I lied.
Marx sounds logical most of the time. But he still has a lot of internal contradictions. And he also plays semantics all the time. Besides that, every socialist sticks to the LTV at least in some way, because there is no other way you can defend his economics.
Marx defined capitalism as free trade, free buying, free selling. He then went on to criticise capitalism while actually criticising mercantilism. That’s pretty illogical to me.
I got into a debate with a Marxist; he had to retreat on the LTV, which destroyed his defense of the exploitation theory of labor. But it didn’t destroy the belief that the economy must implode. I introduced Austrian capital theory, but he merely denied the existence of the natural rate of interest. Again, it has not been proven, so I can’t blame him. It was a pretty good debate; it seems that our positions are entirely dependent on the natural rate of interest. Of course, we have all of history proving that central planning must fail, but in a theoretical debate, none of that really matters. If the central planning can’t work, the Marxist merely says that the economy must explode no matter what.
Well Marx believed that the capitalists must inevitably create a glut of goods that flood the market, lowering their exchange rates, and destroying their profits. This is why he believes you need planners who can match the market value with their labor value, or what Marx considered the “real value.” Marxism is all about the creation of “surplus value.” If you don’t believe in the natural rate of interest, he seems to be right. Not about capitalists exploiting workers, LTV is wrong, but about the inevitable collapse.
ORLY. lol..
The logical thing for him to do would have been to check his premises.
How would this happen?
Yeah, but I mean he really couldn’t include utility theory, since, it didn’t exist, or was in its infancy.
Okay, lemme try to explain this, it’s kind of confusing since he uses different terminology. The capitalists take their variable capital (labor) and their fixed capital (machines) and try to create “surplus value.” The capitalist cannot exploit his machines, so he must exploit his workers. Since the capitalists compete amongst themselves, they must continuously face downward pressure on prices, and innovate in more productive methods. The more productive they are, and the more they compete, the more they will flood the markets with their products, reducing the prices and ultimately their profits. This happened a lot at that time, the English Farmers would sell their wheat all at the same time, and would destroy their own profit potential, since it was seasonal. During this process, they must continuously replace their workers, or “exploit them more” (again the LTV is pretty barbaric), in order to continuously make profits. This creates “labor reserve armies” which are used for new industries. It’s something like this, a Marxist would probably get very angry at me. But again, Marx doesn’t consider the role of interest rates as the mediator and regulator of production.
Yeah, doesn’t help when your epistemology is flawed… [8-)]
Economic theory was very weak at the time, he doesn’t even have a capital theory.
Can you explain? I don’t know much about philosophy. I assume you’re saying that the LTV is a priori false. But if you can just elaborate, it would be useful in my ongoing debate with this Marxist.
Yeah, they just deny capital theory and the role of interest rates. I do fine up until I have to defend the natural rate, which I’m unable to do at the moment.
Bastiat had debunked the LTV before 1850 and the clown marx knew it of course. So, no, marx was not logical but a stupid liar.
Did not know that, thanks. I’m still having trouble defending capital theory; the natural rate is still theoretical, and apparently, the idea of one unified natural rate, for all commodities, is hard for people to understand. It could be that I haven’t done enough homework on it.
Even though Bastiat’s ideas were very near to the STV, they were still very illogical and unsound. Besides that, Marx knew that Bastiat was an intelligent guy and said he was “The shallowest and therefore the most successful representative of the apologists of vulgar economics.”.
He’s just one of many ignorant people who think freedom doesn’t work, and would love to take it away. He’s one of many.
What ?? Did you read Economic Harmonies ?
That’s what marx said about Bastiat - The thing is, all that stupid little marx could do was insult Bastiat. Marx never managed to understand Bastiat , let alone refute his ideas.
I don’t think you know what the natural rate of interest is.
Correct me if I’m wrong; but I believe it’s the rate of interest that would be determined by the supply and demand if actual capital goods were lent without the mediation of money, that is, without the distorting effects in the purchasing power of money. Now if you could respond to my comment, that would be great. How do the natural rates of all the commodities equalize into one unifying rate?