Young Master Smeet
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Interesting Article at the FT
https://www.ft.com/content/883d2044-4806-11ea-aeb3-955839e06441?shareType=nongift
(You might not be able to access), the key part is:
“Mr Johnson regularly appears to be threatening the EU, when in fact he is just reading out agreements already struck in martial tones. The battles Mr Johnson chose to fight this week sounded blood-curdling, but are either fights against an army of straw men or battles in areas where a path towards compromise seems likely to be found. Rhetoric makes the news. It matters. And it suits both sides to appear far apart for now. But the substance of what they said suggests an agreement “similar” to Canada’s is possible and likely.”
The EU are ready to adopt a Canada style deal, so long as there are level playing field conditions, these shouldn’t be a problem for Britain, the only issue will be the appearance of enforcement. So, we’re headed for zero tariffs and quotas, but with Custom checks and rules of origin checks.
The only parts of the EU worth a damn, free movement and transnational democratic institutions, are gone.
I think this is deliberate on Sinn Fein’s part: with Irish PR, they are never going to get a majority, so they are essentially ensuring that selected candidates are likely to win, and avoiding having the situation where one candidate wins at the expense of the other, ensuring internal party management.
IIRC in Malta, which uses the same system, Parties routinely stand more candidates than there are seats, effectively giving the public the choice of which flavour of a particular party will win…
I think we need some Greek.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy
“The English words “economy” and “economics” can be traced back to the Greek word οἰκονόμος (i.e. “household management”), a composite word derived from οἶκος (“house;household;home”) and νέμω (“manage; distribute;to deal out;dispense”) by way of οἰκονομία (“household management”).
The first recorded sense of the word “economy” is in the phrase “the management of œconomic affairs”, found in a work possibly composed in a monastery in 1440. “Economy” is later recorded in more general senses, including “thrift” and “administration”.” (Raymond Williams in his book Keywords looks at how the word economy has shifted over time in meaning).
In fact, what is called economics today is what yer actual ancient Greeks would have called chrematistics:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/chrematistic
Anyway, as for Charlie Marx:
“In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness.” Marx, Preface to the Critique of Political Economy (1859)
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/quotes/index.htm
Anyway, Socialism means an end of chrematistics and the birth of household management.
Yes, his co-operativism shows here:
However, it does provide a useful thought experiment:
So let’s consider the role of the investor in a firm. Do they get their fair share?
An investor lends one million pounds to a firm. The firm promises to repay this sum, in a year, plus interest to cover price inflation, and also mitigate the risk of default. The investor also demands collateral, such as a claim on premises, equipment or unsold inventory. So, if the firm defaults, the investor can recover some losses.
At the end of the year, when the firm repays the loan, the investor is made whole again.
And this does seem perfectly fair, at least in terms of an equal exchange in the market: the investor lends money, and the firm repays it. This is an equal exchange of like for like.
Yes, the interest rate may favour the borrower or the lender, depending on accidental circumstances. And if the interest rate equals inflation, then the investor isn’t even making a profit. So there’s no systematic exploitation going on here.
But this is not how investment typically works in capitalist economies.
Investors don’t simply lend capital and get repaid. Instead, they typically lend capital and receive equity in the firm. In other words, they invest in order to become part owners of the firm.
So, at the end of the year, when the firm could repay the initial loan, and make the investor whole, something else happens instead. The investor now has equity with a cash value that covers their initial loan, and are therefore made whole, yet now have something more: an additional property claim on the future value created by the workers, who supply labour to the firm, in perpetuity. As owners of the firm they can extract profits, without having to supply any additional labour or capital. They are now getting something for nothing.
Been reading a spot of Michael Lebowitz, who has the skinny on what happened with workers’ self management in Yugoslavia:
Consider, for example, the workers’ orientation toward common ownership of the means of production. The form that this took in Yugoslavia was to reject the inequality arising from differential access to particular means of production. Workers in less profitable firms expected their wages to rise much like those in the more profitable firms. The effect was to reduce significantly the liquidity of the weaker firms and to compel them to turn to the banks to secure funding not merely for expanded reproduction but even to meet the personal income requirements of workers.
So, both a thought experiment and a real experiment.
I remember the[phrase ‘Stock market Jews’ arresting me when reading the de Leonite translation of the Class Struggles in Franc (1848-50).
Here’s a paragraph from MIA:
And the nonruling factions of the French bourgeoisie cried: Corruption! The people cried: <i>À bas les grands voleurs! À bas les assassins</i>! [Down with the big thieves! Down with the assassins!] when in 1847, on the most prominent stages of bourgeois society, the same scenes were publicly enacted that regularly lead the <i>lumpenproletariat</i> to brothels, to workhouses and lunatic asylums, to the bar of justice, to the dungeon, and to the scaffold. The industrial bourgeoisie saw its interests endangered, the petty bourgeoisie was filled with moral indignation, the imagination of the people was offended, Paris was flooded with pamphlets – “The Rothschild Dynasty,” “Usurers Kings of the Epoch,” etc. – in which the rule of the finance aristocracy was denounced and stigmatized with greater or less wit.
<i>Rien pour la gloire</i>! [Nothing for glory!] Glory brings no profit! <i>La paix partout et toujours</i>! [Peace everywhere and always!] War depresses the quotations of the 3 and 4 percents which the France of the Bourse jobbers had inscribed on her banner. Her foreign policy was therefore lost in a series of mortifications to French national sentiment, which reacted all the more vigorously when the rape of Poland was brought to its conclusion with the incorporation of Cracow by Austria, and when Guizot came out actively on the side of the Holy Alliance in the Swiss separatist war.<sup class=”enote”>[66]</sup> The victory of the Swiss liberals in this mimic war raised the self-respect of the bourgeois opposition in France; the bloody uprising of the people in Palermo worked like an electric shock on the paralyzed masses of the people and awoke their great revolutionary memories and passions. [Annexation of Cracow by Austria in agreement with Russia and Prussia on November 11, 1846. – Swiss Sonderbund war: November 4 to 28, 1847. – Rising in Palermo: January 12, 1848; at the end of January, nine days’ bombardment of the town by the Neapolitans. Note by Engels to the edition of 1895.]
Here is the same paragraph in the original (I think) German:
Und die nicht herrschenden Fraktionen der französischen Bourgeoisie schrien <i>Korruption!</i> Das Volk schrie: <i>À bas les grands voleurs! À bas les assassins!</i> <<i>Nieder mit den großen Dieben! Nieder mit den Mördern!</i>> als im Jahre 1847 auf den erhabensten Bühnen der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft dieselben Szenen öffentlich aufgeführt wurden, welche das Lumpenproletariat regelmäßig in die Bordells, in die Armen- und Irrenhäuser, vor den Richter, in die Bagnos und auf das Schafott führen. Die industrielle Bourgeoisie sah ihre Interessen gefährdet, die kleine Bourgeoisie war moralisch entrüstet, die Volksphantasie war empört, Paris war von Pamphlets überflutet – “La dynastie Rothschild”, “Les juifs rois de l’époque” <“Die Dynastie Rothschild”, “Die Juden – Könige unserer Zeit“> etc. -, worin die Herrschaft der Finanzaristokratie mit mehr oder weniger Geist denunziert und gebrandmarkt wurde.
Rien pour la gloire! <Nichts für den Ruhm!> Der Ruhm bringt nichts ein! La paix partout et toujours! <>Friede überall und immer!> Der Krieg drückt den Kurs der drei- und vierprozentigen! – hatte das Frankreich der Börsenjuden auf seine Fahne geschrieben. Seine auswärtige Politik verlor sich daher in eine Reihe von Kränkungen des französischen Nationalgefühls, das um so lebhafter auffuhr, als mit der Einverleibung Krakaus in Österreich der Raub an Polen vollendet wurde und Guizot im schweizerischen Sonderbundskrieg aktiv auf seiten der Heiligen Allianz trat. Der Sieg der Schweizer Liberalen in diesem Scheinkriege hob das Selbstgefühl der bürgerlichen Opposition in Frankreich, die blutige Erhebung des Volkes zu Palermo wirkte wie ein elektrischer Schlag auf die paralysierte Volksmasse und rief ihre großen revolutionären Erinnerungen und Leidenschaften wach.
I dunno, it seems we have this:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1853/02/25.htm
However, good old Engels does come to the rescue:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1890/04/19.htm
Not least to say, though, that the circumstantial evidence from his writings is against Charlie being a Rothschild agent. And, agreed, he never advocated a policy of anti-semitism per se in any of his public writings.
I think it’s a weak dispute, else we have to dispense with the whole volume of writings on the eastern Question and the stuff for the New York tribune. We can say with confidence that Elenor Marx had no problem with including the article.
Well, this particularly disgraceful anti-semitic article by Marx suggests he wasn’t too keen on the Rothschilds
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101074926989&view=1up&seq=625
(You might need to scroll up a bit)
Dave,Raw materials are a good example. So, the state effectively seizes the rental value of iron ore and coal (lets say through nationalisation rather than taxation), and so sells them at cost (no mark-upo for profit) to a steel manufacturer. This depresses C, however, due to the tight labour market created by UBI (plus the taxes on profits that would have to accompany it), the steel maker has to pay higher wages: my model above, whilst preserving rate of profit actually showed a marked decrease in labour productivity, this would be true, ceteris paribus, of any situation of raising wages. The push then is for the employer to try and spare capital to achieve a higher rate of profit.Adam,agreed, which is why my point was that UBI only works if people are both first convinced of the need to abolish commodity relations, and are in political position to it, but need to visualise a mechanism of how they can go about making that change.
I've picked up the frase book, and it's quite interesting, and well worth reading (it's short, more of a pamphklet, really).Just to pick out one thing I want to drill into a bit more: with the Communist Utopia it describes, the book suggests Universal Basic Income (UBI) as a mechanism for the rapid abolition of buying and selling. The argument runs, as the UBI is raised, labour becomes scarce, and leisure time abundant: capitalists will spare labour, and invest in labour saving technology, while the free time of workers becomes redirected to servicing communal needs.There is some justice in this idea: to take a Marxian model, dividing economic activity into Surplus Value (S), Constant Capital (C) and Wages (V):S/V is the rate of exploitationS/(C+V) is the rate of profit.It is possible to increase V at the expense of S, but this drives the rate of profit down. However, if V increases at the expense of C it is possible for the rate of exploitation to fall, while holding up the rate of profit: E.g.|S=33||V=33||C=33||S/V = 100%| |S/C+V = 50%| > |S=33||V=43| |C = 23||S/V=77%| |S/C+V=50%| This gives us a plausible model (beyond Socialists win election and proclaim socialism) of how the abolition of commodity relations could be managed as a rolling programme.A socialist majority throuigh political action could institute UBI and a deliberate programme of cheapening productive capital (an attack on rent seaking, strategic nationalisation, subsidies, etc.), so long as it was clear in advance that this was not an end in itself, but a means ot achieve the socialistic goal, it would work. With the added advantage that such moves would divide the capitaalist class, as some would benefit while others lost out.In this version, our standard critique, that wages paid directly would fall as employers compensated for the living costs of UBI, would actually work in its favour, as it would keep those capitalists still in business running, and aid labour intensive industries.It would enable a decentralised change to a new society, without having to go through central planning.4350%
https://www.gregpalast.com/how-the-bernie-of-mexico-won-the-presidency/greg Palast, with his usual bombast.
Quote:I can tell you, AMLO is way more Bernie Sanders than Hugo Chavez, and I’ve known all three. (That’s not to knock Chavez who rightly shifted the nation’s oil wealth from the pampered to the impoverished.)Both AMLO and Sanders were mayors who ran their cities as what I’d call, “Pothole Populists.” It’s get-the-job-done socialism with the emphasis onsocial not –ism.I'd wish AMLO ever peice of luck he requires to improve the lot of workers in Mexico (although it seems his coalition includes social conservatives), the point is that he won't get much beyond the pot-holes.
Yes, the invention of the pointed stick didn't mean humans had to use it, but once someone came up with it, then hunting mammoths and killing each other became increasingly possible to the point of certainty.In the context of the four scenarios outlined, it's a case of making an active effort to prevent someone holding all the sticks.
This seems to be the subtle shift we har from some latter-day Keynsians:https://medium.com/iipp-blog/public-budgeting-for-public-purpose-de1f4bd2a6d9
Quote:And it is the state — today mainly via publically owned central banks — that is the original source of this money. The central bank also grants other institutions the privilege to create money and settle payments in sterling via the granting of banking licenses, but even these entities must ultimately settle their payments with each other using state currency issued by the central bank — money has a hierarchy. The state asserts its monopoly power over the right to issue sterling by deeming it ‘legal tender’ and putting you in prison if you attempt to forge the currency.Which seems a reasonable way of describing affairs, the important point is that money is state backed, unless it is commodity money.
Sympo wrote:Does this mean that the value of one individual sock that managed to get sold is equal to the SNLT of a sock?If the answer is yes, I have another question: what makes you think this? What "evidence" is there?1) In essence, yes.2) It is a logical deduction based on the premises previously presented: we cannot apprehend value directly, all we can observe is prices paid and infer values therefrom: I believe there have been studies that show a correlation with labour time and price movements.
Sympo wrote:"I think that's all that's needed, the operation of the market means that instances of types of good containing excess labour will find themselves disfavoured, and they will only be exchanged at around the same value as other instances of the type."I'm sorry but I still don't get it. I think it might have something to do with how you use the word "value" in the above sentence.Do the 6 hour socks of a seller actually have the value of the 3 hour socks that are being sold on the market? Or is it that the price of his sock has to be below its value in order to be sold?Well, per the chain of logic, if it can't sell at 6 hours worth, it doesn't have six hours worth of value. The basis of value is it assumes that there is an open market, with replaceable goods, the buyers are trying to get the best deal they can. If, generally, socks are available at 3 hours, then a 6 hour sock only has a 3 hour value.Its important to note that value is not concrete within a commodity, it is abstract and represented by the commodity, and represents a general inter-human effort.Here's Charlie again:
Charlie wrote:Some people might think that if the value of a commodity is determined by the quantity of labour spent on it, the more idle and unskilful the labourer, the more valuable would his commodity be, because more time would be required in its production. The labour, however, that forms the substance of value, is homogeneous human labour, expenditure of one uniform labour power. The total labour power of society, which is embodied in the sum total of the values of all commodities produced by that society, counts here as one homogeneous mass of human labour power, composed though it be of innumerable individual units. Each of these units is the same as any other, so far as it has the character of the average labour power of society, and takes effect as such; that is, so far as it requires for producing a commodity, no more time than is needed on an average, no more than is socially necessary. The labour time socially necessary is that required to produce an article under the normal conditions of production, and with the average degree of skill and intensity prevalent at the time. The introduction of power-looms into England probably reduced by one-half the labour required to weave a given quantity of yarn into cloth. The hand-loom weavers, as a matter of fact, continued to require the same time as before; but for all that, the product of one hour of their labour represented after the change only half an hour’s social labour, and consequently fell to one-half its former value.We see then that that which determines the magnitude of the value of any article is the amount of labour socially necessary, or the labour time socially necessary for its production.[9] Each individual commodity, in this connexion, is to be considered as an average sample of its class.[10] Commodities, therefore, in which equal quantities of labour are embodied, or which can be produced in the same time, have the same value. The value of one commodity is to the value of any other, as the labour time necessary for the production of the one is to that necessary for the production of the other. “As values, all commodities are only definite masses of congealed labour time.”[11]I've bolded the key bits.
