I'm not even taking the courses, I just listen to all of RPWs stuff out of interest and because of how well he explains things. Not to mention the many interesting (mostly) tangents.
I am really enjoying all of these lectures after spending most of my life doing other things. I don’t have to agree but I can enjoy and think.. Many thanks.
What is "rent"? Rent is that portion of wealth produced associated with locational advantage, independent of what the individual producer does or does not do with whatever land is held. In the analysis of the agricultural sector dealt with by Ricardo, he was able to develop his "law of rent" to explain the process of how the claim of rent increases as increasingly marginal land must be brought into use because of population growth. The same increase in rent also occurs when large sectors of land are held out of use or acquired not for development but for speculation. Henry George extended Ricardo's analysis to locations in cities and towns, where the rental value of a location is measured per square foot. Smith and Ricardo could not bring themselves to argue, unambiguously, that rent belonged to society. Others were less timid, in particular the Scot Patrick Edward Dove, and later, Bishop Thomas Nulty.
The Unicode index for approximately equal to, which is referred to as almost equal to in the Unicode definition, is U+2248, producing the character ≈. Here is an article with some ways to enter Unicode characters that do not appear on normal keyboards: www.johndcook.com/blog/2008/08/17/three-ways-to-enter-unicode-characters-in-windows/
Quick question if anyone could assist, very much appreciated but in the part where he talks about the compounding of labor to reach the total labor value of an object. It is said that the shovel, once made, over 5 years adds to the next cycle of production and a kind of compounding effect happens when that shovel is used to further increase production of the following cycle and at minute 53 there is a way in which to compute the total labor value of an object but it looks to me as though that is not what is happening. The shovel only adds as long as it is free. Bc whatever I make with the shovel already factors in the cost of labor in getting the shovel. So what I guess I’m trying to ask is where is my confusion happening; I don’t particularly understand the need of computing the compounding labor value of a product when value isn’t what’s being generated but refinement is. Looks like the friction for production goes down with the addition of a shovel not the compounding of wealth or labor.
Linear algebra might attach workable mathematics to the price mechanism, but the market price of any particular good has only a moderate relationship to the labor value involved in production. Producers of goods decide to continue applying their labor and capital goods to land in anticipation of being able to sell what is produced at a price sufficient to recover the costs of production and generate at least a reasonable profit. If the producer is sufficiently fortunate to control the costs of land, labor and capital goods and has entered into an enforceable contract to deliver such goods to a buyer at a stated price, then a good deal of the risk is eliminated. What the buyer is willing to pay has nothing to do with the cost of production for a particular producer. Price will be determined by the producer whose all-in costs are lowest, who is able to experience an acceptable profit even by offering the goods at a lower price. There are other exceptions to even the above analysis: the price paid for scarce goods. Gold is relatively scarce, but is sometimes found sitting on the surface of the earth and can be extracted from nature with very little expenditure of labor.
You seem to omit a crucial point which renders your narrative slightly irrelevant of the issue. Profit. How do you make it? A reasonable profit, how do you define it? I humbly advise you to read "Böhm-Bawerk's Criticism of Marx" by Rudolf Hilferding. It might become clearer for you.
@@clockfixer5049 digamo.free.fr/howardk1.pdf page 50-55 "Hilferding's counter-attack had two parts, one methodological, the other historical. Neither dealt with the specific and detailed criticisms that Bohm-Bawerk had raised against the labour theory of value. Here, as in many later controversies in Marxian political economy. the participants failed to engage each others' arguments, and there was little real dialogue. At the more general philosophical level, Hilferding accused Bdhm-Bawerk of a continuous confusion of natural and social phenomena. "
@@clockfixer5049 As we have seen, Hilferding's reply was also weak on this aspect of the problem. And his restatement of Marx's historical and social method would have been substantially strengthened if Hilferding had been able to illustrate it with a coherent account of the historical transformation of values into prices of production. In fact he added little to Engels's treatment of the question, which was itself unconvincing. Thus no satisfactory model of the transition from values to prices had yet been formulated.
What Marx described as "surplus" is better described as an expanding output of production per unit of input of land, labor and capital goods. The position taken by Turgot, duPont and the other Physiocrats is that markets freed of rentier privilege would return to those who labor and those who own and use capital goods their appropriate full return in wages and interest. Where these relationships get complex is when the owner of capital goods is also an owner of land (and, therefore, a beneficiary of imputed rent). Rent is unearned to individuals and private entities; when left in private hands the effect is a redistribution of wealth from its producers. As the Physiocrats argued, rent is the common fund -- the 'impot unique -- that rightfully belongs to the community, the fund with which to pay for public goods and services (and, as Thomas Paine suggested in "Agrarian Justice," distributed to citizens as they entered adulthood and when their working years ended).
Thank you once again for sharing with us this lectures. Is it possible to ask lecturer via comment here? My main question is: Does nature of labor changes over time? Nowadays it seems inputs\outputs in technological sphere have great influence on life but does not fit to classical definition of labor (if there is one beside mundane or intuitive sort). Большое спасибо.
No, that's not one of Marx's assumptions. Methodologically, he uses immanent critique so his assumptions should only be those held by political economists. He also has critiques of equality in the abstract; for any two things to be equal, they need to be totally identical and rendering something equal in one regard makes them unequal in other regards. It's something of a common mistake to think that communists want everyone to be paid equally. If you work longer, harder or do more skillful work, you should get paid more. What Marx is opposed to is the freeloading capitalists who do not themselves work (except for superintendence) yet receive the surplus labour of others.
what is this surplus story about? where does surplus in a "simply reproducing society" ie in a society which produces for the needs come from in the first place? any increase in the productivity of labor would lead to a decrease in work time for anything else would be plain irrational. this prof (or whos theory is this? certainly not marx) is turning the whole thing upside down. you have to presuppose the existence of money and the wealth of the society being represented in money in order for there to be any reason to produce more than one needs - for money is the only thing of which you can never have enough, the only thing of which in makes sense to create "surplus". and in fact he even lays out his inverese thinking in painful detail: the getting of the surplus evokes the control over the workers; the surplus getters get armed men after getting the surplus; and so forth... just to then refute himself when answering question 3...
@Oners82 after i read your comment i wasnt sure anymore, we actually watched the same video. so i watched the whole thing again, just to check. now i am sure, what I am talking about, but still a bit confused, where you take your criticism from. so let me clarify a few things here. first of all, you are absolutely right: there is no surplus in a simply reproducing society (srs). and that is precisely because it would be sheer madness, plain irrational since the whole purpose of the production is to fit the needs of the people - thus theres no point of producing more than needed and wanted (which would mean working more than necessary). my argument here aims at the misrepresentations by the prof in the video. is he or is he not, in his little "story", telling us, that as soon as the productivity of labor (by some invention or better organization) increases in a srs, that it all of the sudden and equally inevitable turns into a surplus reproducing society? i am saying that this is false, this is ideology and the exact opposite of marxes explanation of capitalism. because, first of all, you have to shift the goal of production in order to reasonably produce MORE than needed. but not only this - not even in a capitalist society it is all that rational to produce simply more and more. thus, you also have to change the very, so to speak, "object of production". meaning, simply more food, clothes and stuff than ever needed or wanted is always nonsense. but more money - more abstract wealth rather than "use value" - that makes always sense. thus, what this prof does in telling us his little fairy tail is a suggestion, that capitalism develops out of a natural arising question, that of the distribution of somehow anyway produced use values. (by the way insinuating, that former societies in which kings ruled and their subjects followed arised from the same question - suggesting that the peasants lived a thoroughly fulfilled live and the kings just taking anyway redundant "surplus", some excess of food, clothes etc. which is as false when it comes to kings and peasants as when it comes to capitalists and workers) thus he is, again, stating the exact opposite of marxes theory, which tells us that capitalism is a matter of relations of production and any distribution of wealth follows immediately out of that relations. secondly, of course did marx presuppose the existence of money! he explained that crap! but thereby he took it as something existing and that is very different from how the prof presupposes money in his little story - namely theoretically and in exact the way i just laid out. he takes it as natural, almost as identical to use value (otherwise the transition from srs to surplus production is, again, nonsense). now, IF he WOULD BE talking about "surplus value", THAN my arguments would be indeed complete nonsense. and so the 3 questions (and answers) of the prof - for surplus value, as the result of exploitation of the worker, is nothing which could be arbitrarily distributed. its "getter" is necessarily the capitalist, the exploiter. second, what is done with this kind "surplus" could not possibly be the setting-up of a state with soldiers, laws etc since all of this is required to make the exploitation work in the first place. thirdly, how do they get they surplus? certainly not by robbing and equally not by selling something. instead, just by exploiting the workers. how it is, that they can do so, is unfortunately nothing you can find out in this video. anyway, he IS NOT talking about surplus value. listen to the prof! surplus CORN! surplus IRON! hes talking about stuff! about use value and "to much than could be eaten by the producers"! so finally, let me clarify my last paragraph: in his answers to his questions 1-3, the prof tells us, that 1. the surplus getters BECOME some ruling class (priests, kings, princesses, ...) IN VIRTUE OF getting the surplus 2. with the surplus the surplus getters get bureaucracy - they get soldiers to rule the workers etc 3. the surplus getters get the surplus by controlling, dominating the workers or by selling on a free market - thus all ways which presuppose control, government, rules. thats the contradiction in his thoughts and his ideology: he takes the distribution of the goods, the produced use values, as somehow natural and every form of government, state, class conflicts etc as build upon it - quite the reverse of marx insights, again.
He is explaining the boom in surplus that actually did happen around 10,000 years ago with the establishment of sedentary societies and domestication (aka "civilization"). This is basic stuff that noone who had read or gone to a little bit of college anywhere disagrees with, that part wasn't even Marxist or leftist, it's not disputed. The origin of surplus was essentially in storage of extra agriculture and animal resources like skins, and over time that storage was ran by specialists who made IOUs which were a sort of pre cursor of the first currencies to come later. Currency originates around 7 - 8000 years ago, but the surplus of goods which eventually created the surplus of value originated before that, around 10,000 years ago with the development of sedentary societies and domestication. Currency is merely A REPRESENTATION OF VALUE
@Oners82 He first mentioned surplus in the context of sedentary societies and domestication, so before profits or commodities. He wasn't speaking in the context of feudalism or capitalism throughout. But other than that point at least your response is way better than most these comments
Professor Wolff tells us that the "price" of land is its "rent." Actually, in an exchange of a deed to land for cash, the price charged is a capitalization of rent (i.e., the potential annual rental value of the location, subject to the potential for speculative increases in future rents). Thus, if a parcel of land could be leased by the owner to someone for $1,000 a year, and the annual rate of return realized by investors is 5 percent, then the minimum price the owner of land would accept is $20,000 (5% of x = $1,000; x=$1,000/5%). Modern economists as well as their predecessor political economists also introduce a significant analytical confusion to their writing by using the term "profit" as an economic rather than an accounting concept. A firm experiences a profit if revenue exceeds expenses. The profit will be derived from a combination of rent, wages and interest, the proportion differing based on the type of activity undertaken, and by whether the systems of law and taxation in a society create monopoly privileges enjoyed by some, the costs of such subsidies absorbed by others.
Good talk, other that his rediculous explanation of class hierarchies directly after the establishment of sedentary societies, lol. 'Against His-story, Against Leviathan' by Freddy Pearlman 'Rivers of Life' JGR Forlong
Don't these questions all assume time as a function? I ask this because of my understanding of your Kantian lectures and my own self-acquired knowledge of philosophy. So I can't help but intuitively suspect a deep conflict here, between Kant and Marx; and, given your professed adherence to both, how do you square any such conflicts?
" that rent is not part of the cost of the production of food" absurd. See Larouche, The Case of Walter Lippmann and other texts.Land rents and debt service are in fact the main problems in the costs of production.
3 Human Questions: If surplus is presumed; If distribution of surplus is presumed; 1. Who gets the surplus? 2. When they get it, what do they do with it? 3. How do they get the surplus?
7:50 Surplus 16:30 Idea de lucha de clases 19:40 How they get surplus 32:45 Smith labor theory 34:25 Economía moderna. Mucha matemática pero sin cable a tierra
I don’t really understand. But I have a question. Where does the value of the soldier’s pay fit in to the system, since you have to have protection from the Vikings to keep them from stealing your labor?
Omg, that is Sooooo simplistic and unfair. I see a First Cause claim here. There were courts, judges, lawyers, and priests way far back even before capitalism existed. And there is certainly no friendship between the State and the capitalists, since the former takes the surplus of the latter by coercion. Moreover, most of where the surplus goes is back into the company and into banks and other financial institutions, where it is then made available for the opportunity of aspiring entrepreneurs. So idk, while I do have my gripes with the crony capitalism that we have here, I have to reject some of this analysis as simplistic and misleading. Not that you, Professor Wolff, are intending to do so, but that Marx's basic claims include very misleading propositions.
You are misunderstanding. Courts, judges, lawyers, priests he is not saying is a product of capitalism. It is a product of surplus existing. Regardless of your objections to crony capitalism, in a capitalist society capitalists control the surplus, and so have more power to influence laws, the state, and law enforcement. Crony capitalism is literally a natural result of free market capitalism. If there was no state, the most profitable corporations would establish one to make more profit and use it to practice crony capitalism.
Also, it does not matter that the capital goes back into the company. The point is it goes directly to the capitalists first. They are the ones who decide how much to put back into the company, completely in line with their own rational self interest. Surplus going to capitalists is not in reference to their salaries.
@@pookz3067 I'm not misunderstanding anything. I'm just not one to go through life criticizing and complaining all about how external systems are keeping me down--especially when such things exist only in the abstract world of Ivory Tower dreamers. But listen, I'm no saint and no sage. I'm not one of the Seven Wise Men of History. I don't need to be all that in order to see plainly that I cede my power, my liberty, my moral worth and integrity to anything that I dislike outside of myself. That's an immortal truth, an intuition that everyone knows and experiences in every time and place. When faced with such truisms as foregoing, however, Marxists love to feign their exclusive objectivity by hinting at the hyper-materialism upon which (it is wrongly claimed, in my view) communist doctrine is said to rest. I realize that anyone--more precisely, any "individual," since only individuals possess concrete reality capable of conferring, to say nothing of exercising, such things as rights, powers, etc.--is perfectly free to assert (i.e., to exercise free speech) that their mental pictures, their ideas reflecting their resentment lists about the so-called "morally inferior" world, depict the true, or "material," state of history. To me, these are just convenient pretenses used by angry sophists and rabble-rousers to create the impression of objectivity. In truth, "the state," "society," "capitalists," "the greater good"--these are all just collective nouns--convenient abstractions, really--that attach to nothing concrete or even verifiable in the real world. (So much for the much vaunted communist boast of concern for matters limited to the natural world)! Indeed, these collective nouns are mere fictions representing a vacuous nothing in the raging minds of those who would use their pretended reality to punish a world that, in their humble (lol) hearts, is beneath them, morally speaking. These pompous sophists--many of whom lack basic courage even to admit openly their communist convictions--a fortiori lack sufficient courage to get their own skin in the game, to stick out their necks bravely in the crucible of competition; to exhibit genuine, natural, healthy masculinity; to take risks and overcome the kinds of obstacles that capitalists (i.e., assuming such an entity actually exists) refuse to cower before. For this and many other reasons, individuals who populate and constitute this obscure, abstract category "capitalist," (as pejoratively known by angry cowards) are also movers and shakers--those whose energy, drive, direction, vision, courage, fortitude, wisdom, (sometimes luck, but so what?) etc.--and only after all that, capital--these are they who are most "naturally fit" to take up the roles to which the commie complainers of the world, so self-righteously, and thus so insufferably, so often point to with their customary tone of accusatory indignation. I view all this theorizing-while-claiming-objectivity as just a clever self-deception, a stratagem of thought devised by minds hoping to succor their own miserable, envious mental states by pointing to the dubious consolation that their poverty promoting behavior makes them somehow morally superior to those "evil capitalists"--people whom, it is wrongfully claimed, won't share their toys. In fact, the wealth creators of the world--by the very fact of their having created a system that has raised the standard of living for mankind beyond anything comprehensible--are not only the ones whose constant daily efforts make all of our lives more comfortable and convenient, but are also those who, by the very fact of their wealth creating activities, deserve--in my eyes, in the first instance--to control the flow of capital's traffic. Why shouldn't those who are most able to build wealth, as proved by their methods and records for doing so, also be the first of those whose hands capital passes through. Even my puppy can see the superior wisdom expressed by that proposition!! Ugh, wtf, I wish these Ivory Tower dreamers would get off their lazy, whining asses and stop reviling the risks and responsibilities of personal liberty, the exclusive feature of the capitalist symbol known as currency. Hatin ass commies 🙄🙄
@@brucekern7083 Thanks. Wolff, himself, is a capitalist and has benefited greatly from it; doing the hard labor of reading and expounding his thoughts. He should take some time and work in a factory. But I appreciate his delivery and knowledge of abstractions like 'alienation of labor'. It is hard to quantify freedom, but I feel in some ways that element is missing in Communism. For example, I enjoy having my own home as opposed to living in a commune. Also, Wolff's criticism of Trump in 2015 is notable after Trump made American energy independent, kept us out of wars, and called China to account. China is the result of Marxist thinking and there we see that all production of labor always has its CEOs that obviously live better than the proletariate whom it eats and who have no choice. But Wolff knows where his bread is buttered; he said that if Trump won he would leave the country and never come back. I am glad he didn't keep his word. Also, Wolff is an avowed atheist and as such is certainly not a Kantian who posited moral reason for believing in God. It's more reasonable to believe in God if we are to have Justice.
He's talking about around 10,000 years ago when the establishment of the first sedentary societies and domestication increases surplus. But his explanation of the priestly/legal/military class etc is simplistic as hell, I'd suggest 'Against His-story, Against Leviathan' for interesting thoughts on that. Have you read Capital or studied Marx, most of this and much of Marx's analysis is an analysis of feudalism and the transfer from feudalism to capitalism which is a subject Marx was a specialist on. You don't seem to be getting that alot if this is about how Capitalism formed, how Feudalism formed or how the economy of sedentary societies (aka "civilization") formed, not modern Capitalism. Read '33 Lessons on Capital' by Harry Cleaver You obviously aren't getting this or you would understand that Marx saw Capitalism as the most positive revolutionary force that had even existed. That's something that most people who don't try to study this don't get. 😂 Trump made America energy independent 😂🤣😂🤣😂 you must be a comedian
I know it’s getting serious when the big boards printed up at Staples are on display.
Impolitik they’re lithium!
Dr. Woolf.
This is the best seminar,I have been to in 50 yrs. (MIT-LONDONL/Harvard).Lovely.Thanks
Prof.Dr.Nasir Fazal
Cambridge.
Awesome lecture. Understanding Marx is so nicely explicated, its a treasure. Really cool to have this video companion.
I'm not even taking the courses, I just listen to all of RPWs stuff out of interest and because of how well he explains things. Not to mention the many interesting (mostly) tangents.
I am really enjoying all of these lectures after spending most of my life doing other things. I don’t have to agree but I can enjoy and think.. Many thanks.
Each lecture just keeps getting better, thanks Alex!
Release number 4 already, I been waiting a whole week for this!!
I love you Professor Robert Wolff. You are such a treasure!
The best series of lectures on marx. Thank you very much
What is "rent"? Rent is that portion of wealth produced associated with locational advantage, independent of what the individual producer does or does not do with whatever land is held. In the analysis of the agricultural sector dealt with by Ricardo, he was able to develop his "law of rent" to explain the process of how the claim of rent increases as increasingly marginal land must be brought into use because of population growth. The same increase in rent also occurs when large sectors of land are held out of use or acquired not for development but for speculation. Henry George extended Ricardo's analysis to locations in cities and towns, where the rental value of a location is measured per square foot. Smith and Ricardo could not bring themselves to argue, unambiguously, that rent belonged to society. Others were less timid, in particular the Scot Patrick Edward Dove, and later, Bishop Thomas Nulty.
Wonderful! Can't be thankfully enough to be able to get in touch with this material
The Unicode index for approximately equal to, which is referred to as almost equal to in the Unicode definition, is U+2248, producing the character ≈.
Here is an article with some ways to enter Unicode characters that do not appear on normal keyboards:
www.johndcook.com/blog/2008/08/17/three-ways-to-enter-unicode-characters-in-windows/
The symbol for \approx in MS Word is unicode 247. To enter it, hold ALT and type 247.
Quick question if anyone could assist, very much appreciated but in the part where he talks about the compounding of labor to reach the total labor value of an object. It is said that the shovel, once made, over 5 years adds to the next cycle of production and a kind of compounding effect happens when that shovel is used to further increase production of the following cycle and at minute 53 there is a way in which to compute the total labor value of an object but it looks to me as though that is not what is happening. The shovel only adds as long as it is free. Bc whatever I make with the shovel already factors in the cost of labor in getting the shovel. So what I guess I’m trying to ask is where is my confusion happening; I don’t particularly understand the need of computing the compounding labor value of a product when value isn’t what’s being generated but refinement is. Looks like the friction for production goes down with the addition of a shovel not the compounding of wealth or labor.
Fucking brilliant. Have watched the Marx lectures several times and made 20 pages of notes. Thank you for sharing.
Very nice. Learned a lot
distribution of surplus value among the classes ...
When will the next one be posted?
need to read Larouche. go to the wiki on Lyndon Larouche. Start with the pdf of the Case of Walter Lippmann.
Linear algebra might attach workable mathematics to the price mechanism, but the market price of any particular good has only a moderate relationship to the labor value involved in production. Producers of goods decide to continue applying their labor and capital goods to land in anticipation of being able to sell what is produced at a price sufficient to recover the costs of production and generate at least a reasonable profit. If the producer is sufficiently fortunate to control the costs of land, labor and capital goods and has entered into an enforceable contract to deliver such goods to a buyer at a stated price, then a good deal of the risk is eliminated. What the buyer is willing to pay has nothing to do with the cost of production for a particular producer. Price will be determined by the producer whose all-in costs are lowest, who is able to experience an acceptable profit even by offering the goods at a lower price.
There are other exceptions to even the above analysis: the price paid for scarce goods. Gold is relatively scarce, but is sometimes found sitting on the surface of the earth and can be extracted from nature with very little expenditure of labor.
You seem to omit a crucial point which renders your narrative slightly irrelevant of the issue. Profit. How do you make it? A reasonable profit, how do you define it?
I humbly advise you to read "Böhm-Bawerk's Criticism of Marx" by Rudolf Hilferding.
It might become clearer for you.
@@clockfixer5049 Hilferding's response wasn't very good. Even in the history of Marxist econ this is admitted.
@@Swift-mr5zi could you cite just a handful of those who deemed it not very good? And what do you personally find not very good there?
@@clockfixer5049 digamo.free.fr/howardk1.pdf page 50-55 "Hilferding's counter-attack had two parts, one
methodological, the other historical. Neither dealt with the specific and
detailed criticisms that Bohm-Bawerk had raised against the labour theory
of value. Here, as in many later controversies in Marxian political economy. the participants failed to engage each others' arguments, and there
was little real dialogue. At the more general philosophical level, Hilferding
accused Bdhm-Bawerk of a continuous confusion of natural and social
phenomena. "
@@clockfixer5049 As we have seen, Hilferding's reply was also weak on this aspect of the problem. And his restatement
of Marx's historical and social method would have been substantially
strengthened if Hilferding had been able to illustrate it with a coherent
account of the historical transformation of values into prices of production.
In fact he added little to Engels's treatment of the question, which was itself
unconvincing. Thus no satisfactory model of the transition from values to
prices had yet been formulated.
Where's lecture 4?
What Marx described as "surplus" is better described as an expanding output of production per unit of input of land, labor and capital goods. The position taken by Turgot, duPont and the other Physiocrats is that markets freed of rentier privilege would return to those who labor and those who own and use capital goods their appropriate full return in wages and interest. Where these relationships get complex is when the owner of capital goods is also an owner of land (and, therefore, a beneficiary of imputed rent). Rent is unearned to individuals and private entities; when left in private hands the effect is a redistribution of wealth from its producers. As the Physiocrats argued, rent is the common fund -- the 'impot unique -- that rightfully belongs to the community, the fund with which to pay for public goods and services (and, as Thomas Paine suggested in "Agrarian Justice," distributed to citizens as they entered adulthood and when their working years ended).
Thank you once again for sharing with us this lectures. Is it possible to ask lecturer via comment here? My main question is: Does nature of labor changes over time? Nowadays it seems inputs\outputs in technological sphere have great influence on life but does not fit to classical definition of labor (if there is one beside mundane or intuitive sort). Большое спасибо.
15:00
This story assumes that we are equal by nature. Does it?
No, that's not one of Marx's assumptions. Methodologically, he uses immanent critique so his assumptions should only be those held by political economists. He also has critiques of equality in the abstract; for any two things to be equal, they need to be totally identical and rendering something equal in one regard makes them unequal in other regards. It's something of a common mistake to think that communists want everyone to be paid equally. If you work longer, harder or do more skillful work, you should get paid more. What Marx is opposed to is the freeloading capitalists who do not themselves work (except for superintendence) yet receive the surplus labour of others.
How are we not equal by nature? It is the human mind that constructs the complexities of sedentary society human hierarchies.
the real successor to Marx, in terms of paying attention to how things are physically produced, is Lyndon Larouche.
Land
Labor
Capital
(LLC)
Rent
Wages
Profits
(RWP)
😂😂
what is this surplus story about? where does surplus in a "simply reproducing society" ie in a society which produces for the needs come from in the first place? any increase in the productivity of labor would lead to a decrease in work time for anything else would be plain irrational.
this prof (or whos theory is this? certainly not marx) is turning the whole thing upside down. you have to presuppose the existence of money and the wealth of the society being represented in money in order for there to be any reason to produce more than one needs - for money is the only thing of which you can never have enough, the only thing of which in makes sense to create "surplus".
and in fact he even lays out his inverese thinking in painful detail: the getting of the surplus evokes the control over the workers; the surplus getters get armed men after getting the surplus; and so forth...
just to then refute himself when answering question 3...
@Oners82 and do you also have any arguments for that distinctive opinion of yours?
@Oners82 after i read your comment i wasnt sure anymore, we actually watched the same video. so i watched the whole thing again, just to check.
now i am sure, what I am talking about, but still a bit confused, where you take your criticism from.
so let me clarify a few things here.
first of all, you are absolutely right: there is no surplus in a simply reproducing society (srs). and that is precisely because it would be sheer madness, plain irrational since the whole purpose of the production is to fit the needs of the people - thus theres no point of producing more than needed and wanted (which would mean working more than necessary).
my argument here aims at the misrepresentations by the prof in the video. is he or is he not, in his little "story", telling us, that as soon as the productivity of labor (by some invention or better organization) increases in a srs, that it all of the sudden and equally inevitable turns into a surplus reproducing society?
i am saying that this is false, this is ideology and the exact opposite of marxes explanation of capitalism.
because, first of all, you have to shift the goal of production in order to reasonably produce MORE than needed. but not only this - not even in a capitalist society it is all that rational to produce simply more and more. thus, you also have to change the very, so to speak, "object of production". meaning, simply more food, clothes and stuff than ever needed or wanted is always nonsense. but more money - more abstract wealth rather than "use value" - that makes always sense.
thus, what this prof does in telling us his little fairy tail is a suggestion, that capitalism develops out of a natural arising question, that of the distribution of somehow anyway produced use values.
(by the way insinuating, that former societies in which kings ruled and their subjects followed arised from the same question - suggesting that the peasants lived a thoroughly fulfilled live and the kings just taking anyway redundant "surplus", some excess of food, clothes etc. which is as false when it comes to kings and peasants as when it comes to capitalists and workers)
thus he is, again, stating the exact opposite of marxes theory, which tells us that capitalism is a matter of relations of production and any distribution of wealth follows immediately out of that relations.
secondly, of course did marx presuppose the existence of money! he explained that crap! but thereby he took it as something existing and that is very different from how the prof presupposes money in his little story - namely theoretically and in exact the way i just laid out. he takes it as natural, almost as identical to use value (otherwise the transition from srs to surplus production is, again, nonsense).
now, IF he WOULD BE talking about "surplus value", THAN my arguments would be indeed complete nonsense. and so the 3 questions (and answers) of the prof - for surplus value, as the result of exploitation of the worker, is nothing which could be arbitrarily distributed. its "getter" is necessarily the capitalist, the exploiter. second, what is done with this kind "surplus" could not possibly be the setting-up of a state with soldiers, laws etc since all of this is required to make the exploitation work in the first place. thirdly, how do they get they surplus? certainly not by robbing and equally not by selling something. instead, just by exploiting the workers. how it is, that they can do so, is unfortunately nothing you can find out in this video.
anyway, he IS NOT talking about surplus value. listen to the prof! surplus CORN! surplus IRON! hes talking about stuff! about use value and "to much than could be eaten by the producers"!
so finally, let me clarify my last paragraph: in his answers to his questions 1-3, the prof tells us, that 1. the surplus getters BECOME some ruling class (priests, kings, princesses, ...) IN VIRTUE OF getting the surplus 2. with the surplus the surplus getters get bureaucracy - they get soldiers to rule the workers etc 3. the surplus getters get the surplus by controlling, dominating the workers or by selling on a free market - thus all ways which presuppose control, government, rules. thats the contradiction in his thoughts and his ideology: he takes the distribution of the goods, the produced use values, as somehow natural and every form of government, state, class conflicts etc as build upon it - quite the reverse of marx insights, again.
@Oners82 actually no but why do you ask? am i that wrong about what is said in the video or am i not able to express myself?
He is explaining the boom in surplus that actually did happen around 10,000 years ago with the establishment of sedentary societies and domestication (aka "civilization"). This is basic stuff that noone who had read or gone to a little bit of college anywhere disagrees with, that part wasn't even Marxist or leftist, it's not disputed.
The origin of surplus was essentially in storage of extra agriculture and animal resources like skins, and over time that storage was ran by specialists who made IOUs which were a sort of pre cursor of the first currencies to come later. Currency originates around 7 - 8000 years ago, but the surplus of goods which eventually created the surplus of value originated before that, around 10,000 years ago with the development of sedentary societies and domestication.
Currency is merely A REPRESENTATION OF VALUE
@Oners82
He first mentioned surplus in the context of sedentary societies and domestication, so before profits or commodities. He wasn't speaking in the context of feudalism or capitalism throughout. But other than that point at least your response is way better than most these comments
what great luck to have stumbled upon these lectures! thank you sir
Professor Wolff tells us that the "price" of land is its "rent." Actually, in an exchange of a deed to land for cash, the price charged is a capitalization of rent (i.e., the potential annual rental value of the location, subject to the potential for speculative increases in future rents). Thus, if a parcel of land could be leased by the owner to someone for $1,000 a year, and the annual rate of return realized by investors is 5 percent, then the minimum price the owner of land would accept is $20,000 (5% of x = $1,000; x=$1,000/5%).
Modern economists as well as their predecessor political economists also introduce a significant analytical confusion to their writing by using the term "profit" as an economic rather than an accounting concept. A firm experiences a profit if revenue exceeds expenses. The profit will be derived from a combination of rent, wages and interest, the proportion differing based on the type of activity undertaken, and by whether the systems of law and taxation in a society create monopoly privileges enjoyed by some, the costs of such subsidies absorbed by others.
love the lecture. however, using pi as a variable rather than the number could potentially be a bit confusing lol
At 5:19 she took off everything from that table
Good talk, other that his rediculous explanation of class hierarchies directly after the establishment of sedentary societies, lol.
'Against His-story, Against Leviathan' by Freddy Pearlman
'Rivers of Life' JGR Forlong
Use Lateχ, not word, and you can do that
Don't these questions all assume time as a function? I ask this because of my understanding of your Kantian lectures and my own self-acquired knowledge of philosophy. So I can't help but intuitively suspect a deep conflict here, between Kant and Marx; and, given your professed adherence to both, how do you square any such conflicts?
🤔 What do you mean, please?
" that rent is not part of the cost of the production of food" absurd. See Larouche, The Case of Walter Lippmann and other texts.Land rents and debt service are in fact the main problems in the costs of production.
Can you expand your reasoning, please?
9:30
Absolutely love this, thank you for these lectures!
3 Human Questions:
If surplus is presumed;
If distribution of surplus is presumed;
1. Who gets the surplus?
2. When they get it, what do they do with it?
3. How do they get the surplus?
7:50 Surplus
16:30 Idea de lucha de clases
19:40 How they get surplus
32:45 Smith labor theory
34:25 Economía moderna. Mucha matemática pero sin cable a tierra
I don’t really understand. But I have a question. Where does the value of the soldier’s pay fit in to the system, since you have to have protection from the Vikings to keep them from stealing your labor?
Omg, that is Sooooo simplistic and unfair. I see a First Cause claim here. There were courts, judges, lawyers, and priests way far back even before capitalism existed. And there is certainly no friendship between the State and the capitalists, since the former takes the surplus of the latter by coercion. Moreover, most of where the surplus goes is back into the company and into banks and other financial institutions, where it is then made available for the opportunity of aspiring entrepreneurs. So idk, while I do have my gripes with the crony capitalism that we have here, I have to reject some of this analysis as simplistic and misleading. Not that you, Professor Wolff, are intending to do so, but that Marx's basic claims include very misleading propositions.
You are misunderstanding. Courts, judges, lawyers, priests he is not saying is a product of capitalism. It is a product of surplus existing. Regardless of your objections to crony capitalism, in a capitalist society capitalists control the surplus, and so have more power to influence laws, the state, and law enforcement. Crony capitalism is literally a natural result of free market capitalism. If there was no state, the most profitable corporations would establish one to make more profit and use it to practice crony capitalism.
Also, it does not matter that the capital goes back into the company. The point is it goes directly to the capitalists first. They are the ones who decide how much to put back into the company, completely in line with their own rational self interest. Surplus going to capitalists is not in reference to their salaries.
@@pookz3067 I'm not misunderstanding anything. I'm just not one to go through life criticizing and complaining all about how external systems are keeping me down--especially when such things exist only in the abstract world of Ivory Tower dreamers. But listen, I'm no saint and no sage. I'm not one of the Seven Wise Men of History. I don't need to be all that in order to see plainly that I cede my power, my liberty, my moral worth and integrity to anything that I dislike outside of myself. That's an immortal truth, an intuition that everyone knows and experiences in every time and place. When faced with such truisms as foregoing, however, Marxists love to feign their exclusive objectivity by hinting at the hyper-materialism upon which (it is wrongly claimed, in my view) communist doctrine is said to rest. I realize that anyone--more precisely, any "individual," since only individuals possess concrete reality capable of conferring, to say nothing of exercising, such things as rights, powers, etc.--is perfectly free to assert (i.e., to exercise free speech) that their mental pictures, their ideas reflecting their resentment lists about the so-called "morally inferior" world, depict the true, or "material," state of history. To me, these are just convenient pretenses used by angry sophists and rabble-rousers to create the impression of objectivity. In truth, "the state," "society," "capitalists," "the greater good"--these are all just collective nouns--convenient abstractions, really--that attach to nothing concrete or even verifiable in the real world. (So much for the much vaunted communist boast of concern for matters limited to the natural world)! Indeed, these collective nouns are mere fictions representing a vacuous nothing in the raging minds of those who would use their pretended reality to punish a world that, in their humble (lol) hearts, is beneath them, morally speaking. These pompous sophists--many of whom lack basic courage even to admit openly their communist convictions--a fortiori lack sufficient courage to get their own skin in the game, to stick out their necks bravely in the crucible of competition; to exhibit genuine, natural, healthy masculinity; to take risks and overcome the kinds of obstacles that capitalists (i.e., assuming such an entity actually exists) refuse to cower before. For this and many other reasons, individuals who populate and constitute this obscure, abstract category "capitalist," (as pejoratively known by angry cowards) are also movers and shakers--those whose energy, drive, direction, vision, courage, fortitude, wisdom, (sometimes luck, but so what?) etc.--and only after all that, capital--these are they who are most "naturally fit" to take up the roles to which the commie complainers of the world, so self-righteously, and thus so insufferably, so often point to with their customary tone of accusatory indignation. I view all this theorizing-while-claiming-objectivity as just a clever self-deception, a stratagem of thought devised by minds hoping to succor their own miserable, envious mental states by pointing to the dubious consolation that their poverty promoting behavior makes them somehow morally superior to those "evil capitalists"--people whom, it is wrongfully claimed, won't share their toys. In fact, the wealth creators of the world--by the very fact of their having created a system that has raised the standard of living for mankind beyond anything comprehensible--are not only the ones whose constant daily efforts make all of our lives more comfortable and convenient, but are also those who, by the very fact of their wealth creating activities, deserve--in my eyes, in the first instance--to control the flow of capital's traffic. Why shouldn't those who are most able to build wealth, as proved by their methods and records for doing so, also be the first of those whose hands capital passes through. Even my puppy can see the superior wisdom expressed by that proposition!! Ugh, wtf, I wish these Ivory Tower dreamers would get off their lazy, whining asses and stop reviling the risks and responsibilities of personal liberty, the exclusive feature of the capitalist symbol known as currency. Hatin ass commies 🙄🙄
@@brucekern7083 Thanks. Wolff, himself, is a capitalist and has benefited greatly from it; doing the hard labor of reading and expounding his thoughts. He should take some time and work in a factory. But I appreciate his delivery and knowledge of abstractions like 'alienation of labor'. It is hard to quantify freedom, but I feel in some ways that element is missing in Communism. For example, I enjoy having my own home as opposed to living in a commune. Also, Wolff's criticism of Trump in 2015 is notable after Trump made American energy independent, kept us out of wars, and called China to account. China is the result of Marxist thinking and there we see that all production of labor always has its CEOs that obviously live better than the proletariate whom it eats and who have no choice. But Wolff knows where his bread is buttered; he said that if Trump won he would leave the country and never come back. I am glad he didn't keep his word. Also, Wolff is an avowed atheist and as such is certainly not a Kantian who posited moral reason for believing in God. It's more reasonable to believe in God if we are to have Justice.
He's talking about around 10,000 years ago when the establishment of the first sedentary societies and domestication increases surplus. But his explanation of the priestly/legal/military class etc is simplistic as hell, I'd suggest 'Against His-story, Against Leviathan' for interesting thoughts on that.
Have you read Capital or studied Marx, most of this and much of Marx's analysis is an analysis of feudalism and the transfer from feudalism to capitalism which is a subject Marx was a specialist on.
You don't seem to be getting that alot if this is about how Capitalism formed, how Feudalism formed or how the economy of sedentary societies (aka "civilization") formed, not modern Capitalism. Read '33 Lessons on Capital' by Harry Cleaver
You obviously aren't getting this or you would understand that Marx saw Capitalism as the most positive revolutionary force that had even existed. That's something that most people who don't try to study this don't get.
😂 Trump made America energy independent 😂🤣😂🤣😂 you must be a comedian