LTV thread

Marxians of Veeky Forums

I'm not sure what to think of you, because I've not asked you all the question that usually determines how much attention I give a self-proclaimed Marxist.

strawpoll.me/10768163

Because LTV threads on Veeky Forums never turn out badly...

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myweb.lmu.edu/jdevine/notes/Law-of-Value.html
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LTV must be maintained as a working hypothesis, a sort of methodological fiction, prior to any marxist analysis, but it is not "correct" in the empirical sense, just as the category of totality is nowhere empirically present in the structure which it represents.

>but it is not "correct" in the empirical sense
It makes claims about empirical phenomena, but it's not correct empirically?

>LTV must be maintained as a working hypothesis
I don't see how the LTV *as formulated by Marx and Engels* was maintained as a working hypothesis, I figured Marx was very much bent on claiming that the law of value was how the form of production operated in capitalist economies.

Regardless, fuck what they said let's assume you're saying that it must be kept as a working hypothesis.

>working hypothesis

I presume you wish for this hypothesis, that makes conclusions of how empirical phenomena will unfold, to eventually be able to explain said phenomena?
If so, what gives you the inclination that it can eventually be correct?
And, along what lines do you feel the amendments to it need to be made?

Marxists are mentally ill. Take the redpill already, fucking retards

you know you'd get a much better reception if you'd stop fucking calling it this
just say your opinions, you don't have to post a pic of a nyquil

I call a spade a spade.

Yo, have you read Marx?

Sure the communist utopia is chill and all of that and I can imagine there are many Marxists that are soft on the whole revolution thing but, atleast taking the Marx-Lenin-Mao route that I usually see my friends supporting (third world bro, Delhi, India, we have our share of hardass commies) Marx is pretty "redpill".

By which mean that it's not sunshine and rainbows for anyone that wants to take part in the revolution and the Protracted People's War and what not,: it's shit, it's violent, it's long, it's hard, it's generally pretty fuckall, especially given the genocides and torture and general brutal squashing governments dish out to communist guerrillas, usually with little fucks given about their human rights in developing countries.

I fail to understand how anyone would perceive a communist guerrilla who has gone underground after being influenced by MLM literature as NOT redpilled (or not accepting harsh realities).

The Marxist-Leninist-Maoist reality, if it is real, is MUCH harsher than the reality, if it is real, that capitalism or a kind of social democracy is the best structure for states to follow, especially given that chances are your country is already a capitalist (be it a state capitalist) nation or a social democracy, so no need for a revolution.

>The Marxist-Leninist-Maoist reality, if it is real, is MUCH harsher than the reality

I mean, the reality keeping in mind present day revolutionary Marxists, since their reality would involve going through all the struggle while knowing that the communist society is too far a goal for them to live to see and that it is probably something for future generations.

Know that I now feel very, very, stupid for not noticing an obvious troll.

I don't need to read Marx to realize that he's a genocidal maniac.

Just look at how many people have been killed in the name of his ideology.
Just look at how Western civilization has crumbled under cultural marxism.

You are denying reality and facts.

>Marxists are mentally ill.
63% votes say the LTV is correct. I rest my case.

>on the board where most people have gone through liberal indoctrination institution called college and university where they've been taught by cultural marxist professors

Wow, how shocking.

Do the same on /pol/, who aren't brainwashed by liberal bias, and you'll see the truth

>I don't need to read Marx to realize that he's a genocidal maniac

On this by the way, I don't know about genocidal but I don't see how the more pacified Marxists justify the whole "Marx rolling in his grave, seeing the violence his political economy was used for" thing.

I mean, the bourgeois making their own "grave diggers"?
>The next world war will result in the disappearance from the face of the earth not only of reactionary classes and dynasties, but also of entire reactionary peoples. And that, too, is a step forward

i'm not sure. What i'm sure about is the "surplus value" concept.

They clearly haven't read Marx.

I don't think Marxists are hiding behind every tree like the fascists want us to believe. I think they call anything left of the far right Marxism. I'm tired of this dialectic. Who are you people fighting. The ruling class has no ideology other than the worship of power for powers sake, the principle of Zeus.

>I don't think Marxists are hiding behind every tree like the fascists want us to believe. I think they call anything left of the far right Marxism.

Don't know how it works where your from but where I'm from it's quite common to use the term "communist scrum" rather liberally (in translated form), so yeah, I see where you're coming from.

>Who are you people fighting.
Are you talking about the right-wingers that label others Marxists or Marxists themselves?

>The ruling class has no ideology other than the worship of power for powers sake, the principle of Zeus.

I don't know what you mean by ideology but most of them are quite interested in getting money and luxury in addition to power. The career paths they choose reflect that they aren't solely interested in power, it's going to be hard to find any statistics on this though given that most positions of power are also positions that can be used to acquire luxury and thereby, happiness I guess?

Shouldn't the consumption the rich undertake be an indicator of this? Or would you suggest that most of their riches are spent on conspicuous consumption, that is, they spend only to gain more status in society and thereby feel powerful?

Big houses are bought to feel powerful, not for comfort, holidays are taken with the intention of letting everyone know how rich and thereby powerful they are, or how culturally enriched and thereby powerful they are?

I'd agree the power-play has a lot to do with their motivations, I wouldn't say it's their only motivation.

Hey, OP here, thanks man, that's actually a derivative of the LTV that might be more relevant, less abstract and thereby more popular, despite answering the same questions about Marxians that the question of whether they believe in the LTV would, I'll be sure to post a question about surplus value later in the week.

The ruling class just want to continue enjoying their world. So do the working class. This is why Marxism fails - the primary producers have never intellectualised their lives as much as you have to to become a Marxist. That's why they're the primary producers.

yeah, And thats the a concept you should use to determine how much attention you give to a self-proclaimed marxist.
protip: a lot of coffee shop marxists dont have a clue about the surplus value and its implications.

I want to understand what you said here but I don't. If you swallow the ideological pill whole you fall into the game that you've created? I'm not a Marxist btw.

> It makes claims about empirical phenomena, but it's not correct empirically?

That's right. And what do we call that kind of idea? Engels' Dialectics of Nature makes clear how entirely pseudoscientific Marxism is, as Engels tries to prove that the natural sciences confirm dialectical materialism.

>have never intellectualised their lives as much as you have

Oh Veeky Forums, you never fail to get me hard.

>This is why Marxism fails - the primary producers have never intellectualised their lives as much as you have to to become a Marxist. That's why they're the primary producers.

Eh, it's not really that big an agenda to have the working class fully understand Marxist thought, see "organic intellectuals", noone expects the working class to spontaneously read up on and accept Marxism after much critical thought. That's why you need "professional Marxists" to rain down propaganda on them.

You won't see many revolutionaries talking about an "unbiased education" they fully accept that you need to shove propaganda down the throats of the working class.
And in so far as them being involved in the movement is concerned, you don't operate like fuckin' Jevoha's witnesses and give them your set of beliefs to "think about" and "decide if it's for them". A lot of gaining recruits usually comes down to actually forming unions, helping them out with real-world problems, and on the side also exposing them to propaganda.

Using what is called the "lumpen proletariat", that is robbers and vagabounds and general good for nothings wasn't below Lenin either, sure they might not be down with the intellectual contemplation of Marxian theory but as long as they can be used in the revolution, they're good to go.

Taking the particular case of one Maoist group in India and one of the bases they formed in a forest in Bastar, Chattishgarh (read Arundhati Roy's "walking with the comrades" for more info), they didn't gain ground by blasting Marxist propaganda on loudspeakers.

They went in the forest and well, it was "awkward" at first since the villagers were suspicious of armed men roaming around their forests, but eventually, keeping a respectful distance and helping them out with real-practical problems, in this case helping them negotiate with merchants they were selling their produce too, they managed to gain trust.

>2016
>Buying into ideologies of ressentiment

> So do the working class

Short answer, the working class can't enjoy their world under capitalism, according to the Marxist, which is what they are told, they don't need to intellectualize their problems, they just need to see the Marxist revolutionary working to help them enjoy their life more, that gets them hooked.

I get that trying to keep in mind the contradictions of the labour theory of value (found in the natural world) while formulating it would be "putting the science before the science" as Marx said but, surely the methodology Marx would have followed isn't so pseudo-scientific that he would down right ignore empirical contradictions to his theory?
I mean, surely he'd bother to give some explanation, regardless how absurd, to them?

'Ideology' only exists in the minds of people who discuss ideology, and nobody who has to work for a living or to maintain a fortune is listening to people who discuss ideology.

>surely the methodology Marx would have followed isn't so pseudo-scientific that he would down right ignore empirical contradictions to his theory?

Surely...

In other words, they bribe the uncomprehending like Salvation Army Majors, another reason everything they try goes wrong. 'Organic intellectual' is a fairly weak euphemism for 'tubthumper'.

I think his point is that the working class are too caught up in sensual pleasures and enjoying the fruits of their labor to care about all this speculation of alternative political systems.

He seemed to think that this is some kind of impossible hurdle to Marxists which is untrue, as I argue.

Marx didn't subscribe to a Labor Theory of Value.

myweb.lmu.edu/jdevine/notes/Law-of-Value.html