The Philosophy Now Forum

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Sep 27, 2026 1:04 am

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sun Sep 27, 2026 12:55 am Would believing that a dictator has too much power be "envy" of a dictator?

"Believing" isn't the problem. Being envious, covetous, ungrateful and greedy is.

So if you advocate for the dictator to be ousted or step down on his own, are you being "envious" and "covetous" any more than I am when I think Elon Musk ought to share more of his wealth with his employees who make his wealth possible for him?

"Envy, again."

Let's unpack this. Gary works for Musk. Gary is also someone who, for whatever personal (philosophical) reasons, would never become a capitalist. What about Musk could he envy? That he's become so wealthy? But what if Gary knows Musk has the talent and intelligence of any $80,000-a-year computer geek you'd hire on Angie's List and that all that wealth was generated by he (Gary) and his co-workers? In fact, the more Gary thinks about Musk, the less he likes him.

"But it's worse than you have realized yet. He will starve to death if he makes no profit. So he will not be employing the labourer, who will also starve to death"

Yes! 'Profit' is not an amount that is equivalent to the value of the thing but more. So, if he sold the taco for the same price as what he invested in having it produced, he'd make no profit. Likewise, a wage worker does not profit from his labor because not only does he not receive an amount equivalent to what the thing he made is worth, but he receives far less.

Profit, then, is a phenomena that is completely artificial. It is the magical value added to a thing by the third party capitalist. What creates it is a mystery. How. Well, can you show me in terms of labor what the Taco Shack owner actually did to make that $5 taco become a $7 taco?

Ah! He just decided to slap on an extra two dollars for himself... just for being there... or on speed dial if one of his managers need em.

Artificially inflated value to sustain an inert parasite that embeds itself in the chains of production.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 27, 2026 5:04 pm

"But it's worse than you have realized yet. He will starve to death if he makes no profit. So he will not be employing the labourer, who will also starve to death"

Yes! 'Profit' is not an amount that is equivalent to the value of the thing but more.

But "profit" is also a) the reason the job can exist at all, b) the basis of the employee's own job, and c) the living wage for the employer. So what you've done, if there's no profit involved, is destroyed the economics of everybody. That theory is exactly why Communism always kills economies: it is just economically toxic.

...a wage worker does not profit from his labor because not only does he not receive an amount equivalent to what the thing he made is worth, but he receives far less.

That's the idiotic "labour theory of value." It forgets all the costs and risks that go into the business, all the infrastructure, all the taxation, all the insurance, etc. That theory is just obviously wrong to anybody who knows the first thing about business -- which is why it's so surprising that anybody ever believed Marx. His "economics" are just so dumb.

Profit, then, is a phenomena that is completely artificial.

Not at all, actually. The profit is the difference between the raw materials costs and the value created by their assemblage into something a buyer will freely want to buy, at exactly that price that the buyer is willing to buy it.

It's the value produced by the buyer not having to grow his own lettuce, kill his own cow, pick his own olives, mix his own sauce, etc., but being able to buy at taco ready made, on hand, in a place in which he could not himself, or would rather not himself, assemble ingredients or have the means to produce a taco -- even if he knew how to go about making a good one.

the ethics of Sir Galahad paled in value to Sir Plus...

-Imp

I'm using the term 'profit' in a nuanced way. It doesn't mean what you mean. If i grew and sold a tomato, what i got would be the exchange value of my product, not a profit over and beyond my product determined in some other way.

Now watch. If i whimsically raised the price of my tomato to $2 instead of $1 just to be a smartass and show that i can make a profit... i.e., more than what i think my labor to grow and sell the tomato is worth, this only shows that my customer now values my tomato at $2 instead of $1. So, in fact, the value of my labor went up because a consumer of it felt it was worth $2 instead of $1, and i made no profit. Something i made received a higher exchange value, that's all.

The reason why the $2 added onto the original $5 taco still counts as artificial even if willing consumers buy it and, therefore, prove its value to be $7, is because they are paying for an uncausal effect... the mere presence of the Taco Shack owner and nothing more or better about the taco by virtue of that presence.

The taco is still worth $5, but the consumer public has been deceived into believing it is worth $7 because they count the capitalist as an active agent in its production when he is not.

Paying $7 does not show the taco to be worth $7 as an analysis of the production costs would show. The actual value of the taco could only be shown in a market completely free of capitalists. If there are capitalists, there is ambiguity of value... everything seems worth more than it is merely by his presence.

At the same time if the Taco Shack owner were removed the taco would go back to $5 unless the taco maker marketed it at a higher price. If he did and it sold, his labor value just went up and the exchange is even. No profit is being made on it. He's not a third party inflating a price of something beyond the costs to make it. Only a worker can get away with doing that because the product is his labor and its value is as high as someone is willing to pay.

Fun fact: supply and demand still functions in a Marxist economy and is the biggest factor in determining the value of labor. Who can do more faster is more valuable. No need for a capitalist to provide raise incentives. Incentives are naturally built in.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 27, 2026 7:49 pm I'm using the term 'profit' in a nuanced way. It doesn't mean what you mean.

Then it isn't "nuanced." It's "simplistic."

If i whimsically raised the price of my tomato to $2 instead of $1 just to be a smartass and show that i can make a profit...

Then it won't sell. $2 is too much, and the market will correct you.

Paying $7 does not show the taco to be worth $7

Apparently, it does. The consumer will pay it, so that's what it's worth. If it's not, he won't pay it...he'll just go to the taco truck next down the line. And that owner's smart enough to undercut his competitor by a dollar or two. So then, $5 or $6 becomes the price of a taco.

That's the glory of the free market, and of competition. The price of a thing is always determined by what the market will bear.

But when Communism kills off all competition, and removes any profit motive, and dictates the market, the market dies...and the economy dies...and people die.

Naw, you know Marxism has never existed, so nothing but theory can be said about it.

Here's mines. Capitalism only incentivizes the smallest minority of people and only realizes it with a fraction of that already small number.

So, outside of the unrealistic dreams of seventy-five percent of the world, there is no experienced difference between being paid a wage by a single company owner or a committee of Russians in grey wool overcoats.

And it gets better. If those Russians know what they're doing and can get a quantum computer in there fast enough to analyze all the economic data in 0.0000072 seconds so it knows what industries to concentrate attention on, there can be plenty of raise potential and incentive for working citizens. Quantum Yuri would tell you what's hot and what's not in the job market. People want more money. More money can be made through specialization and by working in high demand fields.

Quantum Yuri can also do a worker assessment profile and develop a whole life plan suitable and realistic enough for you based on your natural talents.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 27, 2026 8:33 pm Naw, you know Marxism has never existed,

Really? So the Russians, the Chinese, the North Koreans, the Zimbabweans, the Cubans, the Venezuelans, the Romanians, the East Germans...and on, and on, and on...none of them knew what they were doing? Were they just dumber than you, and you know what "real Communism" would be?

And why HASN'T "real Communism" existed? So many billions of people have tried...and yet, you say, it's never been tried? Why hasn't it ever worked? Could it be that what you call "real Communism" maybe isn't realistic? I mean, if so many people try, and it never works...what's the conclusion?

But if you did it, it would really be tried? Because you, and only you, really can say what "real Communism" would be?

You'll forgive me if I'm having a little trouble believing that, won't you?

Capitalism only incentivizes the smallest minority of people...

Actually, it incentivizes everybody. The employer is incentivized, the worker is incentivized, the entrepreneur is incentivized, the inventor is incentivized, and all the consumers are incentivized. Who's left?

It's Communism that disincentivizes everybody. That's how it's played out in history.

no, it now costs more to make a penny than it is worth

we are no longer minting pennies

penny collectors are thusly incentivized...

-Imp

About such matters, i would direct comrades to the work of the great revolutionary thinker and activist Rosa 'the Red' Lichtenstein aka prof Whitneystein. To see if you qualify, name a single piece of advice or direction given by Marx anywhere in his work that was actually implemented on erf by a self-professed communist after the deth of comrade Lenin.

"I'll wait" - Rosa Lichtenstein, the Quora trials

promethean75 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 27, 2026 9:27 pm ...name a single piece of advice or direction given by Marx anywhere in his work that was actually implemented on erf by a self-professed communist after the deth of comrade Lenin.

So...Communism has been tried, and tried, and tried...by billions of people, and many of them very, very smart; and it's never been possible?

What's the obvious conclusion?

Is it, "Well, but Prom knows more than the billions of Russians, Chinese, etc..."

Or is it, "Communism is not realistic: it never works"?

I'll take option three: it's been tried, and what it produces is horrendous.

Bro, we've done this convo at least once before, maybe twice. Are we experiencing the eternal recurrence or what?

A structural analysis of the existing communist states of yore would show revolutionary stages, all stopping at the centralized party stage, morphing into state capitalism and failing to maintain proper soviet form. A russian citizen post-Lenin had about as much voting power as a german in Nazi germany. Same with the chairman's beloved China.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 27, 2026 9:46 pm A structural analysis of the existing communist states of yore would show revolutionary stages, all stopping at the centralized party stage, morphing into state capitalism and failing to maintain proper soviet form.

Well, all this means is that things don't work out as Marx said they would. In other words, it's yet another proof that the whole thing doesn't work in reality.

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