Is surplus value, - theft or not?

[Immanuel Can]

Perhaps, but what if we've only just begun...

...to kill? Well, 140 million is enough. I think Socialism has had its try, and proved what it has to offer. It's been far too costly to play around with again.

And I don't believe you know more about it than billions of Russians, Chinese, etc. You're not a bad guy, but honestly, I don't think you can rival their combined intelligence, or their grasp of the theory. I'm sorry...I just don't.

I think this is the truth: Communism has been tried, and tried, and tried...and found wanting, every time.

[promethean75]

"You're not a bad guy"

And now don't come the ad hominem attacks on my person. You take that back!

[Immanuel Can]

"You're not a bad guy"

And now don't come the ad hominem attacks on my person. You take that back!

Sorry...you're an evil, Red pox on the planet. Are we good, now?

[promethean75]

The provinces south of the yellow river suffered the greatest losses during the great leap forward, but little is mentioned about the major advances made elsewhere.

[Immanuel Can]

The provinces south of the yellow river suffered the greatest losses during the great leap forward, but little is mentioned about the major advances made elsewhere.

Elsewhere? Where do you see a "major advance"? Are you not aware that the so-called Great Leap Forward killed at least 45, and maybe as many as 55 million people, according to independent historians? Even the Chinese government admits to at least 30, and you know they're gonna lie.

So...what's the "great leap"?

[promethean75]

Mao revolutionized the steel industry by getting everyone a backyard furnace so they could melt their cooking pots down. That's the equivalent of receiving a free George Foreman grill today.

[Immanuel Can]

Mao revolutionized the steel industry by getting everyone a backyard furnace so they could melt their cooking pots down. That's the equivalent of receiving a free George Foreman grill today.

Pre-industrial home industry. And all that cost was 45 million dead. Wonderful.

[promethean75]

I think this matter may have been settled centuries ago by the great Marquis de Sade.

"All, all is theft, all is unceasing and rigorous competition in nature; the desire to make off with the substance of others is the foremost - the most legitimate - passion nature has bred into us and, without doubt, the most agreeable one."

And that is what history is. The long process of achieving by means of property and force the substance of others. Capitalism is the perfection of this process and the last stage. It has concealed its theft behind the 'wage'

Think of history as a process of a more clever class of people perfecting ways to avoid having to labor. Slavery by force was the first step and capitalism is the last. Here it seems as if the contract between employer and employee is by the consent of each party but it ain't. The employee has no other option but to participate as a wage earner.

Our intellectual history, then, has been the process of normalizing the indecency of this more clever class. Thus is born opposing ideologies... conservatism and all its machinations on the right, liberalism and all its impotent social democratic floundering on the left. Conservatism, born of the elite educated property owning classes, will dominate the minds of menz for thousands of years and not become philosophically challenged until after the Enlightenment. The major blow against the machinations of the Right was the advance of science... which killed god... and without God the Right lost half of its intellectual power over menz. But now by then, empires and kingdoms had already been settled and it would be hundreds of more years before a worker revolution would happen. Intellectual unindoctrination doesn't change anything, then, and the Right avoids what should have been the consequences of the Enlightemnent. Today it's even subsumed the Left and made all of its politicians pro-capitalism.

What to do, then. f*** I guess you do wutcha wanna. We're too entrenched in global capitalism to dedicate any real effort to political philosophy and epistemology is as boring as it us useless. See there's an internal logic to the anarchist... one which we don't see until we've gone the distance. At first we're insulted and offended by its vulgar simplicity, and only the angry teenagers among us dare to take up its banner. But then after walking a yuge circle we arrive back at it. There really is nothing else dignified to do but slash, bash, crash 'n burn. Thank goodness there are so many undignified worms among us for we may have done ourselves in long ago if there weren't!

[Immanuel Can]

It has concealed its theft behind the 'wage'

Explain the "theft" involved in a "wage."
The employer incurred a variety of costs in excess of the labour...material costs, transportation, infrastructure, invention, etc.
The wage is what the employer offered.
He offered it, because it was what he could acquire a worker for. (If he had gotten it wrong, nobody needs take the job.)
The employee agreed, and signed a contract for the wage.
The wage was paid, and paid on time, to the person who had contracted for it. (By law)
The employee remains entirely free to leave, and to shop his labour at whatever rate it can command, or to add value to his own education and skills, and pursue better situations.
Extra value from the sale of the product came to the employer or owner as compensation for his extra responsibility, risk, resource-investment, and ingenuity.

From whom was money stolen, how was it stolen, and how much of it was stolen...if anything was stolen?

[promethean75]

The theft occurs when the sale price of a product exceeds the production costs of the product and that profit doesn't go to the producer.

What you have to get over is this belief that because capitalism is a legal market interaction, it is, therefore, not theft. We have employees entering into contracts to be stolen from. This is the only option for ninety percent of the people on erf.

This is funny, in fact. REALLY, the employee is paying the employer to do nothing but get in the way and push him to work faster.

So, in my roughly 20 years of framing houses, if i was making $15 per hour and every hour i produced $45 dollars worth of framing, this means i have been paying my employers $30 per hour for 20 years to do nothing but run their mouths.

Incidentally, this is one reason it's so difficult for me to feel like a bad guy in spite of being a marauding sociopath. I have made so many people so much money I'm like a walking charity organization.

[Immanuel Can]

The theft occurs when the sale price of a product exceeds the production costs of the product and that profit doesn't go to the producer.

Well, the "producer" is the employer. He's obviously the one who's conceived of, paid for, arranged, supplied and staffed the production. All the labourer has done is showed up, done some hands-on work, and picked up the wage he contracted for.

So again, where's the "theft"? The worker got paid. And he got paid what he agreed to be paid. How did he suddenly become the 'rightful owner' of everything the employer did, so somehow it was his money that was all the value of the product?

See, Socialists can't even add...or don't want to. They can't figure out that Marx's famed "labour theory of value" is rubbish. Wages are what the worker agreed to. There's nothing at all "stolen" from him, so long as he is paid -- which, by law, he HAS to be.

[promethean75]

"Well, the "producer" is the employer. He's obviously the one who's conceived of, paid for, arranged, supplied, and staffed the production."

It's a sad day at PN, Mannie. This time, you can't claim to have forgotten because i so recently posted about this. It must be that you simply can't understand what I'm saying. I even aksed you "do you understand the words that are comin' out of my mouf" as i was tryna holla at you.

'Conceiving' is the most ambiguous form of labor and very difficult to rate the value of. We can't count that. And if we do, not for long. You're not gonna be receiving royalties because fifty years ago you thought of and patented a Swifter mop.

The rest concerns us. All those things you mention are again only types of appropriation. That's when you take something you didn't produce, something that already existed, and put it to work generating more product... product that will again not be the result of your labor.

I build an apple. You sell it. Make a dollar. Take that dollar and buy apple seeds harvested by other workers. Pay me x to plant those seeds. I build an apple. You sell it, etc.

Nowhere in this process did you actually do anything except 'manage'. But now, if that's the case, any one of your employees could also manage (if trained) and would be paid x to do so. So, then, the skill of managing is only worth x. This means you aren't doing something exceptional enough in the chain of production to justify the profit you are deriving from it.

'Paid for', 'arranged', 'supplied', 'staffed', etc.

Paid for with money made from your employees, so you didn't produce that. Arranged by workers in various positions... (unless you manage), so you aren't doing that. Supplied by workers in the chain of distribution. Staffed by hiring managers... unless you're gonna cut into your golf time and do a facetime interview with another employee. Aah... they come 'n go all the time... let Randy down at the Arby's handle it. Looks like you won't be doing that either.

Just what DO you do here, Mr. Can?

Bro I'm tryna save you from a total eclipse of the heart. Tryna beat me in an argument about the relevance of a capitalist is like tryna fight that big Russian barbarian dude with the hammer and sickle tattooed on his iron chest (mine's not as iron but it will be in a few) in the old barn in Siberia scene. It's not gonna work out for you.

[Immanuel Can]

"Well, the "producer" is the employer. He's obviously the one who's conceived of, paid for, arranged, supplied, and staffed the production."

'Conceiving' is the most ambiguous form of labor

Also, one of the most important. Every job, every role, every product must first exist in a creative mind before it can become a reality. Then that mind has to have the ingenuity to bring that vision to reality, to do the logistics to make it happen, to understand the tasks required to produce it, and to manage the staff necessary to generate it.

Why is it that you discount that value? Without it, nobody would have a job.

The rest concerns us. All those things you mention are again only types of appropriation.

Nope. None of them are. You don't "appropriate" (meaning "take") anything from anybody to do them. And it's certainly not from your labour force that you "take" anything.

I build an apple.

If it's a fruit "apple," you don't "build" it at all. If it's a computer "apple," it's somebody else's creation that you merely help assemble.

'Paid for', 'arranged', 'supplied', 'staffed', etc.

Paid for with money made from your employees,

No, you didn't have any employees when you paid to build your factory. You hired somebody else's workers, and paid them tons of money, on speculation you'd one day be able to use that factory to produce something valuable.

Just what DO you do here, Mr. Can?

I'm describing it. You envisioned it, you did the strategy to create it, you did the logistics, you paid for the infrastructure, all the while hazarding your own money. You paid to have the roof raised, the parking lot paved, the machinery installed, the distribution system established...and on, and on, and on...all before you hired even one factory worker.

And that worker contracted voluntarily for a wage. And you paid him that wage.

Nobody stole or "appropriated" anything. Everybody in the chain you have employed MADE money, and all the money they contracted to do the work for...and you had to pay it all.

So now, why should somebody who did all that not get some profit out of his venture, while all his employees continue to have wages, benefits, health coverage, retirement plans...all at his expense? And if you allow him no profit, why would he do all that? He'd be losing money and gaining nothing.

Do you really want to cost all those workers their jobs, just to prove you can hate and envy the entrepreneur who risked all his own cash in order to make those jobs happen?

You just don't seem to understand any of the economics of business. But that's Marxism for you.

So I'm going to simplify.

You drive a bus.
You signed a contract for X dollars an hour, plus whatever benefits.
You are paid exactly what you contracted for.
Exactly how are you being stolen from?