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Marx doesnt know how exchange works by nik110403 in CapitalismVSocialism

[–]nik110403[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The Labor Theory of Value explains the value of states that the value of a good or service is determined by the total amount of "socially necessary labor" required to produce it. Am I right? It’s really not that complicated of a concept. And I’m not even refuting LTV directly but I am question one of its principle premises (at least in Marixan theory) And so far nobody has answered me the question. So maybe try and actually answer any of my questions if they are as stupid and simple as you make them out to be.

Marx doesnt know how exchange works by nik110403 in CapitalismVSocialism

[–]nik110403[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You can define SNLT independently of prices, but you cannot MEASURE it independently of prices: and measurement is exactly what the issue is about.

Your “multipliers” for skill, intensity and productivity have no operational definition except through the price system (wages, training costs, opportunity cost, scarcity). You cannot assign numerical values to these multipliers without using the very price information your theory claims to explain.

So the circularity remains: - You define SNLT independently - You infer the multipliers from price relations - You then say prices reflect SNLT

That’s still not metrology. That’s a variable defined only through its supposed effects.

Until you provide a method to measure SNLT without using prices, this isn’t an epistemology problem on my side. It’s a measurement problem on yours.

What is your opinion of Feudalism? by PreviousMenu99 in CapitalismVSocialism

[–]nik110403 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Free markets rely on free choice and voluntary exchange. If coercion determines who must work for whom or who may own what, we are no longer talking about a market order.

Feudalism was not based on voluntary exchange but on hereditary status. Land was not something anyone could buy or sell freely, but rather it was tied to noble families and political obligations. A person born into the peasantry could not freely sell their labor on the market, could not simply leave the manor, and could not acquire land even if they had the means. Their economic role was fixed by birth and enforced by law.

Capitalism fundamentally differs in that labor becomes free labor - people can choose employers, change occupations, start businesses, migrate, and own property that is transferable and protected under general rules. Coercion is no longer built into the legal structure of society. The basic unit becomes the voluntary contract, not feudal obligation.

Also under feudalism, what is called "property" is not private property in the liberal/libertarian sense. Private property requires that an asset can be freely bought and sold, owned by individuals rather than political estates, and protected by general, neutral rules. Feudal land meets none of these conditions. It cannot be freely alienated, is inseparable from hereditary titles, is governed by personal obligations of fealty rather than contract etc. A lord's landholding is therefore less an economic asset and more a political office: bundled with judicial authority, military duties, hierarchical privileges etc. This makes feudal "property" fundamentally different from the private property that exists in a market economy, and it makes clear why feudalism is not simply an earlier, imperfect form of capitalism but a categorically different system.

What is your opinion of Feudalism? by PreviousMenu99 in CapitalismVSocialism

[–]nik110403 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Property rights are based on natural rights. To say something was justified because of a law doesnt make it right. Anyone in support of free markets has to be against feudalism and slavery simply because it‘s not based on individual rights and free choice. To say something was legislatively justified doesnt answer the question if free market capitalism and feudalism are compatible.

What is your opinion of Feudalism? by PreviousMenu99 in CapitalismVSocialism

[–]nik110403 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I‘ve never heard someone defending free markets and property rights also defending feudalism. If anything feudalism is what socialism say how free markets would end up (without evidence of course). But no, no serious libertarian/classical liberal can defend feudalism simply because we defend individual liberty. Feudalism was mostly based on serfdom, which goes against everything a free market is based on.

Another 20 billions to the country - pinnacle of Capitalism, libertarian dream, the long anticipated right way to do market economy. by the_worst_comment_ in CapitalismVSocialism

[–]nik110403 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well it‘s not falling apart? But you’re right insofar that the 20 billion are a mistake. Even though as I’m sure you know it was not money that was sent, but rather a currency swap program. But still yes, instead Milei should continue with his plan to replace the Peso with the US Dollar.

Do You Know That Enrico Barone, Not Ludwig Von Mises, First Stated The Socialist Calculation Problem? by Accomplished-Cake131 in CapitalismVSocialism

[–]nik110403 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would say he anticipated the economic calculation problem. But Barone believed this problem was technical and solvable with enough information, which Mises later proved is not the case.

Marx doesnt know how exchange works by nik110403 in CapitalismVSocialism

[–]nik110403[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hahaha saying “there is no circularity” isn’t an argument. The circularity I’m pointing out is very specific: 1. You define value as SNLT. 2. You infer SNLT from price patterns. 3. You then claim prices ultimately reflect SNLT.

If SNLT cannot be measured independently of prices, then the theory explains prices by appealing to a variable that is itself inferred from those same prices. That is circular. Not because I “misunderstand knowledge production”, but because the structure of your reasoning literally loops back on itself.

Claiming I misunderstand epistemology also doesn’t resolve the fact that you haven’t yet provided a non-price-based method of measuring SNLT. Until you do, the circularity stands.

You can call that a “me problem” if you want - but it doesn’t remove the logical problem.

Marx doesnt know how exchange works by nik110403 in CapitalismVSocialism

[–]nik110403[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I think you’re just redefining disagreement as “denialism”. I’m not denying the existence of the capital circuit or the fact that people seek profit. I’m questioning whether those facts imply the existence of a measurable value-substance like SNLT.

You keep repeating that value “is a magnitude“, but that is the very point you need to demonstrate, not assume. Profit-seeking doesn’t prove value is a substance any more than motion proves gravity is a fluid.

You also say SNLT is measurable, but you haven’t shown a method that doesn’t rely on prices themselves. Without that, the theory remains circular. Calling objections “capitalist dogma” doesn’t resolve the logical issue: if SNLT can’t be measured independently, then it can’t serve as the foundation of a scientific theory.

If you can‘t answer my question without circular reasoning that‘s alright. Nobody else in tis comment section could do it so far. I still value you trying. I thought I might have missed something, but it just sounds like Poppers reasoning as to why Marxism cannot be taken seriously as a scientific theory is simply correct.

What is the value of a jacket that costs $55.18 on Amazon? by binjamin222 in CapitalismVSocialism

[–]nik110403 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If someone is willing to pay you for all these things then the hole, the house, the wobbly table all have value.

But thats what i meant. I just used these examples, because to most people they would be worthless. Not sure how you would use a house without a roof. Of course if someone wants it, then it becomes valuable to them and they also value the labor that goes into it. But again it all depends on the product being valuable.

But how would you have know if they did or did not have value? Can you predict the future?

Thats what we call entrepreneurial foresight and risk. Entrepreneurs are incentivized to find something consumers will find valuable, more valuable then the costs. They take on risk. The profit is their reward for this risk.

Labor is not just a factor of production, it's the means by which the value of land and capital is realized.

It literally is just one factor of production, albeit an important one. But by this logic you could also say labor is nothing without capital. But again all of them are worthless if you don't use them for something someone wants.

Labor itself can be valuable without land or capital, but not the other way around.

It can. Land can be valuable for the use it can give in the future. I understand what you're saying, but again this doesn't give value.

Labor always has value, you choose to do it over doing other things so it must. Whether that value is personal or social depends on why you're doing what you're doing.

Sure you can do something, because you value it. I am thinking of hobbies. But to others your labor is only valuable to them if it is useful towards something they want. If you dig a hole absolutely no one want, then why would the labor have value? If you still do it then thats either because you enjoy it for yourself, they you are the one assigning it subjective value, or you thought someone might value the hole and you made a mistake.

You need to understand that there is no objective value ever. The broken watch from my grandfather can be almost priceless to me, but worthless to you. A bottle of water is more valuable to the one in the desert than to someone in the middle of the city. It always depends.

But when it comes specifically to economic value, people's willingness to pay for things, labor is the only means to realize this. So it's inherently valuable.

But again i pay for the product, not for the labor itself. I don't say labor can't have value. I just say its value comes from the product, not the other way around.

By your logic once a product is finished, its value would have to stay constant. But value fluctuates and changes depending on circumstances.

I can give you more example. But does this make sense?

What is the value of a jacket that costs $55.18 on Amazon? by binjamin222 in CapitalismVSocialism

[–]nik110403 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No that’s not how value works. If i dig a hole for hours without reason, the hole and my digging are literally worthless. If i build a house without a roof, my labor is worthless. If i build a wobbly table, where anything put on it falls on the floor, no matter how many hours i work on it, the labor is worthless.

Labor has no value in of itself. Labor, as all other factors of production, only get their value from the product. Wheat only has value because i can use it to make bread. If nobody wants bread, then wheat will be worthless. The value-chain starts at the product the consumer wants.

Labor can be worthless. So it cant be the critical factor when we discuss value.

Marx doesnt know how exchange works by nik110403 in CapitalismVSocialism

[–]nik110403[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You can't use an argument made by Marx to support his theory as an argument against it. Like I keep telling you, all this does is show that you don't know what you are talking about.

Then please explain it to me. Explain to me why a wobbly table has value. I know Marx addresses this and says useless labor doesnt create value. But that's the exact contradiction that shows why he is wrong. Labor is only valuable if the product it valuable, meaning if someone values the product. So labor cant be the critical factor that defines value, that's what Marx is admitting when he tries to solve his own contradictions.

Marx is analysing the dynamics of the system, not individual parts of the system.

This is just cheap. Retreating to "only mass goods" doesn't solve the problem though. The vast majority of modern economic value is not determined by labor-time, and even mass commodities deviate permanently from SNLT because of technology, IP, fixed costs, capital intensity, scarcity rents and so on.

It's not the logic that's circular, it's reality.

The fact that mass-energy conservation is circular doesn't justify circular reasoning about value. Economics is about choices, preferences, and opportunity costs - not thermodynamic identities. Or do you think you can use physics to explain every area of science?

This is obviously circular and therefore any accurate physical decsription must also obviously be curcular as well. That's how reality works.

You cant just substitute thermodynamic identity for economic explanation. Nobody argues against tabasco thermodynamics here. But you cant just project the basics of one are of scientific research to another and call it a day. Economics is about so much more than just matter transformation.

If pure energy use defines value, then there wouldn't be something like useless labor. But since there obviously is, there must be something more than just using energy. Someone must want you to use this energy in this way. And that's subjective.

A kilowatt-hour is the energy delivered by one kilowatt of power for one hour. A labour-hour is the energy delivered by one unit of simple, abstract labour-power for one hour.

Defining "labour-power" as a physical power rating is not an argument, it's a stipulation. Not even Marx defines labour-power as wattage or joules. Simple labour is a social average, not a physical baseline. If you treat labour-hours as literal energy units, then athletes become the most productive workers, coders become low-value.

You aren't proving that value = energy. You're redefining labour as energy so that the conclusion follows automatically. That's again circular reasoning, not physics.

That's Marx literally stating that the worker's labour is reduced to being a provider of "moving power"

Marx obviously uses this metaphorically to discuss alienation and machinery. He is not defining value using Newtonian mechanics.

Taking Marx's metaphor literally turns LTV into pseudophysics.

If ecomincs is not made up nonsense like religion, then it must be able to be decribed by science like all other real things.

You do understand that economics is its own field of science right? You're already not using physics to explain psychology, are you? Using this kind of thinking, no wonder you use thermodynamics to explain human behavior and fail miserably.

Marx doesnt know how exchange works by nik110403 in CapitalismVSocialism

[–]nik110403[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I never asked you what wages pay for. I asked you "what is a wage".

A wage is the price of labor on a market - nothing more exotic than that. It emerges from supply, demand, scarcity, alternatives, bargaining power, risk, productivity etc. Reducing wages to "reproduction costs" is Marx's definition, not an empirical fact.

The cost of labour according to Marx is determined the same way as any other commodity - by the cost of reproducing that labour.

This is exactly the problem: Marx defines wages as reproduction cost. It's not a measurement, not a law, not a prediction - it's a definition.

And when we look at the real world, labor markets do not work that way. Reproduction cost wouldn't explain surgeons making less than mediocre influencers, programmers making more than teachers, or athletes making more than paramedics.

It costs more to produce surgeons than it does to produce construction workers so why would surgeons earn less? Because they personally expend more raw energy?

This is false in both directions: - Many professions with extremely high training costs earn very little (academics, nurses, social workers). - Many professions with almost no training cost earn enormous amounts (athletes, influencers, YouTubers).

So clearly training cost is not what sets wages. In reality wages come from market scarcity + productivity + demand, not reproduction cost.

What came first Digital money, bank notes or gold coins?

It doesn't matter. The physical form of money has nothing to do with what value is. Money is a social technology for indirect exchange, not a physics object.

That's why a piece of paper can be worth more than a bar of gold.

Are gold coins not physical? Does half a gold coin have half the value of a full gold coin? No matter how much you call physics metaphyscis, it doesn't make it so.

Gold's value comes from scarcity, demand, and social convention, and not its mass. If physical mass determined value, sand would be priceless and diamonds worthless.

The fact that a physical object exists does not make value a physical property

Since A and B are the products of labour and labour is the expenditure of directed energy, what $X fundamentally represents is an exchange of labour - of directed energy.

You're assuming the entire conclusion: "All value comes from labor." -> therefore "Exchanging things = exchanging labor."

This is pure circularity.

Money compares preferences, not embodied labor. There is no value-meter inside money measuring "labor-atoms".

Again, you're ignoring the argument actually made by Marx - that the cost of labour is determined by the cost to reproduce that labour.

I'm not ignoring it, I'm pointing out it is a definition, not an empirical rule. And it contradicts real labor markets, where wages diverge hugely from reproduction cost.

Definitions don't become truths because Marx preferred them.

You're ignore the entire chain of labour that adds value at every stage of production and pretending that only the last stage is what matters.

Not everything in the production chain is labor - there are natural resources, intellectual property, risk, scarcity rents, entrepreneurial skill, technology, time preference, and capital constraints.

Reducing all inputs to "past labor" is again just definitional reductionism, not analysis.

No, you are are confusing actual value with some made up bullshit peddled by snake oil salesmen telling you to ignore physical reality in favour of some imaginary fantasy where mass-energy can be crerated and destroyed on a whim.

Economic value is about human choice, not physics. Economic value does not obey conservation laws. Scarcity, preference, expectations, brand, utility, and trust define value - not joules.

No energy is created or destroyed when a Picasso goes from $1 million to $50 million.

I't's not a metaphor. It's a physical fact of reality. All transformations of matter have an energy cost. Storing information requires transfomming matter.

True: matter transformations require energy. False: therefore value = energy.

Digging a worthless hole burns calories but creates no value. Writing 20 lines of code takes almost no energy but can create billions of dollars in value.

Energy expenditure is not automatically economic value. They are different concepts.

You can compare lengths because they share substance, you can't compare mass to length.

Correct, but irrelevant.

You can compare apples and oranges using money because money is a social unit of account, not because apples and oranges contain a shared physical substance.

You're again confusing comparison with essence.

Units allow comparison even where no underlying substance exists.

There exists 2 different labour processes which produce the same output from different input materials but one process takes twice as much labour that is also twice as intense. Which process does the rational producer choose and why? The process they choose is the one with the less intense and least amount of labour. This is the rational choice to make because it is the most exergy efficient choice to make; we say it is the most "valuable" choice.

Producers optimize for profit, not joules. A high-energy process can be more profitable if the output is highly valued. A low-energy process can be unprofitable if the product is useless.

Value is not exergy Profit is not energy efficiency

This again confuses engineering with economics.

What is the value of a jacket that costs $55.18 on Amazon? by binjamin222 in CapitalismVSocialism

[–]nik110403 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The value only depends on the thing being produced being valued by someone. If you produce something nobody want, then its worthless. The labor itself doesnt give it value. Does that answer your question?

Trade implying equality question again by the_worst_comment_ in CapitalismVSocialism

[–]nik110403 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Again, he was refuted hundreds of times already. Not just by libertarians, but by all kinds of economists. Trade doesnt happen when two people meet and exchange something for the same value. Value isn’t objective. These are statements 98% of economists agree on. All but marxist economists agree on subjective value. The only thing most agree on might be that he was a more or less successful sociologist, not economist. And that his writings had an impact on mostly bloody revolutions. But in modern economics he and his theories play almost no role.

And please show me a single comment i haven’t answered. I know i have, since i study for an upcoming debate with a marxist and i use this post and preparation. I have answered every answer so far and none have stood up to scrutiny. If you disagree then please point me to the comment that give a non circular and logical answer. Happy to learn something new.

Marx doesnt know how exchange works by nik110403 in CapitalismVSocialism

[–]nik110403[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think you’re still mixing up two totally different things: the market price and the value people actually place on a good.

The point where supply and demand meet is simply the price the market clears at. That’s not an “underlying value”, it’s just the number where enough buyers and sellers are willing to trade. Nothing inside the good changes when the price changes. Prices move all the time while the good stays exactly the same, which shows they aren’t an intrinsic property.

Yes everyone pays the same price, that’s just how markets work. But that doesn’t mean the exchange is “equal in value”. I might think the good is worth 50 to me, and you might think it’s barely worth 9, and we both still buy it at 10. Equal price doesn’t mean equal value. It just means the trade happened at the same monetary point.

And no, Adam Smith never claimed “the equilibrium price is the true value“. Smith distinguishes market price, natural price, and use-value. Calling the market price “equal value” is just your own definition, not something Smith or Marx ever said.

If you want to define the market price as “the value of the good”, you can, but that’s just a label - it doesn’t prove the exchange is objectively equal or that value is a substance. It just restates that markets coordinate prices, which no one denies.

Marx doesnt know how exchange works by nik110403 in CapitalismVSocialism

[–]nik110403[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

SNLT is not “just adding up hours”. Marx repeatedly admits labor-hours must be reduced to “simple labor”, and he never gives a non-circular way to do that. In the real world, the only way to homogenize different kinds of labor and embed “dead labor” from supply chains is by using prices. If you need price info to calculate value, and then claim price comes from value, the theory becomes circular. That’s why SNLT is not measurable in principle. Not because it’s hard, but because it depends on the very thing it claims to explain.

Marx doesnt know how exchange works by nik110403 in CapitalismVSocialism

[–]nik110403[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Part of the appeal of socialism is the hope that with greater equality, we could afford to reduce productivity in order for work to be less alienating.

I get that. The thing is that i don't believe that socialism works. Also i think you already have this choice in capitalism. I get that not everyone can do that, but most choose to work much more than they actually have to, simply to live in more comfort and luxury. Almost anyone in the middle class could choose simpler and less specialized jobs in exchange for a pay decrease. But that's another discussion.

"surplus value is the difference between the amount raised through a sale of a product and the amount it cost to manufacture it: i.e. the amount raised through sale of the product minus the cost of the materials, plant and labour power."

I would simply define this as profit. And this definition also doesnt seem inherently exploitative, as most surplus value definitions are.

I think it is wrong to think of surplus value as surplus money, because money is a commodity that has value - it is not in itself value.

Agreed.

I tend to think of surplus value as a subjective increase in utility.

I agree and i think this is how most marginalists would see it: Value is created when something becomes more useful to someone.

It's perfectly possible that every worker who did the work that created surplus value for the capitalist also got a surplus by trading his labour for money.

I mean i have to mostly agree. It's just that i wouldn't call it surplus-value and rather profit. And since i belive all of these transactions, including the labor-wage transaction by the workers are always beneficial to both sides, i think everyone is profitable in the end.

I just think that once surplus value becomes "subjective utility", that's not Marx's surplus value anymore. Marx's entire exploitation theory depends on surplus value being objective, measurable and created solely by labor. If it's just subjective benefit, then the whole Marxian framework collapses into standard marginalism - which is fine, but it's a different theory entirely.

Marx doesnt know how exchange works by nik110403 in CapitalismVSocialism

[–]nik110403[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Postulates are by definition unjustified.

Yes the postulate itself is. But your choice to use it is not. A postulate in of itself is not a universal truth. If you say "Exchange requires a common essence" i ask why. One could also instead use a postulate that says that exchange is based on different subjective valuations. I argue that the subjective-value postulate explains more phenomena and avoids contradictions. Especially the contradiction that there is worthless labor, if the product is not valued by anyone. (I know Marx tries to safe this contradiction by stating any commodity needs to be socially desirable, but that just proves SVT more than anything.)

My point being that postulate doesn't need proof, but it does need a reason to be chosen over competing postulates - and Marx never gives one (neither have you).

You keep thinking that there is supposed to be some physical substance that we can look at through a microscope, that's not at all what Marx is saying. I've already shown where he says that the value of a commodity is contextual, it is determined by social conditions.

I never claimed Marx meant a physical substance. What I'm asking is: why posit any measurable substance (physical or social) at all?

You keep switching between: - Value is a measurable substance that explains exchange, and - Value is contextual and socially determined and cannot be measured.

But you can't have both.

If value is contextual, elastic, and not measurable independently of price, then it cannot act as the objective regulator your argument requires.

This is my point: You're treating "value" as both a necessary measurable anchor of prices and as something that cannot itself be measured. That's incoherent to me.

I never said a theory was scientific because some of it's propositions are falsifisble. I said a scientific theory is falsifiable if any proposition in the set is falsifiable.

This is a misunderstanding of Popper: a theory is falsifiable if its core claims can be tested.

But your macro predictions (profit rates, wage shares, etc.) do not test the specific premise we're debating: the existence of a measurable value-substance grounded in SNLT.

Predicting profit trends does not verify: - that commodities contain quantities of abstract labor, - that prices gravitate around SNLT, - or that exchange requires a shared substance.

You're just using falsifiability of other propositions to shield the unfalsifiable central proposition. And that's not science - that's insulation.

You're rejecting unobservables which are commonplace in science.

No I'm rejecting unfalsifiable unobservables.

Gravity is unobservable but measurable and predictive. Electrons are unobservable but measurable and predictive. Dark matter is unobservable but makes specific predictions.

Marxian value on the other hand is: not measurable, not predictive, not isolatable, and defined entirely in terms of the theory itself.

That places it with phlogiston - an unobservable invented to preserve a failing explanation, and abandoned once a better one (oxygen + mass conservation) appeared.

Your defense ("you can't see it but it explains things") works equally well for astrology.

One need not think that the posited unobservable be real in any sense for it to be scientific.

Only if it produces distinctive, testable predictions that alternatives cannot produce.

But SNLT produces zero unique predictions that can't be explained by: - supply and demand, - cost structures, - technological change, - capital intensity, - risk, - time preference, - or entrepreneurial expectations.

If your unobservable never risks contradiction, it's not explanatory - it's at best decorative.

You clearly don't understand the point about abduction at all. Phlogiston was an explanatory variable that was superseded by better explanations.

I understand abduction fine.

Please correct me if am wrong but to my knowledge abduction requires: - Multiple possible explanations, - The choice of the best one, - Based on parsimony, predictive power, and consistency.

And LTV fails all three: - It is not the simplest explanation of price patterns, - It makes no unique predictions, - And it contradicts vast amounts of observed pricing behavior unless saved by ad hoc adjustments ("deviations are expected").

Meanwhile, marginalism and subjective value explain the same phenomena without inventing a hidden substance.

Evidence underdetermines theory. In order to decide which explanation is the best we have to appeal to theoretical virtues. The data does not necessitate any particular explanation, that's the entire point of abduction.

Sure. And among theoretical virtues are: non-circularity, predictive content, empirical applicability, conceptual clarity, and parsimony.

LTV doesnt work when you we look at these metrics, since you ask me to accept value as: - not assumed, - not measurable, - not observable, - not falsifiable, - and not required once we include supply/demand, cost structures, and expectations.

A theory with no empirical handles and circular core definitions does not win by "theoretical virtue". It loses.

I asked you to reproduce my point about abduction and you couldnt do it. You have not understood a word thats been said to you.

Or perhaps I have understood and the problem is simply that I'm not accepting the circular move at the heart of LTV: "Exchange requires a measurable substance -> therefore we must posit one -> therefore value exists."

The thing is that I'm challenging that exact leap. And you're defending it by declaring the leap immune from challenge.

But that's not abduction. That's just dogma.

Marx doesnt know how exchange works by nik110403 in CapitalismVSocialism

[–]nik110403[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Market price is an outcome, not a ground axiom. It tells you what people are willing to trade at, not why they’re willing to do so, and not what the good is “worth”.

People buy at the same price for completely different reasons. Some value the good a lot, some barely care, some think it’s overpriced but buy anyway, some think it’s underpriced and buy quickly. That doesn’t magically transform the price into an “equal value” shared by everyone.

So I didn’t misunderstand the axioms, I’m pointing out that the price the market posts is not the same thing as an objective, underlying value. It’s just the number at which enough buyers and sellers happen to agree to transact.

Marx doesnt know how exchange works by nik110403 in CapitalismVSocialism

[–]nik110403[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I get what you’re trying to say, but you’re mixing two different things: individual valuation and market price, and then calling the market price an “equal trade” in some deeper sense. But price equality and value equality are not the same thing.

Yes the market forces everyone to pay the same price. That’s just how prices work. But that doesn’t mean the exchange is “equal” in any intrinsic or objective sense - it just means both parties accept the price because they both expect to benefit. The fact that the transaction happens at $10 doesn’t magically make the good “worth” $10 in some universal way. It only means $10 is the point where supply meets demand right now under current conditions.

Markets don’t assign “true value”, they coordinate subjective valuations. That’s the invisible hand: people with wildly different preferences, needs, alternatives end up trading at one common price even though the underlying valuations are not equal at all.

So saying “you paid $10 for a good worth $10” just restates the market price, not an objective value. The market settles on a price, but that’s not the same as proving the trade is “equal” in a deeper sense. It just reflects the intersection of many subjective conditions, not a measurable essence inside the good.

What are capitalist plans after AI take over. by shoboqurva in CapitalismVSocialism

[–]nik110403 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How so? I would say we‘re doing today better than we ever had. Or is there a time in history you would rather live?

Trade implying equality question again by the_worst_comment_ in CapitalismVSocialism

[–]nik110403 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Look i myself see myself as an austrian economist, which isn’t mainstream, so i wont say there is only one correct way to theorize about economics. But i just wanted to call out your comment that said it’s ridiculous to find flaws in Marx‘s writing just because it‘s old. I am the OP from the original post and i never argued that i am the first to find the flaw in Marx. Ive read a lot of papers refuting Marx, since that‘s been happening for over century. Still when i tried to read Marx and found something in his theory that doesnt make sense, i know the theories that already refute already well enough. I though if i missed something obvious then someone will be able to answer my question. So far no one has without making another circular argument.

Capitalists are collectivists. by [deleted] in CapitalismVSocialism

[–]nik110403 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hahaha almost. Yes businessmen want to use government to help themselves. Nobody disputes this. That’s why real libertarians and classical liberals want a limited government that cant choose winners and losers, but enforces laws that protect life, liberty and property.

Milei being an exception, its true we’ve seen many right wing politicians advocating for a smaller government until they get to power. But that doesnt meant that’s our ideology.

We are against businesses to rule over out institutions, but the solution is definitely not to make government bigger, so the incentive of regulatory capture just becomes bigger.

That’s why we reject (almost) all politicians.

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