Marx to CaspitalCapital in General Part 1 Marx A commodity is both useful and has a price. Price in part reflects the labor time on average used in making it. Real time is averaged out, some workers work faster than others. When sold the commodity will not sold exclusively at the cost of labor time congealed in making it. It is but small factor in shaping the price. But it is a long-term trend in determining that price and better reflects the sociological relations between worker and owner. In every historical economic system people interact within nature and socially with each other to produce what they want and need to live. From this we can say that people in order to eat must set up culturally specific labor relations. Under the system of wage labor, then there is a separation between tools and materials on one side and labor. The Capitalist owns and controls the former, and the worker the second. Wages becomes to the capitalist the cost of getting the work done. To the worker it means survival. The more a set of workers create in a hour the cheaper the over all cost of labor, assuming of course everything made sells at the desired price. If not then there arises economic problems. In this way only by comparing prices can we compare two different commodities. Prices are defined in terms of universal money. Money remains independent of things bought with money. In traditional society cattle are used as a bride price, brass rods spiritual items and cowry shells can be spent only in the market place outside of town and only on market day. These three types of monies are not equivalent. In our economic system money has no other meaning than as a means of exchange. Labor time in making a specific commodity remains secondary. It can have meaning only when it can be compared to the labor time needed making a different commodity. We can by contrasting two opposing commodities quantify labor time. But, remember we are comparing average labor time necessary at that particular time and place. Direct exchange would become much too difficult. Prices become a simplified code for exchange. But, labor time changes radically over time given a certain set of external circumstances. Any Producer who gets an advantage gains extra profit in the short run, but loses it because of competition. This is further complicated by the twin crisis of over production or glutting the market and falling rates of profit or more and more expensive technical innovations in order to stay in the game. It only is fair to say these are tendencies not truths, there are always counter balancing trends that change the facts. This constant disruption is the engine of further progress. Both causing unnecessary suffering and much needed technological innovation. Driven by contradictions, revolution both technological and social becomes a way of life under capitalism. In doing so we need to look at how much the economic structure forms the world of ideas, and in turn the world of ideas shapes the economics. In this setting class struggle is always there. Sometimes hidden quietly beneath the surface, sometimes out in the open. Commodities: Commodity is something produced for sell for money. All commodities must have use value, i.e. used for something specific. Non-commodities will also have use value. Thing that are to given away or traded directly one item for another are also contains use vales Commodities produced for sale also have exchange value. The exchange rates are related to the labor time on average that goes into producing that commodity. Price and exchange value never perfectly match, however over the long term exchange value is one factor in determining price and consistently reflects the social relationships embedded in the exchange rates. Supply and demand will in the short run be more important than labor time inserted in the manufacture the item being sold. Over the long haul the economy moves in the direction of balance. But the movement toward equilibrium is constantly being undermined by the quest for profit. Exchange value then is both a tendency and the map of social relations under capitalism. For example the cost of a product also reflects the tools, raw materials and other in puts that the go into making that product all of which are the result of earlier labor times. Also wages in part reflect the relative bargaining strength of the labor force. Given this wages reflect the price of labor time. Profits being the main reason for employment, means wages are constantly being negotiated. Consumer is very interested in the use value, i.e. the use of the product. The worker cares mostly about wages, the capitalist is interested in profits. Thus, the cost of the product reflects the cost of raw materials and tools, wages for the workers, and the profits going to the employer. Every economic system must have away to replace the resources used up in making the items necessary for life. The basic prerequisites needed for production must be available before production can take place. we worry to much about the lazy person which justifies us felling good about ourselves without really doing what is necessary to make a social contribution. In traditional societies social obligation and not compensation was the main motive to wrk. Social movement toward fairness is not about getting paid to do nothing but social justice or treated fairly. The work ethic is not about working harder to get richer, but to give a helping hand to others. Economies embedded social ethics as Polanyi pointed out as I said he actually did his research. Profit squeeze means lowering wag costs to increase profits. We need a social ethic founded upon social responsibility, taught to our children. Any other economic system is short term progressing from crisis to crisis. Labor requires these materials before it can ever set into motion on the creation of the goods and services. Then once the labor process begins the relationship between a community of people and the natural environment is set into motion. Through the interaction are defined. From the mid-1700 to the present certain tendencies undermined the capitalist movement toward equilibrium. These include failing rates of posits, i.e. more expensive technologies leading to short term advantage becoming the new normal, over production and glutting the market, speculative investments, and profit squeeze or increasing wages cutting into profits. This has led to counter tendencies like globalization including labor markets, advertisements, government intervention to save the day, deficit spending, wilder speculative investments and so on. Periodically the entire capitalist system fails leading to radical restructuring this is called the long wave theory. What both economic history cultural settings of economics studied by Weber, Marx and Polanyi have to offer is a detailed study of pre-capitalist economies, social economics or the interaction between the economy and the rest of the social institutions, the economy being embedded into an over riding social and cultural ideology that can be radically different in different cultures and different historical epics. Articulation of modes of production or the survival of non-capitalist and pre capitalist economies within modern capitalism altogether offer a different view of economics. Both sociology and materialist anthropology were born from the marriage of social history and economics. Most modern economics in economic departments study the economy abstracted out of its social, cultural and historical setting. It is scientifically precise and even mathematically corrects, but becomes false when examined by sociologists or anthropologists. In this class we will be able to examine not alternative economic theories, but how local economies are related to environment, politics, culture, social relations and how all of these change historically over time. The theories themselves are set in a specific historical setting that can be examine. I have a question, I do not have an answer. As of April 1, 2010, the date of the 2010 United States Census, the nine most populous U.S. states contain slightly more than half of the total population. The 25 least populous states contain less than one-sixth of the total population. California, the most populous state, contains more people than the 21 least populous states combined. Each State has two Senators and thus 26 of the least populous state could, in theory, control the Senate. The role of the Senate was conceived by the original Constitution as a check on the popularly elected House of Representatives. Further, until the Seventeenth Amendment of the Constitution (1913), election to the Senate was indirect, by the state legislatures. When the country was founded, in most states, only white men with real property (land) or sufficient wealth for taxation were permitted to vote. White women could not vote, slaves and non-taxed Indians could not vote more than half of the white males could not vote, and in Virginia, three fourth could not vote. African Americans are further deprived of the right to citizenship and, by extension, the right to vote. 1866: The first Civil Rights Act grants citizenship, but not the right to vote, to all persons born in the USA. 1869-70: The Fifteenth Amendment is passed by Congress and ratified by the states. The Voting Rights Act, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on August 6, 1965, aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote under the 15th Amendment (1870) to the Constitution of the United States. Because the Senate was created to keep power out of the hands of the people, do we still need a Senate? Part of the problem is the issue of faith. As Søren Kierkegaard demonstrated that faith is a belief and trust in the "strength of the absurd." That what we believe not only contradicts reason and science, but the more impossible the more profound the belief if we truly have faith. I am a Marxists, but I don’t even have to rely on Marx. Karl Polanyi successfully demonstrated the free market capitalism was not only a recent and a true revolution that broke with the past in which all economic systems up till then were embedded in social responsibility to varying degrees. But, he also demonstrated that a free market cannibalizes itself from its inception on. Thus, the double movement free trade and regulation of the economy. Often even the same individual holds both conflicting views. One is a matter of faith and the other of necessity. The history of America is a history of this double movement. Even the so-called Keynesians often pay lip service to the absurdity of a free market. Trump will bring us jobs because he is a successful businessman, never mind his relationship with his own workers is very poor, he made a fortune by declaring bankruptcy, profits and low wages are a marriage that works, capital intensive industry drives wages down in other industries, unemployment, overproduction and risky speculation and not employment is the result of a pro-business political agenda. I hear small town Montanans express this faith in the absurd, how do we fight that? Marxism for beginners Classical Marxism refers to the economic, philosophical, and sociological theories expounded by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, as contrasted with later developments in Marxism, especially Leninism and Marxism–Leninism. Marxism-Leninism A noun 1. The modification of Marxism by Lenin stressing that imperialism is the highest form of capitalism. 2. With Karl Marx, Lenin called for a classless society in which all means of production would be commonly owned ( communism )(withering of the state, direct participation of workers in all decisions affecting their lives through councils). 3. Lenin stressed bold, revolutionary action. 4. Democratic centralism or discussions representing all positions within the party and then tight discipline once an action is agreed upon. Orthodox Marxism is the body of Marxist thought that emerged following the death of Karl Marx which became the official philosophy of the socialist movement as represented in the Second International until the First World War. Two wings one representing revolution through reforms building on stages leading to the final goal vs. the above followed by a spontaneous insurrection leading to revolution. Marxist Humanists usually base themselves on the early, humanist writings of Karl Marx, especially the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844. Marxist-Humanism defines itself in opposition to objective predispositions in social theory, reflected in orthodox interpretations of “historical materialism”, in which the agent of history is not human beings, but either abstract entities such as “laws of history” or inanimate entities such as “means of production.” Marxist humanists therefore emphasize human agency and subjectivity. The idea is to take the best of all of the above to create guide posts for our actions, while leaving the not so good behind.

Capital in General Part 1

Marx

A commodity is both useful and has a price. Price in part reflects the labor time on average used in making it. Real time is averaged out, some workers work faster than others. When sold the commodity will not sold exclusively at the cost of labor time congealed in making it. It is but small factor in shaping the price. But it is a long-term trend in determining that price and better reflects the sociological relations between worker and owner.

In every historical economic system people interact within nature and socially with each other to produce what they want and need to live.  From this we can say that people in order to eat must set up culturally specific labor relations.

Under the system of wage labor, then there is a separation between tools and materials on one side and labor. The Capitalist owns and controls the former, and the worker the second. Wages becomes to the capitalist the cost of getting the work done. To the worker it means survival.

The more a set of workers create in a hour the cheaper the over all cost of labor, assuming of course everything made sells at the desired price. If not then there arises economic problems.

In this way only by comparing prices can we compare two different commodities.  Prices are defined in terms of universal money. Money remains independent of things bought with money.

In traditional society cattle are used as a bride price, brass rods spiritual items and cowry shells can be spent only in the market place outside of town and only on market day. These three types of monies are not equivalent.

In our economic system money has no other meaning than as a means of exchange. Labor time in making a specific commodity remains secondary. It can have meaning only when it can be compared to the labor time needed making a different commodity. We can by contrasting two opposing commodities quantify labor time. But, remember we are comparing average labor time necessary at that particular time and place.

Direct exchange would become much too difficult. Prices become a simplified code for exchange. But, labor time changes radically over time given a certain set of external circumstances. Any Producer who gets an advantage gains extra profit in the short run, but loses it because of competition. This is further complicated by the twin crisis of over production or glutting the market and falling rates of profit or more and more expensive technical innovations in order to stay in the game. It only is fair to say these are tendencies not truths, there are always counter balancing trends that change the facts.

This constant disruption is the engine of further progress. Both causing unnecessary suffering and much needed technological innovation. Driven by contradictions, revolution both technological and social becomes a way of life under capitalism. In doing so we need to look at how much the economic structure forms the world of ideas, and in turn the world of ideas shapes the economics. In this setting class struggle is always there. Sometimes hidden quietly beneath the surface, sometimes out in the open.

Commodities:

Commodity is something produced for sell for money.  All commodities must have use value, i.e. used for something specific. Non-commodities will also have use value. Thing that are to given away or traded directly one item for another are also contains use vales

Commodities produced for sale also have exchange value. The exchange rates are related to the labor time on average that goes into producing that commodity. Price and exchange value never perfectly match, however over the long term exchange value is one factor in determining price and consistently reflects the social relationships embedded in the exchange rates.

Supply and demand will in the short run be more important than labor time inserted in the manufacture the item being sold. Over the long haul the economy moves in the direction of balance.  But the movement toward equilibrium is constantly being undermined by the quest for profit. Exchange value then is both a tendency and the map of social relations under capitalism.

For example the cost of a product also reflects the tools, raw materials and other in puts that the go into making that product all of which are the result of earlier labor times. Also wages in part reflect the relative bargaining strength of the labor  force. Given this wages reflect the price of labor time. Profits being the main reason for employment, means wages are constantly being negotiated.

Consumer is very interested in the use value, i.e. the use of the product. The worker cares mostly about wages, the capitalist is interested in profits. Thus, the cost of the product reflects the cost of raw materials and tools, wages for the workers, and the profits going to the employer. 

Every economic system must have away to replace the resources used up in making the items necessary for life. The basic prerequisites needed for production must be available before production can take place.

we worry to much about the lazy person which justifies us felling good about ourselves without really doing what is necessary to make a social contribution. In traditional societies  social obligation and not compensation was the main motive to wrk. Social movement toward fairness is not about getting paid to do nothing but social justice or treated fairly. The work ethic is not about working harder to get richer, but to give a helping hand to others. Economies embedded social ethics as Polanyi pointed out as I said he actually did his research. 

Profit squeeze means lowering wag costs to increase profits. We need a social ethic founded upon social responsibility, taught to our children. Any other economic system is short term progressing from crisis to crisis.

Labor requires these materials before it can ever set into motion on the creation of the goods and services. Then once the labor process begins the relationship between a community of people and the natural environment is set into motion. Through the interaction are defined.

From the mid-1700 to the present certain tendencies undermined the capitalist movement toward equilibrium. These include failing rates of posits, i.e. more expensive technologies leading to short term advantage becoming the new normal, over production and glutting the market, speculative investments, and profit squeeze or increasing wages cutting into profits. This has led to counter tendencies like globalization including labor markets, advertisements, government intervention to save the day, deficit spending, wilder speculative investments and so on. Periodically the entire capitalist system fails leading to radical restructuring this is called the long wave theory. 

What both economic history cultural settings of economics studied by Weber, Marx and Polanyi have to offer is a detailed study of pre-capitalist economies, social economics or the interaction between the economy and the rest of the social institutions, the economy being embedded into an over riding social and cultural ideology that can be radically different in different cultures and different historical epics. Articulation of modes of production or the survival of non-capitalist and pre capitalist economies within modern capitalism altogether offer a different view of economics. Both sociology and materialist anthropology were born from the marriage of social history and economics. Most modern economics in economic departments study the economy abstracted out of its social, cultural and historical setting. It is scientifically precise and even mathematically corrects, but becomes false when examined by sociologists or anthropologists.

In this class we will be able to examine not alternative economic theories, but how local economies are related to environment, politics, culture, social relations and how all of these change historically over time. The theories themselves are set in a specific historical setting that can be examine.

I have a question, I do not have an answer.

As of April 1, 2010, the date of the 2010 United States Census, the nine most populous U.S. states contain slightly more than half of the total population. The 25 least populous states contain less than one-sixth of the total population. California, the most populous state, contains more people than the 21 least populous states combined.

Each State has two Senators and thus 26 of the least populous state could, in theory, control the Senate.

The role of the Senate was conceived by the original Constitution as a check on the popularly elected House of Representatives. Further, until the Seventeenth Amendment of the Constitution (1913), election to the Senate was indirect, by the state legislatures.

When the country was founded, in most states, only white men with real property (land) or sufficient wealth for taxation were permitted to vote. White women could not vote, slaves and non-taxed Indians could not vote more than half of the white males could not vote, and in Virginia, three fourth could not vote.

African Americans are further deprived of the right to citizenship and, by extension, the right to vote. 1866: The first Civil Rights Act grants citizenship, but not the right to vote, to all persons born in the USA. 1869-70: The Fifteenth Amendment is passed by Congress and ratified by the states.

The Voting Rights Act, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on August 6, 1965, aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote under the 15th Amendment (1870) to the Constitution of the United States.

Because the Senate was created to keep power out of the hands of the people, do we still need a Senate?

Part of the problem is the issue of faith. As Søren Kierkegaard demonstrated that faith is a belief and trust in the "strength of the absurd." That what we believe not only contradicts reason and science, but the more impossible the more profound the belief if we truly have faith. I am a Marxists, but I don’t even have to rely on Marx. Karl Polanyi successfully demonstrated the free market capitalism was not only a recent and a true revolution that broke with the past in which all economic systems up till then were embedded in social responsibility to varying degrees. But, he also demonstrated that a free market cannibalizes itself from its inception on. Thus, the double movement free trade and regulation of the economy. Often even the same individual holds both conflicting views. One is a matter of faith and the other of necessity. The history of America is a history of this double movement. Even the so-called Keynesians often pay lip service to the absurdity of a free market. Trump will bring us jobs because he is a successful businessman, never mind his relationship with his own workers is very poor, he made a fortune by declaring bankruptcy, profits and low wages are a marriage that works, capital intensive industry drives wages down in other industries, unemployment, overproduction and risky speculation and not employment is the result of a pro-business political agenda. I hear small town Montanans express this faith in the absurd, how do we fight that?

Marxism for beginners

Classical Marxism refers to the economic, philosophical, and sociological theories expounded by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, as contrasted with later developments in Marxism, especially Leninism and Marxism–Leninism.

Marxism-Leninism

A noun

1.    The modification of Marxism by Lenin stressing that imperialism is the highest form of capitalism.

2.    With Karl Marx, Lenin called for a classless society in which all means of production would be commonly owned ( communism )(withering of the state, direct participation of workers in all decisions affecting their lives through councils).

3.    Lenin stressed bold, revolutionary action.

4.    Democratic centralism or discussions representing all positions within the party and then tight discipline once an action is agreed upon.

Orthodox Marxism is the body of Marxist thought that emerged following the death of Karl Marx which became the official philosophy of the socialist movement as represented in the Second International until the First World War. Two wings one representing revolution through reforms building on stages leading to the final goal vs. the above followed by a spontaneous insurrection leading to revolution.

Marxist Humanists usually base themselves on the early, humanist writings of Karl Marx, especially the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844. Marxist-Humanism defines itself in opposition to objective predispositions in social theory, reflected in orthodox interpretations of “historical materialism”, in which the agent of history is not human beings, but either abstract entities such as “laws of history” or inanimate entities such as “means of production.”

Marxist humanists therefore emphasize human agency and subjectivity.

The idea is to take the best of all of the above to create guide posts for our actions, while leaving the not so good behind.