientific content, the answer relating to ‘alleviating poverty’ in LBird’s reformist sense of ‘benefitting the workers’, is twofold:
- Yes — Chinese reform will continue to ‘alleviate poverty’, in LBird’s reformist sense, so long as Chinese accumulation (capitalist growth) continues apace.
- No — The “real question”, as a century of capitalist development proves, is that ‘alleviating poverty’, in LBird’s reformist sense, is not only compatible with capitalism, it is essential to it.
A capitalist class must ‘alleviate poverty’, in LBird’s reformist sense, to keep its working class in an economic position to perform capital-expanding living-labour (v + s) for it, and to be able to buy back an increasing portion of its product.
If not, commodity-circulation (the market, whether ‘free’ or otherwise) dries up; production grinds to a halt for lack of a prospective surplus (s), and capitalist society plunges into depression.
LBird’s ruminations on archaic “philosophical notions of ‘Light/Heavy’, dating back to ancient Chinese thought” to compel Chinese economic sages to ‘alleviate poverty’, in LBird’s reformist sense, are vapid before the inexorable compuslion of everyday modern capitalism.
LBird has yet to honour us with a coherent (rather than arm-waving) account of his neologist ‘tool market’ which, in his usage, is not a market at all, but at most another capitalist-reform policy.
What, if anything, is a Tool market?
Gross Domestic Product (GDP)*The gross domestic product (GDP) of a country is the market-price of all goods and services a country produces in a year. It leaves out imports and foreign content of domestic goods and services — such as imported parts of a car assembled and sold in the country.
In Marxian categories, which are summarised in a glossary below:
The gross domestic product (GDP) of a country is the monetary expression of its living-labour (v + s) in a year.
The Marxian definition is precise. By excluding past-labour (c), it automatically excludes imported content. It also explains why GDP ≠ total-labour (c + v + s).
* Before anyone decries GDP as a bourgeois smokescreen, it needs pointing out that GDP analysis was initiated way back in the 17th century by William Petty who Marx, in a celebrated footnote on page 1 of Capital, calls the discoverer of the law that labour creates values, but nature provides the means.
Market-Sectors of the GDP — China and USA country’s living-labour (v + s) is realised on the world market, for exports, and on the domestic market, for investment, retail and government expenditure. (Imports and non-domestic content are excluded.)
GDP = (exports − imports) + investment + retail + government
The investment market is where living-labour (v + s) produces the past-labour (c) of the future (Cap. Vol. II, Department I).
The retail market is where living-labour (v + s) is realised as v for workers and s for capitalists.
The government market is where the taxed component of living-labour (v + s) is spent politically through social expenditure.
Market Sectors as % of GDPSector 1995 2005 2015 2025* – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Exports China 21 27 21 19 US 8 9 8 10 Imports China -18 -23 -19 -13 US -10 -1 -12 -13 Investment† China 29 34 39 36 US 17 17 18 18 Retail† China 41 45 49 49 US 60 63 62 61 Government† China 14 13 15 14 US 15 16 16 16 ====================================== GDP (100%)‡ China 105 119 124 114 US 100 105 104 102 ====================================== * Provisional 2025 figures † Imported content excluded. ‡ Totals ≠ 100% reflect accounting methods: China NBS, US BEA/NIPA, IMF WEO, World Bank WDI- China’s export and investment sectors are double US’s
- China’s import and government sectors are similar to US’s
- China’s Retail sector is 2/3 of US’s
- China runs a trade surplus; US runs a trade deficit.
Marxian GlossaryValue
Value is the socially necessary labour-time required to produce a commodity under standard social conditions of capitalist production.
Means-of-production
Means-of-production are conditions of labour (such as, raw materials, machinery and buildings) that make standard capitalist production possible. If you control them you are a capitalist. Otherwise you remain a worker.
Labour-power
Labour-power is a worker’s capacity to expand value. The capitalist pays for labour-power in wages. Its value is determined by the socially necessary labour-time to replenish the worker as a standard expander of value.
Capital
Capital is value that expands value — it procreates new value. New value comes from unpaid living-labour. In capitalist jargon, it is an investment M that yields a positive net return M + ΔM.
Variable-capital
Variable-capital (v) is the value of labour-power. It is ‘variable’ because labour-power expands value.
Constant-capital
Constant-capital (c) is the value of means-of-production. It is ‘constant’ because means-of-production do not expand value.
Circulating-capital
Circulating-capital is constant-capital (c) that is used up in a single production cycle. Examples are raw-materials, power and component parts. Its value ‘circulates’ back to the capitalist after one production cycle.
Fixed-capital
Fixed-capital is constant-capital (c) that is used in multiple production cycles. Examples are machinery, machine tools and buildings. Its value appears ‘fixed’ (or stuck) in production. In capitalist jargon it is a long-term investment. Its value returns to the capitalist, in stages, over multiple production cycles.
Surplus-value
Surplus-value (s) is unpaid living-labour (v + s). It is appropriated by capitalists with legal claims to it, as profit, rent and interest, and by the government as taxation.
Living-Labour
Living-labour (v + s) is socially necessary labour time. Its capitalist purpose is to expand value.
Past-Labour
Past-labour is labour-power embodied in constant capital (c). It is “dead-labour” — not value expanding labour.
Total-Labour
Total-labour (c + v + s) is past-labour + living-labour.
Values → Prices
The “monetary expression of labour time” is represented by λ.
Price = λ * Value.
A country’s λ can be estimated by dividing its GDP by its living-labour.
China: λ ≈ $10/h (US $18.5trillion / 1.85trillion hours)
US: λ ≈ $100/h (US $25.7trillion / 257billion hours)
Exploitation Rates — China and USWe are now equipped with Marxian tools to estimate exploitation rates in China and the US.
Barber
Living-labour (v+s) ≈ 30 minutes
Constant-capital (c): ChatGPT → ILO, OECDValue Price Barber Marx CH US CH US – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Inputs c 2m 2m $0.3 $3.3 Wages v 12m 6m $2 $10 Surplus-value s 16m 22m $2.7 $36.7 =========================================================== Revenue c+v+s 30m 30m $5 $50 =========================================================== Profit s/(c+v+s) 54% 73% Exploitation s/v 135% 367%
Big Mac Worker
Living-labour (v+s) ≈ 21 minutes China, 7 minutes US
Constant-capital (c): ChatGPT → Numbeo, McDonaldsValue Price Big Mac Marx CH US CH US – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Inputs c 9m 1m $1.5 $1.5 Wages v 6m 2m $1 $3 Surplus-value s 6m 4m $1 $6.5 =========================================================== Revenue c+v+s 21m 7m $3.5 $11 =========================================================== Profit s/(c+v+s) 29% 59% Exploitation s/v 100% 217%
Farm Work (per hour)
Living-labour (v+s) ≈ 1 hour
Constant-capital (c): ChatGPT → ILO, FAO, USDAValue Price Farm Worker Marx CH US CH US – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Inputs c 30m 36m $5 $60 Wages v 18m 8m $3 $10 Surplus-value s 12m 16m $2 $20 =========================================================== Revenue c+v+s 1h 1h $10 $96* =========================================================== Profit s/(c+v+s) 20% 22% Exploitation s/v 67% 200% – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – * Includes US gov. subsidy of 20% of living-labour (v+s)
4. iPhone (Assembler vs. Marketer)
Living-labour (v+s) ≈ 5 hours China, 10 hours US
Constant-capital (c): ChatGPT → IHS Markit, TechInsights, NGO audits, BLSValue Price iPhone Worker Marx CH US CH US – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Inputs c 2h 2h30m $200 $250 Wages v 1h 6m $10 $10 Surplus-value s 2h 7h24m $20 $740 =========================================================== Revenue c+v+s 5h 10h $230 $1000 =========================================================== Profit s/(c+v+s) 9% 74% Exploitation s/v 200% 7400%
Marxian ConsiderationsMarkets are places where value is realised; production is where it is created.
Chinese exploitation rates are low compared to the US, and may stay low so long as its rapid growth continues, since exploitation is where growth (reinvestment of surplus) comes from.
LBird’s praise of capitalist China’s dictatorial politicians and billionaire oligarchs for creating a compliant working class betrays self-satisfied, anti-socialist, leftism.
We don’t have to guess how Marx would have replied. We have Marx’s writings on Napoleon III’s “Bonapartism” and the “Haussmannisation” of Paris following the 1848-49 revolutions.
Marx to Kugelmann (11 July, 1868): “In France, under Louis Bonaparte, there arose the artificial system of public works — Haussmann’s rebuilding of Paris, for instance — as an artificial means of swindling capitalists [through speculation] and keeping the labouring classes employed [and politically quiet].”
Lord Keynes would interpret it differently, like LBird, and applaud.
The best way of conceptualising the difference between US/UK and China, is by examining the meaning of ‘market’.
Examining the meaning of ‘market’ (i.e., of capital circulation) is an unreliable approach, as traders on a market trade equally with each other.
The US/UK try to utilise a ‘Free Market’
In (neoliberal) usage a ‘free market’ implies freedom from state intervention and freedom of consumer choice.
For Marx, these are unachievable freedoms. The capitalist state must continually intervene to save the ‘free market’ from itself, from financial ruin and social upheaval of its own free making.
The US state acknowledges that free trade has screwed its national capitalists and soared national debt, and so in retaliation the US state is tariffing its international trading partners.
The US is quite prepared to freely sabotage a ‘free market’ that doesn’t work in its national capital’s interest. A fine spin on the US ‘trying to utilise’ the free market — by freely abusing/thwarting it!
… but China utilises a ‘Tool Market’. The purpose … is ‘growth’ for a nation.
China may state such (neoliberal) political rhetoric. Yet, the true (Marxian) metric of capitalist ‘growth’ always remains the expansion of capital value — the accumulation of surplus value by the exploitation of the working class. ‘Accumulate, accumulate! That is Moses and the prophets!’ (Capital Vol. 1, Ch. 24).
The incessant drive for Chinese capitalists to reinvest surplus value always keeps their government’s best-intentions for raising Chinese living standards on hold, as a hit-and-miss concomitant of their capital accumulation.
… it raises the issue of whether political control of an economy can be maintained to benefit all classes within a nation (differentially, of course)
Really? Political control of an economy can only be one economic class imposing its political will upon another economic class. Whether it can benefit both the imposing class and the imposed class may ‘raise an issue’ for academic philosophy, but not for Marxian political economy.
… or whether political ‘interference’ in ‘the market’ must eventually collapse capitalism.
No. Capitalism will only ‘collapse’ when the majority of the global working class takes concerted action to place the world’s means of production under its democratic control.
Can the Chinese ruling class succeed with their version of ‘Communism with Chinese Characteristics’
Succeed? In doing what? (On its own political economic terms, the Chinese ruling class, with its multi-billionaires, is succeeding in doing very well.)
The ‘Tool Market’ appears to be overtaking the ‘Free Market’ as the ideological basis of the 21st century.
No. It’s the same old capitalist market with the same old best-laid social plans, everywhere and always, governed by the same old rules.
Oh No — Not Philip Zimbardo also!
- BD: If anyone is interested in similar ideas, Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment and similar studies … give food for thought about authoritarianism. Don’t personally agree with Zimbardo’s take on his findings and the alternative interpretation by Erich Fromm is quite interesting, pointing out that the majority of the prison officer students did not join in the abusive processes, although they did not intervene.
When I mentioned “Stanley Milgram and his ilk” I intended to corral celebrity psychologist Philip Zimbardo alongside him. The antidote for both of them is Rutger Bregman’s Humandkind — read Bregman’s exposé of Philip Zimbardo’s fraudulence/hoax in Chapter 7.
Oh No — Not Stanley Milgram!
To dispel any illusion of Stanley Milgram and his ilk, read Human Kind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman — an essential read for anyone striving to bring about a cooperative society founded upon common ownership and democratic control of the world’s resources.
From “Chapter 8. Stanley Milgram and the Shock Machine”:
- I know of no other study as cynical, as depressing and at the same time as famous as [Stanley Milgram’s] experiments at the shock machine. By the time I’d completed a few months’ research, I reckoned I’d gathered enough ammunition to settle with his legacy. For starters, there are his personal archives, recently opened to the public. It turns out that they contain quite a bit of dirty laundry.
When I heard that archival material was available, Gina Perry told me during my visit to Melbourne, ‘I was eager to look behind the scenes’ (This is the same Gina Perry who exposed the Robbers Cave Experiment as a fraud; see Chapter 7.) And so began what Perry called ‘a process of disillusionment’, culminating in a scathing book documenting her findings. What she uncovered had turned her from Milgram fan into fierce critic.
Let’s first take a look at what Perry found. Again, it’s the story of a driven psychologist chasing prestige and acclaim. A man who misled and manipulated to get the results he wanted. A man who deliberately inflicted serious distress on trusting people who only wanted to help.
- lBird. “I haven’t ‘recommended’ anything. I’ve merely assumed that … can read critically.”
When, lBird, have you ever assumed a socialist member could “read critically” except, conveniently, now when you’ve been put on the spot.
Your “helpful” 161 page defence of Popperian falsificationism (Amazon, £96.15!) is easy to understand, if you can tolerate its academicism. Yet, embarrassingly, you misunderstand it.
What hope is there for your democratically mandated universal “Truth” — scientific and aesthetic — if its isolated champion naively undermines his own position?
Well might we squirm at the implication — scientific and aesthetic — of your uninformed/misinformed vote on the mandated universal “Truth” of barely tractable problems like those of the Langlands Project, the Millennium Prize, protein folding, dark energy, ad infinitum, …
No. It is not a “philosophical” matter of us being anti-democratic over the universally mandated “Truth” of science. It is a practical matter of us accepting the implications of a society based upon common ownership and democratic control of the world’s resources.
Contrary to your defended assertions of there being an exploited “working class” in such a society, we hold that no classes are possible — there are no grounds for their existence — in a democratic society so constituted. In such a society we all work collectively and take practical decisions democratically.
But we don’t mandate the impossible — universal “Truth” — enforced by your infamous thought control.
* * *
As to the drivel about there being no scientific method…
That wasn’t Marx’s view. Rather he considered his Capital to be a scientific treatise, just as he likewise designated the works of Smith and Ricardo.
The time is well nigh for confronting Marx’s scientific method — the method of descent and ascent…
* * *
Finally, lBird, you characteristically misunderstand the Marxian quote that you lifted, context free, from marxists.org.
Here is Marx, mid flight, in 1847 talking about a still-unformed/unconscious proletariat in France that he sees as destined in the future to resolve, in practice, the theoretical [surplus value] crisis in bourgeois “political economy”. When the proletariat moves in its class interest it will realize the implications of bourgeois economic science in its revolutionary practice, and make political economy of class society impossible.
Bourgeois political economy in crisis is the science that Marx is here talking about — not science in general. Here’s the wider context…
- Just as the economists are the scientific representatives of the bourgeois class, so the Socialists and Communists are the theoreticians of the proletarian class.
- So long as the proletariat is not yet sufficiently developed to constitute itself as a class, and consequently so long as the struggle itself of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie has not yet assumed a political character, and the productive forces are not yet sufficiently developed in the bosom of the bourgeoisie itself to enable us to catch a glimpse of the material conditions necessary for the emancipation of the proletariat and for the formation of a new society, these theoreticians are merely utopians who, to meet the wants of the oppressed classes, improvise systems and go in search of a regenerating science.
- But in the measure that history moves forward, and with it the struggle of the proletariat assumes clearer outlines, they no longer need to seek science in their minds; they have only to take note of what is happening before their eyes and to become its mouthpiece.
- So long as they look for science and merely make systems, so long as they are at the beginning of the struggle, they see in poverty nothing but poverty, without seeing in it the revolutionary, subversive side, which will overthrow the old society.
- From this moment, [political economy] science, which is a product of the historical movement, has associated itself consciously with it, has ceased to be doctrinaire and has become revolutionary.
Back to Popper!
- lBird. “Furthermore, Popper has been demolished by Feyerabend, Lakatos and many others, who’ve I’ve quoted many times.”
lBird kicks an own goal.
lBird reads what he wants into his recommendation: Gunnar Andersson’s “Criticism of the History of Science”.
If he actually understood the book, he might have discovered its reactionary defence of anti-Marx “philosopher” Karl Popper’s falsificationism against the attacks on it by “Feyerabend, Lakatos and many others, who [lBird] has quoted many times.”
But instead lBird confidently commends to us ignorant socialists an academic proof that Karl Popper demolished “Feyerabend, Lakatos and many others, who [lBird] has quoted many times.”
Tragic!
Lizzie: “it’s not only votes that count but politically conscious ones at that!”
False. Your slick paraphrase garbles what I carefully wrote.
Politically conscious votes — endorsement of a political party’s cunning plan to remedy capitalism’s ills — are the ones that actually do count under capitalism.
The Socialist Party seeks only class conscious votes — the votes that count toward establishing Socialism.
That is why I carefully distinguished the necessity of the Socialist Party’s electoral integrity from the electoral duplicity of the vote-cadging rest to fabricate a false “political consciousness”, of which Lizzie is a sad casualty.
