Marxism After Marx | Super-Exploitation 

Solidarity from Colorado, comrades. ❤

@@lococomrade3488 Hey there, Comrade

Hi comrade, from Malaysia

Fuk yeah more like betta-Rus (Betta sounds like "better", thus "Better-Rus(sia)" I'm not making a serious statement the pun is just low hanging fruit.

@@monsieurdorgat6864 That's some cool linguistic flex in here. Btw, I'm a linguist and an English teacher 😎

Ayyy nice

I call that a mini strike!

It still doesn't make the theory correct. Are employees paid less than what their inputs are worth?

Hmm...I'll need some time to gather resources and thoughts on it, but I think it would be a good one to make

@@themarxistproject much thanks comrade 🫡🫡🫡

@@c1carnage933 smol computers in every workplace, mid sized computers in every district planing center and One BIg ole Computery per Republic + Dunkelhase/ Cockshott or Cybernertical planing model = Austrians Nightmare

I always find the thesis of the Economic Calculation Problem weird. It was proposed in 1920 so... before any actual consolidated results of socialist experiments, and then... and then, even when doing calculus on pen and paper, the soviets somehow managed a huge productivity gain, waste reduction, growth rate and gain of life expectancy. Whichever problem there was on calculation, it still seemed to be doing a lot better by attempting calculus, without even using computers and cybernetics, than by not attempting the calculation at all.

I mean, capitalism is failing the economic calculation problem massively. I give you Bitcoin.

Great to hear that you're taking on Capital! It is challenging at times, but indispensable to read carefully and understand. The version published by Penguin is totally fine. On translations (I say this as someone who has read all three volumes plus several other major works): I don't think the nuances in translation are particularly important for newcomers to the material. There are some "Marxologists" out there who swear by the importance and I do understand that certain subtleties are lost from German to English, but as a beginner I think it is your job to simply engage with the major principles in the texts. Those are not going to be very different across the various translations. My rule of thumb is: pick whatever is most accessible to you, in terms of price / shipping / physical location. Intro reading: An Introduction to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx's Capital by Michael Heinrich or Companion to Marx's Capital by David Harvey People have argued for and against these types of texts, but I think they can be useful if you need some guidance / additional explanations. I understand the concerns though. If you read these works before or during your exposure to the original text, they might prevent your own interpretation developing. I don't think this is a big problem for beginners though -- the main point is getting into the text and doing your best with the concepts. Marx's own work, "Value, Price, and Profit" and "Wage Labour and Capital" are smaller texts that could help out with comprehension. If you don't have prior experience reading these older, technical works, just focus on getting through it with as much attention as possible to the main arguments. Some stuff won't make sense because it's very specific to questions/issues of Marx's time. Feel free to get in touch via email if you run into any questions as you read (I can't promise to be very quick with responses though): themarxistproject [@] gmail [.] com

i really appreaciate you taking the time, your guidance and understanding is a massive help. ill be sure to reach out if i run up against anything too unwieldy and i dont mind about response time, your upload schedule has taught me to be very patient. but in all seriousness as long as you keep doing the work ill keep watching and learning! take care, left is best

I would read Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Engels first, it is very short and touches on some of the main contradictions of the capitalist system that Marx touches upon in Capital, as well as briefly discussing surplus value. It also offers a clear distinction between the utopian socialism and scientific socialism (marxism), which is an important difference to take into account when reading Marx and Engels, who spent much of their writing making polemics against utopian socialists like Proudhon and Durring. These debates are still important today, as the left (especially in the global north) is infected with many utopian tendencies (Anarchism, Co-op Socialism, Social Democracy, etc.) Good luck comrade!

It is a major imperial power, obviously

Colony of australia

Cockshott already debunked it. It's the fact that the labour is less productive, so when averaging the general profit ratez the southern capitalists need to exploit at higher rates in order to equalize the surplus value and keep themselves competitive. The export of capital is just the abuse of prices of production and the super profits made off it, not some extra exploitation. The actual extra exploitation are the taxes on income and on the consumption of the goods which reproducelabour that are then reshuffled as subsidies to the capitalists by the state (this happens in both north and south to relatively equal degrees). Here the labour aristocracy is taken out of context. He referred to trade union leaders and settlers of which privileged status is dependent on the imperialism, it has nothing to do with higher wages or lower rates of exploitation.

Hey novince? May I please get some citations?

@@injusticeanywherethreatens4810 google up his video on the Paul Cockshott channel, titled "The so-called Unequal Exchange", he has two videos on the matter. tl;dr the unequal exchange is an unscientific term which does not explain the real issue. He admits that there are indeed certain cases of direct exploitation through supply chains, i.e. the case of West Africa were French companies in the region sell under the market price to their mainland distributors which in turn sell in the European market at the real price in order to avoid paying taxes in Africa, but this cases are visible and don't account for the whole picture. The main claim of the theorists of unequal exchange and Third-Worldism is that the productivity of the south and north are relatively equal, which is clearly false by a long shot. The south has a much lower productivity than the north and we can see it clearly in heavy industry, like steel, and agriculture. Africa and India still have peasantry which lives of subsistence farming, while North America and Europe not only that they produce for their entire population while having far less people employed in agriculture, but they actively seek markets to export their surplus production because there is not enough demand on their regional markets. I'll cite FAO here: "Europe became a net food exporter in 2013. Oceania reclaimed its status as the second-largest net exporter in 2022, surpassing Europe. 2022, driven by Australia (which became the third largest net exporter) and New Zealand (which remained the fifth largest)."

@@injusticeanywherethreatens4810 There's "Once more on unequal exchange" video by him & "The so-called Unequal Exchange" as well. There's two other videos on the topic I believe on his channel. I would also suggest "The Economics of Modern Imperialism" DOI:10.1163/1569206X-12341959 I think both agree on that any difference is due to difference in technology first and foremost. However, there are differences in the conclusions they both draw.

@@SolarEmbrace i see. Thank you

Indeed, we must give the system total control of our lives so they can prove history wrong and be the first ones to not massacre its people. Pure genius, comrade!

​@@brumslybrumbino9516 Read an actual history book.

@@brumslybrumbino9516 you’re projecting - the banks already own everything and our tax dollars are currently being used to fund a genocide

But it doesn't make the concepts and theories correct.

Surplus comment.

Surplus comment.

Super-surplus comment

Super-Exploited comment.

No choice but to keep engaging with people and encouraging critical analysis!

if productivity decreases they will find a way to whip you into motion or if they can't do that they will export to the developing world and increase the exploitation there

Like the other person said, if productivity decreases, they whip you into shape. Worst case, you're out of a job during the next down-sizing.

You're arguing with ghosts.

I don't think the video is disagreeing with you.

@@peter0x444 I don't think so either. Some things just weren't explained in the level of detail that I was expecting.

Agreed. I am merely drawing attention to Marini, who first articulated super-exploitation most explicitly. In my defense, the series is called "Marxism After Marx" not "Post-Marxism" 😅

I would encourage you to read a recent publication "Labour Super-Exploitation, Unequal Exchange, and Capital Reproduction" by Osorio et al. It makes, I think, a compelling argument that unequal exchange and super-exploitation mutually reinforce each other

Did you just devide total profit by number of employees or is the calculation more sophisticated? The cost of an employee is usualy much larger than the wage.

RU-vid is a very weird space to analyze economically. RU-vidrs do not exactly make a wage from the platform, nor is it clear if the work of making videos is truly "productive" in the Marxist sense. Maybe you can elaborate on how you view this dynamic?

@@themarxistproject So Marxism doesn't value creative work as productive? I think that may be a shortcoming. My point is that many people actively pursue it as a career and create content for a company that makes money off their labor and barely compensates most of them. They take on the roles of many different jobs, writer, editor, cinematographer, director and actor along with footing the bill for the gear to do it.

@@mooseymoose A video is not a commodity (RU-vid makes money through rent seeking) therefore it is not productive labour. It's not a value judgement.

RU-vidrs are the most advanced and exploited class! xD

@@benman9242 How so is it not? Rent seeking? I am somewhat confused by how RU-vid is a landlord. At face value it sounds like you are using different or very technical definitions that are apart from common understanding of the terms. Is a commodity ONLY a physical object to be bought with currency? I may have a definition that is less exclusive. I don't even know where to go with the rent seeking idea though.

Yes. It is the most extreme form of super exploitation as the bourgeoise reaps all of the profit while the workers are paid no wage and are officially deemed private property as they would be outright owned by the capitalists.

The phone you watched this video on, the food at your dinner table and the coffee you drank in the morning. If it werent for super-exploitation, the euro settler working class couldnt afford any of it.

@@Hardcore_Ant what the hell do you mean? Even Indians afford them.