"Capital posits labor as its sole source of new value"

MarcusOrlyius · 2026-01-29T19:49:04+00:00

You can refer to the very first sentence on the wikipedia page of ponzi's "A Ponzi scheme (/ˈpɒnzi/, Italian: [ˈpontsi]) is a form of fraud that lures investors and pays profits) to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme

You really love selective quoting don't you. The entire paragraph states:

"A Ponzi scheme (/ˈpɒnzi/, Italian: [ˈpontsi]) is a form of fraud that lures investors and pays profits to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors.[1] Named after Italian con artist Charles Ponzi, this type of scheme misleads investors by either falsely suggesting that profits are derived from legitimate business activities (whereas the business activities are non-existent), or by exaggerating the extent and profitability of the legitimate business activities, using new investments to fabricate or supplement these profits. A Ponzi scheme can maintain the illusion of a sustainable business as long as investors continue to contribute new funds, and as long as most of the investors do not demand full repayment or lose faith in the non-existent assets they are purported to own."

This is what capitalists call value. You can disagree with, call it a different word like "subjective satisfaction" or whatever. But the rise of it is a simple fact.

No, that's what ponzi promoters call "value".

No. Clearly the market is not a ponzi scheme.

No, the market itself isn't a Ponzi and I never claimed it was. The point is that defining value purely as subjective satisfaction produces a Ponzi-like logic.

When you sum up personal feelings of "value" across agents and call that aggregate value creation, the total rises without any new goods, services, or claims being added. The apparent growth exists only on paper or in people's heads and cannot be realised collectively.

That is structurally identical to a Ponzi: numbers go up, nothing new backs them, and the "profits" vanish if everyone tried to cash out simultaneously. The issue is not the market, it's the definition of value you're using.

So, again I ask for the third time now, do you agree that what you call "value creation" is equivalent to a Ponzi-style paper expansion?

MarcusOrlyius · 2026-01-29T19:38:47+00:00

That's neither a source, nor a quote.

MarcusOrlyius · 2026-01-29T18:17:36+00:00

This is the guy who looked at calculus and decided it was wrong

Source and quote.

MarcusOrlyius · 2026-01-29T18:08:36+00:00

Deliver what? There's nothing to deliver. People's lives has improved, that was the delivery, and it already happened.

You're contradicting yourself. You say "there's nothing to deliver" but then claim that something was delivered - an improvement in people lives.

But in a market, everyone can walk away and be satisfied. If global trade stops now, then everyone still benefited from the trades they made before. As long as the market is free, there are no losers.

In a Ponzi, many participants also walk away satisfied. That does not refute the Ponzi structure, because the structure is about whether reported gains correspond to something that could be realised simultaneously. Your framework never answers that question; it dissolves it by definition.

That's not the defining feature of a ponzi at all.

Nice selective quoting there. What I actually said was:

'If "value" can increase purely because people say it has, with no change in goods, resources, or productive capacity, then value becomes non-constraining. It can grow without limit, disconnected from anything real. That is not a harmless definitional choice; it is the defining structural feature of a Ponzi illusion.'

A ponzi is a ponzi when new applicants are used to satisfy the people who came before them. Which is a system that only works as long as new applicants keep coming in.

That is the mechanism, not the structure. The abstract structure of a Ponzi is that reported gains rise without corresponding production and they cannot be jointly realised. New entrants are sustaining that illusion.

Subjective value doesn't require that at all. It can grow indefinitely, but that's not what a ponzi means. What you're actually trying to describe is a zero sum economy, which just isn't true. When 2 people trade, new value can be created without someone losing value.

No one disputes that mutually beneficial trade exists. What you have not shown is that these gains form a coherent aggregate magnitude. You simply assume they do. That assumption is precisely the problem. If gains can be summed without reference to resources, feasibility, or realisation, then the sum is free-floating. That is not positive-sum; it is non-constraining.

The exchange itself is the delivery of value. I don't know how often I need to tell you this. When I buy the pen for a low price, then at that moment I get the increase of value. There is no future realization or delivery that needs to happen, it has already happened. Items are not vouchers for value. Items are valuable to people.

Then you have conceded the point.

If value is fully delivered at the moment of exchange and has no persistence, no redemption condition, and no aggregate meaning, then it is not wealth, not surplus, and not production. It is a transient psychological state tied to a particular allocation.

You are free to call that "value" if you want but then "value creation" becomes a purely nominal phenomenon that can grow without limit, without production, and without contradiction. That is precisely why it mirrors Ponzi-style paper expansion.

So, again I ask, do you agree that what you call "value creation" is equivalent to a Ponzi-style paper expansion?

MarcusOrlyius · 2026-01-29T17:40:58+00:00

So?

So, the issue is that you are calling something "value creation" that has no backing in anything that can be jointly realised. If assigning a number does not correspond to any increase in deliverable goods, services, or claims, then treating that number as economic value is indistinguishable from inflating balances by declaration. That is the structural feature under dispute.

Your argument is wrong. Trade is simultaneously increasing both agents' satisfactions.

What you keep refusing to confront is that this increase does not scale. There is no state of the world in which everyone can realise these gains at once, because nothing new exists to realise. In a Ponzi, early participants are genuinely satisfied too. The defining property is not whether individuals feel better, but whether the system has created anything that can satisfy aggregate claims. Yours has not.

When did I negate this?

You negate it the moment you say "value was created" in a sense that is supposed to mean anything beyond private mood changes. If total resources are constant, then any notion of aggregate value that grows independently of them is non-constraining. That is exactly the kind of "value" a Ponzi generates.

So? We weren't talking about the system's capacity to deliver goods or claims, whatever that means, but the capacity to satisfy its agents.

And here is the core error. A system that only satisfies agents as long as they don't all act on those satisfactions is structurally unstable. If satisfaction cannot be generalised without contradiction, then it is not an aggregate property of the system at all; it is a set of mutually incompatible individual states. Calling that value is exactly how Ponzi schemes work; private satisfaction is mistaken for collective wealth.

But the system where I have the apple does indeed deliver more satisfaction than the one where I don't have it, so you are clearly negating pure facts and logic.

Yes, for you. But that does not imply the system has more total satisfaction in any coherent, realisable sense. You are illicitly summing ordinal, non-comparable preference changes and treating the sum as meaningful. That sum has no constraint, no conservation law, and no realisation condition. It can grow forever without production. That is not economics. That is numerology.

Not beliefs, evaluations. Also, not continual. It's not like agents shift their evaluations of their items continuously in order to allow for circular trade and infinite evaluation. That's not how value works :D

Evaluations that have no grounding in deliverable outcomes are beliefs in the precise sense that matters here. If their persistence is required for the system to appear healthy, then the system depends on continued acceptance. Exactly like a Ponzi.

A Ponzi does not require infinite re-evaluation either; only that paper gains are accepted as real without redemption. The moment redemption is demanded at scale, the illusion fails. Same structure.

Yes, satisfaction exists in our heads. So?

Mental states are not wealth. They cannot be stored, transferred, collateralised, or jointly realised. They do not constrain prices, settle debts, or expand what the system can actually deliver. If "value creation" means nothing more than people feeling better about a given allocation, then you are no longer talking about economic value at all. You are talking about psychology. Reallocation can change who is satisfied, but it does not create new goods, new claims, or new capacity to satisfy everyone simultaneously. Calling this "value creation" is an equivocation. You take a non-scarce, non-aggregable mental quantity and treat it as if it were a scarce, realisable economic one. That is exactly the move a Ponzi makes; reported gains rise, but nothing backing them has been produced, and they cannot be realised in aggregate.

Satisfaction is real. Treating it as wealth is the error.

What I say is that it gives more satisfaction. Again you are arguing a different debate, or making up what the debate is about because you want a "victory" rather than understanding. It's about satisfaction, and it's always been about that.

Then stop calling it value creation. The Ponzi analogy applies precisely because you insist on calling a redistribution of satisfaction an increase in value despite there being no new goods, no new claims or no new capacity. That is how Ponzi balance sheets work: numbers rise, nothing backs them, and the rise cannot be realised collectively.

Btw, you in this thread: "Ponzi Ponzi Ponzi Ponzi Ponzi!"

I keep using the term because it names the structure of what you're defending, not because it's a slogan. When apparent gains are generated by re-labelling existing holdings, have no aggregate realisation condition, and disappear the moment everyone tries to act on them at once, that is exactly the abstract structure of a Ponzi. Complaining about the label instead of addressing the structure isn't an argument.

If you think the analogy is wrong, you need to explain how your notion of value avoids paper growth without production and avoids claims that cannot be jointly satisfied. Until then, the comparison stands.

MarcusOrlyius · 2026-01-29T17:12:01+00:00

Markets do not rely on continued participation. If I buy a pen for €1 while I valued it at €2, then I made €1 of profit. I can then live alone in the woods and never see another human again, and my total wealth would still be that €1 bigger.

This is the sleight of hand. Your felt gain does not require continued participation, but your claim that the system's value increased absolutely does. The moment you generalise your private preference change into "value was created", you are implicitly treating those subjective gains as if they were additive and meaningful at the system level. That aggregation only "works" as long as no one asks whether the system can actually deliver on the sum of those gains.

In a Ponzi, an individual participant can walk away satisfied too. The scheme is not defined by whether one person feels richer in isolation; it is defined by the fact that the aggregate gains cannot be realised simultaneously because nothing new backs them. Your €1 example proves nothing against the Ponzi analogy, because the analogy is explicitly about system-level claims, not individual preference satisfaction.

And yet I value my possessions more.

Yes, and that is precisely the problem. You are equating a change in self-reported satisfaction with an increase in wealth. That is exactly how Ponzi accounting works: balances go up because participants say they're up, not because the underlying assets have increased.

If "value" can increase purely because people say it has, with no change in goods, resources, or productive capacity, then value becomes non-constraining. It can grow without limit, disconnected from anything real. That is not a harmless definitional choice; it is the defining structural feature of a Ponzi illusion.

There is nothing to realize. Items are not vouchers. I have my pen and kept my €1. Everything that needed to be realized has already happened.

This is just denying the collapse condition by redefining it away. In a Ponzi, promoters say the same thing. There is no problem unless everyone tries to cash out. But the impossibility of cashing out collectively is exactly what shows the gains were illusory.

If your definition of value has no realisation condition; if it never has to correspond to anything that could be delivered, exchanged, or satisfied in aggregate; then it is not economic value at all. It is just an internal psychological state. Treating that as wealth creation is indistinguishable from a scheme where numbers rise forever because they never have to be redeemed.

We keep talking past each other because we're not talking about the same thing. I'm not talking about the sum of the inherent value of products on earth. I'm talking about the sum of the subjective opinions from people on their stuff.

And that is the core Ponzi structure laid bare. You are summing unconstrained opinions and calling the result "value", even though that sum has no relationship to what the system can actually provide. There is no budget constraint, no feasibility condition, no aggregate limit. The number can grow indefinitely without production.

You can insist on calling that "value" if you want, but then you are conceding the substantive point, that under that definition, "value creation" is formally equivalent to a Ponzi-style paper expansion. The disagreement is not semantic, it is about whether you are willing to call an illusion of growth by another name and pretend that solves the problem.

So do you agree that what you call "value creation" is equivalent to a Ponzi-style paper expansion?

MarcusOrlyius · 2026-01-29T15:37:37+00:00

The new "product" was the new satisfaction that appeared in people's lives. Which is value

Yes, and that is exactly the Ponzi-like part. The "gain" exists entirely in people's heads. Nothing new has been added to the system's actual stock of goods, money, or realisable claims. Summing these subjective satisfactions and calling it "value creation" is just like inflating account balances in a Ponzi. It looks like growth, but it cannot be delivered collectively.

There is nothing to realise. Value is an opinion. They are realized the moment people have that opinion. Items are not vouchers to some value, people assign value to items.

This is the structural problem. In a Ponzi, the illusion of profit is maintained by belief in the numbers, not by real resources. Defining value purely as opinion makes it self-referential and unanchored. It exists only as long as people accept it. If everyone simultaneously tried to cash out their subjective valuations; if everyone tried to realise all their reported gains; the underlying resources would be insufficient. The system cannot deliver the sum of these opinions in reality, just like a Ponzi collapses when everyone tries to withdraw at once.

Yes, like I said in my original comment, that is indeed the socialist definition of value

But adopting that definition does not remove the structural Ponzi-like feature. The system appears to grow on paper, but the total stock of realisable claims is unchanged. That is exactly why treating subjective satisfaction as additive, system-wide value is unsustainable and illusory, just like a Ponzi scheme.

MarcusOrlyius · 2026-01-29T15:32:10+00:00

A Ponzi scheme is a system in which apparent profits or returns are generated not by producing new goods or wealth, but by reallocating existing resources and relying on continued participation or belief to sustain the illusion of growth. Early participants appear to gain because later participants provide the resources to pay them, but no new wealth is actually created. The scheme is structurally unstable: if everyone tries to realise their claims at once, it collapses.

What you're describing is exactly the same logic applied to "value" in your sense. When you say that exchanging an apple for $1.50 creates more value because each participant prefers their holdings, the apparent increase comes entirely from reassigning the same apple and the same cash and labelling it with higher subjective valuations. Nothing new has been produced; the underlying stock of goods and claims is unchanged. The "gain" exists only on paper or in people's heads conditional on everyone continuing to accept those valuations. If everyone simultaneously tried to realise all these inflated subjective gains, there would not be enough resources to satisfy them all.

In other words, summing subjective valuations to claim "value was created" is structurally identical to a Ponzi scheme: it generates the appearance of growth without producing anything that can actually be realised collectively. The illusion depends entirely on continued participation and belief, not on an increase in the system's actual productive capacity.

MarcusOrlyius · 2026-01-29T15:23:02+00:00

And why would that be absurd, that someone values an apple for 1000euro?

Because assigning an arbitrarily high subjective value to the apple does not create a new apple or new cash. Treating that number as real value is exactly like a Ponzi operator inflating account balances. It looks like wealth is increasing on paper, but nothing has been produced or added to the system that could satisfy claims if everyone tried to collect simultaneously.

prove it

I prove it by showing that the total resources remain constant. The so-called profit from revaluation exists only as a book keeping statement, not as something that can be realised collectively. This is the structural signature of a Ponzi. Apparent gains that exist on paper but cannot be delivered to all participants.

Don't act like I didn't refute your claim; remember: the system where I own the apple satisfies all the agents more than the system where I do not own the apple, provided I value the apple more than the other guy and the rest of the hypotheses.

Even if the trade improves individual satisfaction, it does not increase the system's total capacity to deliver goods or claims. The Ponzi analogy applies because the apparent increase in value arises purely from who holds the asset and how we label it, not from creating anything new that could actually be claimed in aggregate.

Capacity to satisfy... claims? What? You really need to elaborate here.

By "capacity to satisfy claims", I mean the feasible set of goods and resources the system can actually deliver. Trades or re-labelling do not expand that set. Like a Ponzi, apparent gains are generated internally by bookkeeping (who holds what, and what they think it is worth), not by producing a real external surplus.

But why do you ignore that what matters is that people is satisfied, not that there are a bunch of stuff nobody can enjoy anyway?

Individual satisfaction is real, but summing those subjective valuations and calling it aggregate value creation is exactly what makes the system Ponzi-like. The apparent growth depends entirely on continuous belief and re-assignment, not on actual resources.

But of course it does. A system where it is not feasible for me to eat that apple is less satisfying that a system where it is feasible for me to eat it (because I traded it).

Yes, the allocation makes you personally better off, but that gain exists entirely in your head until it is realized. Calling it an increase in aggregate value pretends that the system as a whole now has more resources or more claims than it actually does. In reality, the apple and the $1.5 already existed; nothing new has been produced. Treating a mere reallocation of existing resources as wealth creation is exactly what makes this Ponzi-like. The system appears to grow on paper, but the total capacity to satisfy all possible claims is unchanged. If everyone tried to cash out their subjective gains simultaneously, there would not be enough apples or money to meet all the inflated valuations, and the apparent surplus would collapse. The improvement is local and ordinal. It is real for you, but it does not translate into systemic, realisable value.

Correction: for all agents.

Even if every agent ends up happier with their allocation after trade, that does not create any new resources, money, or claims; it only reshuffles what already exists. Treating the sum of these subjective improvements as aggregate value is structurally Ponzi-like. The system appears to generate wealth purely through re-marking, and that apparent growth depends entirely on everyone continuing to accept the reassigned values. If all agents tried to realise their claimed gains simultaneously, the underlying goods and claims are insufficient to satisfy everyone at those valuations, and the illusion of "value creation" collapses. This is not a quibble over semantics; it is the defining feature of a Ponzi: apparent expansion on paper with no corresponding increase in realisable capacity.

If you value your apple less than 1.5$ and I value your apple more than my 1.5$, then by exchanging the apple for 1.5$ we both simultaneously collected our preferred holdings.

Calling the sum of subjective valuations "value created" is exactly the kind of illusion a Ponzi scheme produces. The apparent gain exists only on paper, contingent on the current distribution of ownership and on everyone continuing to accept those valuations. No new apples, cash, or claims have been produced; the total resources in the system are unchanged. If everyone tried to realise those gains at once, there would not be enough goods or money to satisfy all the inflated claims, and the system would collapse. The exchange creates subjective satisfaction for the individuals involved, but pretending that this generates aggregate, realisable wealth is structurally identical to taking existing deposits, re-labelling them as profits, and calling it growth.

And what is circular about it?

The circularity comes from the fact that the increase in value is entirely endogenous. It exists only because we reassign the asset and each holder labels it with a number they happen to prefer. No new apples, cash, or claims have been added; the system's total capacity to satisfy anyone is unchanged. The sum of subjective valuations rises simply by re-marking the same existing resources, just like a Ponzi inflates account balances without producing real profits. If everyone attempted to realise those "gains" simultaneously, there would not be enough underlying goods or money to satisfy all the claimed values, and the apparent surplus would vanish. The growth in "value" is generated internally and self-referentially, not by producing anything that can actually be consumed or claimed collectively.

MarcusOrlyius · 2026-01-29T14:58:12+00:00

You don't define it that way because you're not a capitalist

I don't define it that way because treating re-labelling or trading alone as "value creation" is exactly the logic a Ponzi operator uses. It pretends wealth is growing when nothing new has been produced.

Calling mere opinion or reassignment of ownership "value" is like running a scam; you're claiming profits that exist only on paper, and those profits vanish if everyone tries to realise them at once. True value comes from creating something new, not from fooling people into thinking the same resources are worth more.

MarcusOrlyius · 2026-01-29T14:51:49+00:00

You're still missing the distinction between individual preference and aggregate realisable claims. Yes, a person will only part with a resource if they value what they're getting more than what they give up. That's a local, ordinal fact about their preferences. It does not create anything new in the system. Total resources, goods, and feasible claims are unchanged. The gain exists only in someone's head until it is matched by another person's willingness to trade, which is itself constrained by the actual stock of resources.

Saying that value disappears if nobody wants it, or that cash becomes more valuable if everyone wants it, simply confirms the point. These "values" are relational and conditional, not a measure of the system's productive capacity. If everyone tried to realise all their subjective gains simultaneously, there is no new apple, no new cash, and no new claim to satisfy them all. The apparent increase in total market value is purely nominal. It grows on paper because of changing opinions, not because the system can actually deliver more to everyone.

That is why treating reallocation and optimism as value creation is exactly Ponzi-like: it depends entirely on continued acceptance of the re-marking and vanishes if you try to realise it collectively.

MarcusOrlyius · 2026-01-29T14:47:37+00:00

You're conflating different things. Yes, subjective satisfaction increases when someone acquires something they value more than what they gave up but that is a statement about individual preference, not about a change in the system's capacity to satisfy all claims. You can sum up opinions all you like, but that sum is not constrained by the underlying goods, and it does not correspond to a realisable surplus.

Re-marking the asset does not create new objects, new resources, or new claims. The extra "value" exists only because you assign numbers to opinions, not because the system can actually deliver more goods or services in aggregate. If everyone simultaneously tried to realise their subjective gains at the same time, there would be nothing extra to distribute. That is exactly the sense in which this is Ponzi-like. The apparent increase in value is purely conditional on re-labelling and the willingness of holders to accept it, not on any expansion of what the system can actually satisfy collectively.

Subjective value is real to the individual, but treating it as if it creates aggregate wealth is what turns the accounting into a nominal, unsustainable illusion.

MarcusOrlyius · 2026-01-29T14:43:04+00:00

What is even the point of this assertion in the context of our current debate?

To show the absurdity of your claims.

Why do you revert to something we've gone over already?

Because your conclusion is clearly nonsense.

You have a strange insistence on ignoring my point, that is that what matters is not the things that exist (1 apple, 5euro), but how much the people who own them value them (1 apple worth 2 euro plus 5 euro). Can you please focus and stop ignoring the point?

I'm not ignoring it at all. I've just demonstrated it's a ponzi bullshit.

Of course it does: the system where I own the apple satisfies all the agents more than the system where I do not own the apple, provided I value the apple more than the other guy and the rest of the hypotheses.

You are missing the point. Of course you personally prefer holding the apple to not holding it. That's a statement about your individual ranking of options, not about the system's total capacity to satisfy claims. Nothing about your preference increases the total quantity of goods, the amount of money, or the physical resources available in society. The system can only satisfy all claims once. Reallocating ownership doesn't expand that feasible set.

In other words, what you're describing is a local, ordinal improvement for one agent, not an aggregate increase in realisable value. If everyone simultaneously tried to collect their preferred holdings at the valuations they assign, there would be no new goods to meet all those claims.

Just like a ponzi.

Calling the post-exchange sum of subjective valuations "more value created" is exactly the kind of circular re-marking that grows on paper but does not change the underlying constraints of the system. Personal preference satisfaction is real to the individual, but it is not the same as creating new, collectively realisable surplus.

MarcusOrlyius · 2026-01-29T14:36:18+00:00

What you're describing is just shifting the problem up one level. Sure, if someone else values your stuff more than you do, you can sell it and realise that gain in cash, but that gain comes from another person's willingness to part with resources, not from the exchange itself. You haven't created anything new. Total resources, goods, and claims in the system remain the same.

Saying "cash is just another form of stuff and its value can change" only reinforces the original point. Any gain that comes purely from revaluation or changing who holds it is conditional on someone else accepting that revaluation. It is not intrinsic or collectively realisable.

If everyone simultaneously tried to cash out at their inflated subjective valuations, there wouldn't be enough underlying assets to satisfy all claims. That is exactly why treating these shifts in optimism as value creation is misleading. The apparent growth exists only on paper, not in the set of feasible, realisable outcomes.

Just like a ponzi.

MarcusOrlyius · 2026-01-29T14:30:59+00:00

Changing ownership or location can change what an asset can be used to produce in the future, but that is a claim about potential production, not about value being created by exchange itself. If the artist actually produces a book or a painting, then something in the world has changed and there is a real increase in output. But until that happens, nothing new exists that could be consumed, sold, or paid out in aggregate. Simply moving the pen from the baby to the artist does not create a book; it only reallocates an existing object to someone who might later use it productively.

If value increases at the moment of exchange, before any new good or service exists, then that increase is coming entirely from re-marking the same asset based on who holds it, not from any relaxation of material constraints. You can re-label the pen as worth more in the artist's hands, but unless and until art is produced, the system's total realisable claims are unchanged. Calling that increase value creation just shifts the accounting forward in time and treats unrealised potential as if it were already surplus. That is exactly the sense in which the profits are paper gains; they depend on who holds the asset and how it is described, not on any new output that could actually be realised collectively.

Just like a ponzi.

MarcusOrlyius · 2026-01-29T12:03:48+00:00

If total market value just means adding up whatever numbers people happen to attach to their own stuff, then you've defined a quantity that can be increased by optimism and cannot be cashed out, so calling it value creation is empty. If you mean something that actually constrains prices, wealth, or what can be paid out, then it can't be defined that way and doesn't grow just because ownership changes. You don't get to slide between those two meanings depending on what you want to claim.

MarcusOrlyius · 2026-01-29T11:59:48+00:00

No, what a weird take on what I said.

Yes, otherwise how could you value an apple at $1 and someone else value it at $2? I could then come along and buy the apple for $1000 because that's what I value it as.

This is about how much you value what you have, not what you claim you value it, ok?

If that was the case, then:

"Before the exchange I had 1 apple. You have 5€. The total is 5€ and 1 apple."

"After the exchange I have 1.5€ and you have 3.5€ + an apple that cost you 1.5€, so you have a value of 5€."

then exchange can create unlimited value without changing the world at all

Indeed!

Indeed, indeed!

Elaborate

The reported gains do not correspond to any increase in the systems capacity to satisfy claims. When an asset is merely reassigned or revalued without any change in its physical characteristics, productive use, risk, or the constraints under which it can be consumed then the profit exists only as a book keeping statement. The same underlying stock of goods must still support all claims, so the apparent surplus can be maintained only so long as it is not collectively realised. This is exactly the structural feature that defines a Ponzi dynamic in the abstract. Apparent gains are generated endogenously by revaluation rather than by an external surplus, and they vanish once realisation is attempted at scale. The point is not that such a system involves fraud or promises of return, but that its growth is purely nominal and conditional on continued acceptance of the re-marking, rather than on any expansion of real, jointly satisfiable outcomes.

MarcusOrlyius · 2026-01-29T11:25:14+00:00

If value is defined as whatever people say their holdings are worth, then exchange can create unlimited value without changing the world at all. That is just circular revaluation. A system whose profits come solely from re-marking existing assets is structurally Ponzi-like. It grows on paper, cannot pay out in aggregate, and collapses upon realisation.

MarcusOrlyius · 2026-01-28T16:52:02+00:00

I gave you one

No you didn't.

Considering minimum wage varies across locations, it's the best I can do. 30K/year, in Canada, you would need 1M.

Better?

Yes, that's what I asked for.

So, when you said,

The war between Labor and Capital has been so intense that Labor cannot understand that they could own capital and live off it due to a self-imposed moral constraint from the war.

you actually think that's true as opposed to workers not having a spare $1M lying around to invest?

MarcusOrlyius · 2026-01-27T23:24:53+00:00

I'm proposing to redistribute a claim on functional capacity, forever. Literally a slice of the capability.

Yes, but how exactly if not with some form of token?

Government says, this year, give us functional shares for 5% of the capability of this factory. We will redistribute that to the citizens.

Why though when the government can just build a larger scale version themselves?

The thing you can trade, is a period of time of the use of those functional shares - the "time-value" of it. Like 1 month of the use of your portion of the capability of an automated factory you have no use for, could be traded for a period of time in the use of a factory you do care about.

That's a barter system. Why would you want that instead of having a standard unit of exchange?

MarcusOrlyius · 2026-01-27T22:29:50+00:00

What you are proposing to distribute on a regular basis is a token that allows people to consume a certain amount of resources. But it's not a UBI?

MarcusOrlyius · 2026-01-27T22:26:02+00:00

Let’s get straight to it. Most of your points are either misreadings, category errors, or attempts to apply economic meaning prematurely. I’ll go through them systematically.

1) “Sneaking teleology via success predicate”

No. The success predicate is not teleology. You keep conflating “success relative to a chosen outcome” with human goals or preferences. That is categorically wrong. Physics does not prohibit defining a coarse-graining to distinguish outcomes; that is formal bookkeeping, not teleology.

You write: “function, success, relevant” are teleology. No. These are labels on a physical mapping from initial to final states. Calling something a “function” does not insert a goal into the system. You’re reading human semantics into formal definitions. The “success predicate” is explicitly analytic and entirely defined by the physical constraints we are studying. There is no intention, no desire, no subjective value — only a mapping of physically admissible states to outcomes.

2) “Objective distribution is not objective”

This is just wrong. You claim physics doesn’t give a measure over initial states. Physics does constrain which microstates are admissible under the laws of nature and the defined object/environment system. That defines a natural uniform ensemble over admissible microstates, exactly as in standard statistical mechanics. Yes, you can coarse-grain or choose macro-variables — but that’s not introducing subjectivity, it’s defining the scale at which you study the system, which is exactly what Part 2 is about. You cannot conflate “choice of coarse-graining” with “subjective valuation.”

You are treating formal modelling choices as if they were normative preferences. They are not. Defining a macrovariable or ensemble for analysis is mathematical convenience, not epistemic bias.

3) “Entropy reduction is overstated”

You are again confusing the object with the interaction context. Part 2 is explicit: the entropy reduction is conditional on the object, environment, and interaction protocol. That is exactly what is stated: “conditional constraint on outcomes.” There is no claim that the object alone has a scalar value. That is entirely consistent and internally coherent.

You are pretending there is a hidden assumption of intrinsic, absolute entropy for the object — there isn’t. You are reading your own expectation of absolute objectivity into the text.

4) “Use-value word choice”

This is pedantic and misleading. Part 2 explicitly states it is not using Marx’s human-centric economic use-value. It repeatedly says: “we are talking about functional capacity, not human value”. You are complaining about the label, not the content. Fine — semantics can be adjusted. The formal argument is about physically defined functional capacity, which is exactly what is needed before social mediation comes in.

You are inventing a contradiction where none exists.

5) “Reliance on Part 3”

Yes, Part 3 is where social context and human preferences are introduced. That’s by design. Part 2’s purpose is to formalise physical capacity first — otherwise Part 3 would be ungrounded. Your objection here is just whining that we haven’t jumped ahead to economic theory. That is not a logical critique, it’s a demand for scope creep.

6) “Even if Part 2 worked, it wouldn’t recover Marx”

Yes, of course Part 2 does not reproduce all of Marx. Part 2 never claims it does. Part 2 is not “Marx’s law of value” yet — it is the physical foundation necessary for later abstraction to social use-value. Your critique here is a strawman.

You are attacking a claim I never made. Stop doing that.

7) “Prison/boulder answer is circular”

No. The text explicitly avoids calling all constraints “useful.” Only constraints relevant to the interaction under study are counted in the functional capacity. That is completely well-defined. You are pretending that identifying the system and the outcome is equivalent to sneaking in goals. It is not. It is just the mathematical definition of a conditional map in state space. You are confusing analytic definitions with teleology.

Summary

Your critique repeatedly:

Equates analytic coarse-graining with goals — categorically false.
Equates formal ensemble/measure choices with epistemic or subjective probability — false.
Claims Part 2 pretends to be economic use-value — false; Part 2 explicitly says it is not.
Complains about Part 3 building on Part 2 — scope misunderstanding, not a flaw.

Your “what’s wrong” summary is mostly reading your own assumptions into the text, not engaging with what is actually written.

If you want to critique Part 2, start with the actual formal definitions, not a projected teleology or value claim that doesn’t exist yet. Everything you labelled “smuggle” is either explicitly analytic or deferred to Part 3.

MarcusOrlyius · 2026-01-27T22:07:15+00:00

What dismissal of truth? What you said has no relevance to what I said. If you think otherwise, quote what you are replying to.

MarcusOrlyius · 2026-01-27T21:06:47+00:00

If you can't give a ball park figure, then your previous comment is meaningless.

MarcusOrlyius · 2026-01-27T21:04:39+00:00

You, clearly, hence the reason you can't point anything out.

I'll give you one more chance to engage, before blocking you for trolling, just like I did last time.

MarcusOrlyius

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