The Theory of Surplus Value (Intro to Marxism Part 3)

[@cavalera380]

many thanks for these videos, do you have any book recommendations?

[@TexTalksSometimes]

I mean lots lol what are you looking to learn more about?

[@cavalera380]

@@TexTalksSometimes now i'm interested in learning more of history through historical materialism :) already read the origin of the state by engels and most of the basics

[@cavalera380]

also works about religion from marxist authors if you know any!

[@TexTalksSometimes]

@@cavalera380 okay that one is specific enough that I can help. I'm actually on a bit of a religion stint myself lately. A fantastic Marxist analysis of Jewish history is The Jewish Question: A Marxist Interpretation by Abram Leon. (He was a Belgian Jewish communist who died in Auschwitz, spent his whole short life writing just that one book.) I'm also currently reading Foundations of Christianity by Karl Kautsky, which is great so far.

[@cavalera380]

@@TexTalksSometimes thanks!! un beso desde españa

[@Drforbin941]

Your brilliant my friend

[@lluchmartinez3586]

good stuff

[@wwahyyy2035]

this is good stuff. keep it accessible pls.

[@TexTalksSometimes]

I like to think I do that!

[@wwahyyy2035]

@@TexTalksSometimes meant that please keep it accessible in public domain and not on private youtubeland where they could censor this.

[@TexTalksSometimes]

@@wwahyyy2035 oh, where can I go to do that?

[@wwahyyy2035]

@@TexTalksSometimes things like "bitchute" and "d.tube" anything thats made somewhat de-centralised.

[@TexTalksSometimes]

@@wwahyyy2035 I'll look into it and safeguard them as much as possible, thanks for the tip!

[@digaddog6099]

Im a bit confused on what S actually represents. If we take our perfectly representative worker working a 12 hour work day, spending an equal amount of time on C, V, and T, then i can imagine they'd: C. Maintain and build machinery V. Produce food, build houses, and manage water supplies S. ??? They would work on the same things as V for a while, but we've decided that most of S isnt used as subsidence, but as reinvestment. But wouldn't that be C?

[@TexTalksSometimes]

No, C as I'm defining it here is only the amount of labor required for reproducing means of production given the current requirements of production that day. It is certainly possible that all of S could be reinvested and used to scale up production (if you're willing to starve the capitalists!) but I'll leave it up to you as to whether that's actually happening in our reality. Most economists estimate 3% gdp growth per year as a healthy capitalist system (and we don't even usually achieve that). Also just as a little nitpick: a single worker isn't spending some of their time on C, some on S and some on V. Most workers are only producing one thing all day which falls into one of the 3 categories. It's only in aggregate, looking over all labor done by all workers in a day, that this kind of accounting is reasonable.

[@digaddog6099]

​@@TexTalksSometimesI was using the generalization you used in episode 2 (I think) for simplicities case, where we imagine theres just one worker who does all work. To rephrase my question: According to the Coercive laws of Competition argument, capitalists need to push S more and more into V. This isn't simply a matter of greed, but of need. They need to have higher profits than other capitalists because in a crisis the large eat the small. So, what is labor actually making when it makes S? It cant just be the means of subsidence. That's part of S, but since theres more workers than capitalists, that only justifies S being, at minimum, a small fraction of V. It cant be luxury goods either. That's what the Coercion within Competition argument argues against. Capitalists want to spend their money, but they cant. Because they need to spend it on making their company the strong. S also can't be capital goods. That's what C represents. If capitalists dont need to push S into V more and more, past the point of their own necessity, that removes the foundation of many future arguments. Episode 4 argues that in order to maintain profits, capitalists need to exploit workers more and more as C grows, but if capitalists dont need to push S, then falling rates of profits are much less of an incentive to exploit. This push of S into V is supposed to represent more and more time which the workers produce goods for S, and the coercive laws of competition claims that these goods are goods which companies use to make themselves larger. So what are those goods? By the way, I do like the series so far (I'm on episode 4) I'm just having a hard time jumping between the layers of abstraction present.

[@digaddog6099]

​@@TexTalksSometimesok, I found some equations in your later videos which I think might help. I'm just doing this math for the first time, writing this comment, so I'm not sure what the results will be. Δ(C+V)=aS For production cycles: t-1 t [C|V|S][C|V|S], Cy(t-1)=C₁y₁(t)+C₂y₂(t) Cy(t)=V₁y₁(t)+S₁y₁(t) Ly(t)=V₂y₂(t)+S₂y₂(t) These equations come from the first accumulation video and the second reproduction schema respectively. The first thing we can observe is that, where a+b=1, where a represents reinvestment and b represents luxury goods, is that every coercive force that makes the capitalists raise S must come from the need for aS. Although the capitalists need some bS to survive, there isn't any systematic force which makes them raise b. Its just want. So we'll set a to 1. The second thing we realize is that the equalities given above can be visualized. For the following equations, the columns represent what they do in the earlier array [C, V, S][C, V, S] and the rows represent total production, department 1, and department 2. The highlighted boxes represent the equalities in the second set. Cy(t-1)=C₁y₁(t)+C₂y₂(t) ⬜⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ============= ⬛⬛⬛⬜⬛⬛ ⬛⬛⬛⬜⬛⬛ Cy(t)=V₁y₁(t)+S₁y₁(t) ⬛⬛⬛⬜⬛⬛ ============= ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬜⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ Ly(t)=V₂y₂(t)+S₂y₂(t) ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬜⬜ ============= ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬜⬜ Taken all together, we can color code this as ⚪⬛⬛🔵🔴🔴 ============= ⬛⬛⬛⚪🔵🔵 ⬛⬛⬛⚪🔴🔴 The first thing we can see from here is that C+V+S isnt the same bar as just the two departments summed. Overall C is department 1s labor, but C₁+C₂ is yesterday's overall capital production. To me, maybe I'm reading this wrong, but this seems to imply the upper bar is actual labor, measured in hours, done each day, macro scale. The department bars represents exchange itself. The labor and capital the capitalist gets through purchase and for free. I kind of feel like this is how we've been using the bars so far anyway, but its nice to write them out. The first thing we realize is that, in the instance of global labor, new value is being created at C, since C represents the labor that's going to die, not the labor that's dead. From the perspective of the capitalist, however, an increase in C makes it harder to exploit. I dont believe this shakes any notions, but I'll have to think on it some more. The second thing we realize is that the global labor bar and the exchange bar feeds each other. Yesterdays global labor feeds tomorrow's exchange capital, and today's labor exchange feeds today's labor. The third thing we notice is those 8 missing squares. I'm going to write out the table 1 more iterations to see what happens. ⚪⬛⬛🔵🔴🔴⬜🔳🔳 =================== ⬛⬛⬛⚪🔵🔵🔵⬜⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⚪🔴🔴🔵🔳🔳 I derived this result through these means: 1. We can use ⚪'s pattern to imply 🔵's. 2. We cant imply anything else about the continuation of 🔴 and ⚪, so we have to use new symbols to represent the new cycle. The new pattern we see is that capital continues throughout, but labor, in this model, lives paycheck to paycheck. This makes sense, seeing as we assumed that a laborer being paid represented hours worked by labor for labor, in the same cycle. Now let's try to fit in that first equation. Δ(C+V)=aS; we've decided earlier that a=1, for simplicity. The change in C and V, in context, represent additional t provided by the labor reserve. Let's write out the graph as an extension of our last graph, but with a final 3x3 representing not a new day, but Δt. t-2. t-1 t Δt ⚪⬛⬛🔵🔴♦️⬜🔳🔳🔺️🔻♦️ ========================== ⬛⬛⬛⚪🔵🔵🔵⬜⬜🔸️🔺️❌ ⬛⬛⬛⚪🔴🔴🔵🔳🔳🔸️🔻❌ 1. First we seperate global labor surplus from all other labor goods as ♦️, broken up into 🔺️, 🔸️ 🔻. This makes sense, as department 2 makes bS, not aS. 2. Now we want to make a call. Do we make a department 3, representing reinvestment goods? For now, I'll say no. 3. Now we insert 🔺️into Δ(C+V). Where exactly is tricky. I'll say it goes into both departments, since you can reinvest in both industries. 4. We match up the symbols by the pattern. 5. Nothing is reinvested into S in either department, as that's not implied by the equation. 6. However, we do get some labor for free from the new workers as S, from both departments. This all leads us to the above chart. What does this chart tell us? Well, it tells us that aS is used to exchange for new capital and new labor. This is just what our equation says, anyway. This new C terminates, as it's dead labor. Dept 1 and 2 both provide more C and S for future cycles and a bit of profit. So, it seems that C is work done to reproduce capital, V is work done to reproduce labor, and aS is work done to grow both capital and labor. Which I guess is just what Δ(C+V)=aS says. This seems to imply something a lot less cynical about the rate of profit, that it's simply more work done for laborers and capital goods. Work done in S is farming for immigrant workers and expanding the industrial apparatus. Neither of these, by themselves, seem like the worst things in the world. Maybe theres a study out there. or some argument, that reinvestment into the workforce hurts workers. Maybe the harm is that more and more money is spent only on a very large groups first paycheck. Maybe there is a systematic force making bS rise, such as outsider shareholders. I dont know. What do you think?

[@rotcivtilems7228]

this is all good just don't do that thing that kapitalism101 did where they deleted all their videos because they thought that they weren't good enough

[@TexTalksSometimes]

nah that would defeat their purpose. I agree that was a very strange thing to do