Econ 305, Lecture 10, A Discussion of Marx's Value and Surplus Value Theories

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16 май 2011

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Комментарии : 42

@taimoorshaukat 6 лет назад

This great professor is Stephen Resnick

@shaihuludxx 11 лет назад

excellent. Very helpfull.

@andreisatchlian3476 7 лет назад

Bernie Sanders...?

@frederickwalzer5555 4 года назад

Only the stupid people could notice that first.

@geetharamkumar6509 2 года назад

It's Dr. Steven Resnick, professor of economics in Massachusetts University (Retd.).

@josephjohnson701 6 лет назад

Financial Times: German union wins right to 28-hour working week and 4.3% pay rise : IG Metall Union's landmark deal is seen as benchmark for other sectors. German workers won a key victory in their fight for a better work-life balance when a big employers’ group agreed to demands from the country’s largest trade union for the introduction of a 28-hour working week. The agreement between IG Metall, which represents a wide swath of industrial workers, and the Südwestmetall employers’ federation, shows how unions in Germany, that for years have been a model of wage restraint, are flexing their muscles in ways more typical of organised labour in France, home of the 35-hour working week. The wage settlement was reached in the early hours of Tuesday after six rounds of often bruising talks and a series of 24-hour strikes. The two-year deal covers 900,000 workers in the metals and electrical industries in Baden-Württemberg, home to several of Germany’s most high-profile industrial groups, including Daimler, the carmaker, and Bosch. But IG Metall’s agreements tend to be seen as benchmarks for the whole of German industry, and it is now expected to be rolled out in other sectors. The parties agreed on a 4.3 per cent wage raise from April, and other payments spread over 27 months. Workers will be allowed to reduce their working week from the standard 35 hours to 28, while preserving the right to return to full-time work. IG Metall had pushed for a 6 per cent annual rise and held the 24-hour strikes to press its demands. It also threatened to ballot its members on extended industrial action if employers failed to budge. While acknowledging the award would be a burden, Stefan Wolf, Südwestmetall’s negotiator, said the agreement’s long duration would allow companies to better plan ahead. The deal would work out at below 4 per cent per year to employers, he said. Workers who need more time to look after children or elderly relatives can take eight additional days off work in lieu of the extra payment, two of which would be paid for by their employer. In return, companies will be able to offer more 40-hour a week contracts, at times when there is a shortage of skilled workers. German union wins right to 28-hour working week and 4.3% pay rise www.ft.com/content/e7f0490e-0b1c-11e8-8eb7-42f857ea9f09 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Marx: "The capitalist has bought the labour-power at its day-rate. To him its use-value belongs during one working-day. He has thus acquired the right to make the labourer work for him during one day. But, what is a working-day? At all events, less than a natural day. By how much? The capitalist has his own views of this ultima Thule [the outermost limit], the necessary limit of the working-day. As capitalist, he is only capital personified. His soul is the soul of capital. But capital has one single life impulse, the tendency to create value and surplus-value, to make its constant factor, the means of production, absorb the greatest possible amount of surplus-labour. Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks. The time during which the labourer works, is the time during which the capitalist consumes the labour-power he has purchased of him. If the labourer consumes his disposable time for himself, he robs the capitalist. The capitalist then takes his stand on the law of the exchange of commodities. He, like all other buyers, seeks to get the greatest possible benefit out of the use-value of his commodity. "Suddenly the voice of the labourer, which had been stifled in the storm and stress of the process of production, rises: The commodity that I have sold to you differs from the crowd of other commodities, in that its use creates value, and a value greater than its own. That is why you bought it. That which on your side appears a spontaneous expansion of capital, is on mine extra expenditure of labour-power. You and I know on the market only one law, that of the exchange of commodities. And the consumption of the commodity belongs not to the seller who parts with it, but to the buyer, who acquires it. To you, therefore, belongs the use of my daily labour-power. But by means of the price that you pay for it each day, I must be able to reproduce it daily, and to sell it again. Apart from natural exhaustion through age, &c., I must be able on the morrow to work with the same normal amount of force, health and freshness as to-day. What you gain in labour I lose in substance. The use of my labour-power and the spoliation of it are quite different things.. You pay me for one day’s labour-power, whilst you use that of 3 days. That is against our contract and the law of exchanges. I demand, therefore, a working-day of normal length, and I demand it without any appeal to your heart, for in money matters sentiment is out of place. You may be a model citizen, perhaps a member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and in the odour of sanctity to boot; but the thing that you represent face to face with me has no heart in its breast. That which seems to throb there is my own heart-beating. I demand the normal working-day because I, like every other seller, demand the value of my commodity. " We see then, that, apart from extremely elastic bounds, the nature of the exchange of commodities itself imposes no limit to the working-day, no limit to surplus-labour. The capitalist maintains his rights as a purchaser when he tries to make the working-day as long as possible, and to make, whenever possible, two working-days out of one. On the other hand, the peculiar nature of the commodity sold implies a limit to its consumption by the purchaser, and the labourer maintains his right as seller when he wishes to reduce the working-day to one of definite normal duration. There is here, therefore, an antinomy, right against right, both equally bearing the seal of the law of exchanges. Between equal rights force decides. Hence is it that in the history of capitalist production, the determination of what is a working-day, presents itself as the result of a struggle, a struggle between collective capital, i.e., the class of capitalists, and collective labour, i.e., the working-class. Economic Manuscripts: Capital Vol. I - Chapter Ten Related: Labour Unions as a Political Force in Germany germanculture.com.ua/germany-facts/labour-unions-in-germany/ Campaign Finance: Germany | Law Library of Congress www.loc.gov/law/help/campaign-finance/germany.php Class 06 Reading Marx's Capital Vol I with David Harvey ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-scw89cICHLQ.html

@CitizenSnips314 7 лет назад

Thank you for the upload. Impressive presentation. Does anyone know the name of the professor?

@vautrinvaquer5240 6 лет назад

Richard D. Wolff

@victoryover1156 6 лет назад

Bernie sanders.

@GoSolar 6 лет назад

Stephen Resnick. He passed away in 2013

@nthperson 5 лет назад

If one accepts the definition of "wealth" put forward by Marx (namely, that wealth is only that which is a tangible good, produced by labor and that has exchange value in the market), then one must exclude the factor of production "land" from that which is treated as individual wealth. What, then, is "land"? Land the source of wealth, the commons from which wealth is produced. Marx then argued (but not very vigorously) that "rents" as that portion of tangible wealth that comes from locational advantage rightfully belongs to the community or society.

@nthperson 5 лет назад

So, what about the idea of surplus value taken from labor and absorbed by the owners of capital? What we observe in the world is that in the absence of monopoly-granting licenses issued by government (or, the failure of government to prevent monopolies from forming) the owners of capital goods will invest in such goods in anticipation of obtaining an acceptable market rate of return. The ability of the owners of businesses to obtain workers willing to accept something below the full value of what their contribution to production depends on whether one lives in a full employment society, or at least has the skills and abilities to obtain employment where the supply of qualified workers is less than the demand therefor. This second qualifier occurs and persists, generally, for a limited period of time only. The first qualifier has not existed because systems of law and taxation are heavily skewed in favor of "rentier" privilege.

@Ronni3no2 5 лет назад

> _the owners of capital goods will invest in such goods in anticipation of obtaining an acceptable market rate of return_ They will also do other things, such as try to establish these monopoly-granting licenses, for one. Another thing they might do is try to get an acceptable rate of return by squeezing the workers: bust unions, extend the workday, delay retirement, intervene (and I am being kind here) in the affairs of a nation on the other side of the globe so that their workers can be used, deteriorate the working conditions, safety, etc. Another thing they arguably must do is invest money in labour saving technology (because if you don't do it and someone else does, you are out). As Marx put it, this has a tendency of decreasing the rate of return in the long run (and increasing unemployment since technological breakthroughs do not result in a shorter workday, but in layoffs). It's also worth noting that it's not as simple as "capitalist has capital so he invests it". If he is under the impression that it will be more profitable to wait and invest later for whatever reason, then he might just sit on it.

@whatabouttheearth 11 месяцев назад

READING Lecture 10 - A Discussion on Marx's Value and Surplus Value Theories: -'New Departures in Marxian Theory'. Ch. 6 -'Why Focus on Class?' by Richard Wolff. "East and West: Why Focus on Class?' Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences No.2 (Jan 2005). P 222-240. Calcutta India. (1st text on LibGen) (I could not find 2nd text)

@rbl3651 Месяц назад

Hello, were you able to find? The second pdf at all?

@banpaksebangfaixaibouri1107 Год назад

Economics determination.

@teddyj.3198 3 года назад

RIP Resnick

@Alkis05 7 лет назад

What post-modernists like the professor don't take into consideration in his critique of the notion that, ultimately, the mode of production is the cause of things happening in society is because marx and engels were materialists. Just as nature and the mind have a dialect relationship, but ultimately nature caused the mind. The mode of production, been the way humans produce and reproduce society is the material basis upon all else in society came to be. Before writing, one needs to develop language and to produce the means to writing (tools, paint, slabs, whatever). Before develop language, one needs to develop ways to produce food. That is what engles was talking about.

@thomasmurphy9429 7 лет назад

how is the professor a post-modernist? if anything I could see Hegelian idealism but that's separate from post-modernism

@bobbydelg5749 6 лет назад

he takes exactly this up in the earlier lectures in this series

@kingcrazymani4133 3 года назад

I am sure that I prefer the fake math and simple diagrams of standard macroeconomics and microeconomics instead of Marxist fake math. I can unfortunately imagine this guy grading one of my exams. His clone or near-clone was the monopolistic Russian Literature professor at my alma mater. I can’t follow prof. Resnick at all. I usually can’t follow glittering generalities that explain apparently very little of any use. I was hoping to learn something here. Oops. I blame Karl Marx for being a simpleton; I might be more charitable about his quasi-followers.

@lowersaxon 5 лет назад

Marx is wrong, totally wrong. Nonsense.

@natureabioros8686 5 лет назад

Thomas Huth There have been numerous successful socialist societies, primarily of the libertarian socialist variety, such as Revolutionary Catalonia, and even there have been numerous successful socialist policies that have reduced inequality, poverty, and provided general social well-being in numerous capitalist, and state capitalist (some incorrectly call these socialist) countries. Take a look at Revolutionary Catalonia in Spain (1936-1939) in which the revolutionary syndicalist union CNT FAI seized the around 75% of enterprises and placed them under collective worker management. Public services were expanded as hotels were transformed into public hospitals and schools were built, progress was made for women’s rights, and productivity improved drastically, with agricultural productivity increasing by around 30-50% and industrial productivity by 100% according to Emma Goldman and other sources. libcom.org/files/Goldman%20-%20Vision%20on%20Fire%20-%20Emma%20Goldman%20on%20the%20Spanish%20Revolution.pdf (pages 81 and 84) www.english.illinois.edu/maps/scw/anarchist.htm Workers determined much of their day to day function democratically, and workers’ councils determined how certain goods and services would be distributed. Overall, life was improved under the libertarian and democratic socialism for the citizens of Catalonia. If people refer to the USSR and China as failures of socialism, they must first substantiate the claim that they did fail. A study in 1986 showed that these planned economies had substantially greater physical quality of life than market economies of the same economic development, including higher calories consumption and life expectancy. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1646771/pdf/amjph00269-0055.pdf (Page 3 of study/page 663) If you are going to refer to famines in these countries, it should be stated that these countries have had histories of devastating famine under capitalism, with both Russia and China having massive famines claiming hundreds of thousands and millions of lives respectively in the early 20th century, and then you have to factor in that these numbers would have been an even greater proportion of the population given the population growth in both nations since this period. Given these countries actually made great leaps in food production, and started out unbelievably poor, it is reasonable to assume that it was because of certain socialist policies, malnutrition was actually reduced. This has also been corroborated by numerous other sources, and the statistics on these countries' high food production and physical quality of life have been corroborated by subsequent studies and various academic reviews. It is also worth mentioning that in addition to ending famines that had existed before socialism in the USSR, unemployment and illiteracy were both virtually eliminated. These countries also had rather low inequality (around 0.285 Gini coefficient for the USSR, with 1 representing complete inequality, i.e. one person owning all wealth, and 0 representing complete equality, everyone having the same wealth. www.roiw.org/1993/23.pdf (Page 29) For reference, the US has one of ~0.360, Western Europe around the 0.300-0.400 range, and the Nordic countries having coefficients of around ~0.270) , meaning their growth was equitable. And on the topic of growth, the USSR had a higher GDP growth rate than the US from the 1920s to 1970s (and even beyond those years, ~3.7% vs ~3.5% for the 1980s),and although it was poorer to start off with meaning growth would naturally be larger, the methods used to estimate these numbers (taken from the Madison data set) tend to underestimate the growth of less-developed nations, and given that Soviet Republics were dirt poor before the USSR, it is fair to say the given figure for USSR growth was an underestimate. In fact, from 1928-1970, the USSR was the second fastest growing economy in the world. eastsidemarxism.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/robert-c-allen-farm-to-factory-a-reinterpretation-of-the-soviet-industrial-revolution-1.pdf (Chapter 1, page 7) Estimates for Soviet growth from the 1950s-1970s even put annual GNP growth at ~6.6%. When you look at a more decentralized socialist economy like the one in Yugoslavia, you also see low inequality, a comprehensive social safety net, as well as a tremendous ~6.1% average annual growth rate from the 1920s to 1970s. In addition to success in both meeting physical needs and experiencing equitable growth (Gini coefficients of modern day countries in Yugoslavia are around 0.280, so the coefficient for Yugoslavia would have likely been similar to the modern Nordic Countries' inequality levels), this kind of economic system was popular. Around 6 in 10 Russians prefer Soviet "communism" to modern capitalism, i.e. a majority had better lives under a system with greater socialist influences and planning. ac.els-cdn.com/S1879366509000049/1-s2.0-S1879366509000049-main.pdf?_tid=88152c0a-3158-4773-887f-0bc4952e67c6&acdnat=1546980518_cd9280e7e55c15bdc2349a75885b7e5f (See abstract) www.rbth.com/news/2013/10/12/about_60_percent_of_russians_see_communism_as_good_system_-_poll_30755.html Not to mention that after the fall of communism in South Eastern Europe and subsequent transition to market capitalism, there has been an increase in poverty, inequality, and morality, which would seem to suggest that their communist systems had actually reduced poverty and inequality lower than capitalism could have. Now keep in mind I don't support this kind of so called "socialism" or state capitalism due to its repressiveness and state sanctioned violence, but just keep in mind that failure is a pretty strong term, and given what I outlined just now, I would say there is a pretty solid argument to be made that these systems improved the lives of the ordinary citizens pretty significantly, perhaps even more so than capitalism could have. It's easy to get caught up in repeated talking points and propaganda, but when looking at the facts, you may find a significantly different reality. Organized labor empirically reduces poverty, inequality, and unhappiness. There are numerous studies that document the effects of organized labor, including significantly correlating with less poverty, less percent of the population struggling, less inequality, and greater over happiness and satisfaction prospect.org/article/why-joining-union-good-your-well-being (Just look at the graphs from that link if you want). Stronger unions are also shown to lead to faster wage growth when comparing areas with similar economic conditions, but which vary in labor laws and unionization rate. illinoisupdate.com/2018/09/12/new-studies-show-that-stronger-unions-produce-faster-wage-growth/amp/?fbclid=IwAR0LikCIBl7Eh3c24PUuZSj0BFgB1h5y7_GPU3R8VIxCoDgQcOQcuEjOA7U Also, worker cooperatives, i.e. democratic workplaces are more productive and equal in wage structure than traditional workplaces www.thenation.com/article/worker-cooperatives-are-more-productive-than-normal-companies/ www.uk.coop/resources/what-do-we-really-know-about-worker-co-operatives. Scandinavian countries have some of the highest union densities in the world, and it’s no coincidence that these countries with strong organized labor have low inequality, poverty, and high happiness (all things organized labor contribute towards). Tldr Under Anarcho-Syndicalism >Improved social and health services (more public hospitals and schools) >Greater recognition of women's rights >Democracy in the workplace via worker-self management workers’ councils >Industrial productivity grew by 100% >Agricultural productivity grew by 30-50% Under Marxism-Leninism >Ended famine >Ended unemployment >Ended illiteracy >2nd fastest economic growth in the world from 1928-1970 >Higher physical quality of life (calories consumption, life expectancy, and quality of health services) than capitalist countries with the same level of GDP >More food produced per person than the USA until market forces reintroduced in the USSR >Preferred by a majority of citizens to capitalism Under Market Socialism >Rapid economic growth >Higher physical quality of life (calories consumption, life expectancy, and quality of health services) than capitalist countries with the same level of GDP Under Strong Unions >Lower inequality >Lower poverty >Greater wages and wage growth >Greater happiness Conclusion >Socialism (economic democracy and planning) with greater worker control lead to a better society with happier, healthier, and wealthier citizens

@natureabioros8686 5 лет назад

Thomas Huth if you look at the correlation between labor hours and the value of industries, it frequently exceeds 95% accuracy. Marx’s theories also accurately can calculate the rate of the profit within countries. I recommend Paul Cockshott’s lectures on Why the labor theory of value is right, as well as the tendency for the rate of profit to fall.

@natureabioros8686 5 лет назад

Thomas Huth I mean just think about it, if a worker himself produces 10 widgets worth $5 each, making $50 in sales, but is only paid $30, $20 had been extracted from the labor of the worker because he had to sell his labor to a property owner. It’s common sense.

@natureabioros8686 5 лет назад

LeGoatBronzo Besides the fact that they have been largely been destroyed by imperialism in their past and modern capitalists are keeping them from their full potential by siphoning wealth produced by the workers (although that isn’t to say I oppose globalization as a whole), I think that international neoliberals organizations like the IMF and World Bank push policies they know to increase income inequality without increasing growth (look up “Neoliberalism: Oversold?”) and should be ardently opposed. Lack of working class organization and lack of unionization is a problem in the developing world, and it is important for socialism, as a global movement, for class consciousness be fostered and to flourish in these developing nations. I am not terribly well versed in these subjects, so my opinion is subject to change.