Does the Marxian method/Marxian philosophy make sense at all

The last thread got close to no replies, strange given the amount of interest there seems to be on this board for Marxism and the number of self-proclaimed Marxists that lurk here.

Let's talk Marxian philosophy.

I can't be the only one outside of academia (for god's sake Pareto had an issue with this when considering professional academics) who has troubles with Marx's method in this passage.

Tell me this Veeky Forums what does it mean for two things to be equal?
Alright, I'll go ahead and say what Frege did (and he knew a thing or two about equality) x equals y just means x is the same as y.

Let's say x is the same as y, now if x and y are two different things this obviously means that in some "mode of perception" (I believe that's what Frege called it) they are equal. If we're talking about two goods being the equivalent, in the context of Chapter 1 of Capital, we're obviously talking about their exchange values and "the two things must therefore be equal to a third, which in itself is neither the one nor the other."

This third is obviously just their value as exchange value, so now, knowing that exchange value is itself the third thing, explain this whole shit to me:

>Let us take two commodities, e.g., corn and iron. The proportions in which they are exchangeable, whatever those proportions may be, can always be represented by an equation in which a given quantity of corn is equated to some quantity of iron: e.g., 1 quarter corn = x cwt. iron. What does this equation tell us? It tells us that in two different things – in 1 quarter of corn and x cwt. of iron, there exists in equal quantities something common to both. The two things must therefore be equal to a third, which in itself is neither the one nor the other. Each of them, so far as it is exchange value, must therefore be reducible to this third.

The problem sentence is this:
>Each of them, so far as it is exchange value, must therefore be reducible to this third.

Our arguments will eventually center around trying to show how "warranted" the following statement is, or what convincing argument can be made for someone to assent to it:

>secondly, exchange value, generally, is only the mode of expression, the phenomenal form, of something contained in it, yet distinguishable from it.

For those oblivious, said phenomenal form is embodied labour value and it is also the "third thing" two "equal" commodities are reducible to.
I have issues with, as Croce puts it, "this standard [he is speaking of value], which we have endowed with the dignity of law"

Other urls found in this thread:

math.stackexchange.com/questions/430646/difference-between-for-any-and-for-all
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Material_conditional
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

Why the fuck are you using the word Marxian? You've done your reading. It's Marxist.

Christ.

Marxian is used to refer to his school of economic criticism.

>Let's say x is the same as y, now if x and y are two different things this obviously means that in some "mode of perception" (I believe that's what Frege called it) they are equal.
I think Marx broke you.

Pic related (yes I know Marx had views on the reduction of skilled to unskilled labor that would allow an explanation of why six hours of sex might fetch different prices even if six hours was the socially necessary labour time, even so take a joke strawman).

P.S. that is a good example of how natural talent can render the LTV useless in some fringe cases, the size of one's dong can hardly be regarded as being able to generate value because some kind of common "labour" were previously applied on it, luckily jelqing works and it's the motion of the ocean not the size of the wave so the LTV is still largely applicable even in this fringe exception.

I just use the terms interchangeably.

What? You don't agree with my statement?

There are contexts where two things will be said to be equal even if they are not literally identical, particularly when the two things act as two different representations of something they both "refer to".

Taking an example more clear that the one quoted in OP, people would say and find it meaningful to say something like "the price of an apple is the same as the price of a banana" or "the morning star is the same as the evening star".

PHILOSOPHY IS STUPID

PLS GO

>it's the same but different
the price of an apple or banana is not the apple or banana. when you hand the money to the cashier, the coins do not turn into a banana. venus does not turn into a different star; it never becomes a star; people can be inaccurate
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk5TCRQOxcY

Corn and iron are certainly different, so for there to be a frame in which they are equivalent, that must mean there is some underlying relationship. It's not corn = iron, it's S(corn) = capital, B(capital) = iron, where S and B are selling and buying operators. Therefore they're related by some amount of capital.

>the price of an apple or banana is not the apple or banana
Of course not and I'm not implying that it is.
My point is that the price of the apple (Pa) is the same as the Price of the banana (Pb).

Pa=Pb

Now, this means that the apple and the banana, as money, are equal, which is the basis for which Marx says, as money, apple=banana.

Yes, that equality might be a bit unusual, but it can be granted that, as an exchange value, apple=banana (provided that the "as an exchange value bit" is never missed out).

Problem is, IMO, when he uses this as a basis to say that there must be some way in which apple and bananas have something common for them to said to be equal (which is true) and that this thing they have in common is something other than their price or EV (which is false).

For more on identity/equality do see Frege's Sense and Reference.

See above.

Oh, I see your problem. You assume all bananas will be sold.

>Corn and iron are certainly different,
Hence why I said it is unusual to say the are equal, the context makes it clear however that Marx is not considering corn and iron themselves but corn and iron as "exchange values".

>so for there to be a frame in which they are equivalent

"Frame" what do you mean by that word? Do you mean context? It so the context is one where they are both considered as price.

>that must mean there is some underlying relationship.
Relationship? If you mean they are related then yes they are obviously related in a context (in this case that context is money and the relationship is an identity) what do you mean by relationship though?

>It's not corn = iron, it's S(corn) = capital, B(capital) = iron, where S and B are selling and buying operators

I have no clue what you mean here what are these operations you're putting on both these things.
Anyway Marx's point here is nowhere that, is that your own ideology?

Is that a subtle shit on Marxian economics for not explicitly seeing the extent of demand as consequential to price?

>Each of them, so far as it is exchange value, must therefore be reducible to this third.

Commodities are reducible to a mediating term that allows for their formal transformation into distinct use-values. It's in your hands everyday. It's money. That's what the forms of value in Chapter 1 of Volume 1 are about--deriving the necessary existence of money as the independent abstract equivalent that mediates between particularities given the structure of commodity production (independent producers who are socialized only through exchange). The first three chapters in regards to "value" are about deriving money from commodity exchange and then explicating the aspects of value's existence as money.

Two remarks regarding value as a substance of labour units: 1) that's not what Marx is trying to do in these chapters; and 2) Marx leaves the grounding of value's movement in the social character and dynamic of various private labors to the rest of Volume One (and to a far wider extent, value's connection to the labour process can only be understand until the end of Volume Three after Marx shows how the various independent forms of capital [interest, merchant, landed] all are objectively limited by their reference to value/labor process).

Exchange value/abstract labour are not abstractions grounded in perception or conscious activity within the market place, at the point of exchange. They are the language of commodities, they are derived from the commodities themselves as they meet on the market place.

You're very confusing, OP. Not because you don't make sense, but that you're making sense. Yet you say something doesn't make sense. I fail to see where any of that DOESN'T make sense.

What's your issue? You think Marx is ascribing an ahistorical objective value to apples, bananas, iron and corn that could be equated? Because none of it seems to be imbued with "the dignity of law" from what you posted.

>fringe cases

T. Bolshevik Russia

>You're very confusing, OP. Not because you don't make sense, but that you're making sense. Yet you say something doesn't make sense. I fail to see where any of that DOESN'T make sense
Welcome to economics

Sure, sure, let me break down all of what I perceive as flawed, starting with the more reasonable arguments.

> The proportions in which they are exchangeable, whatever those proportions may be, can always be represented by an equation in which a given quantity of corn is equated to some quantity of iron: e.g., 1 quarter corn = x cwt. iron

For our purposes let's replace "1 quarter of corn" with 1 apple and "x cwt.of iron" with x bananas.

This is true, but it's a little unusual to saw that 1 apple = x bananas, of course, what is trying to be said is that, in so far as their prices are considered one apple is equal to x bananas, which, I will grant.

>What does this equation tell us? It tells us that in two different things – in 1 quarter of corn and x cwt. of iron, there exists in equal quantities something common to both

>there exists in equal quantities something common to both

This is incorrect, to say two things are equal AS quantities is is very different from saying that two things have "equal quantities of something [in common]".
Marx I believe has failed to realize a bit of a slip in reasoning here.
What the reader thinks when presented with 1 apple = x bananas is "okay, these two things are clearly different, yet they must somehow be the same".
Marx answers this "somehow they must be the same" by positing both of them being equal to some third thing, but really the explanation for this "somehow" is just that they are equal because their exchange values are the same, this is what made us conceive of the equality in the first place. By drawing our attention away from this fact, and equating the things themselves in language as opposed to their exchange values (although of course he meant to equate the things as exchange values), Marx has disguised the absurdity of his claim. For all he talks about removing the "mystic veil" of capitalism, his own philosophy has a lot of cloaking.

Imagine if Marx had said this instead:
>[The exchange value] of 1 quarter corn = [the exchange value] of x cwt. iron. What does this equation tell us? It tells us that in two different things – in 1 quarter of corn and x cwt. of iron, there exists in equal quantities something common to both. The two things must therefore be equal to a third, which in itself is neither the one nor the other.

Would you not agree that his argument is now a lot less convincing?

The only thing common between these things is there exchange value, that is the only thing that makes the equality conceivable.

TL;DR:

Theorem: For any statements X, Y and Z. X=Y does not entail that there must be Z such that X=Z and Y=Z.

Proof: If I say height of person A = height of person B, that does not entail that both the persons must have something in common.

I presume you would say that the LTV is axiomatic?

>regarding value as a substance of labour units

You mean to say regarding labour units as the substance of value?

>that's not what Marx is trying to do in these chapters
I believe, in THIS chapter, one in particular, in this portion of the chapter, he is trying to make the case that in a pre-capitalist, hypothetical society where "rent=0" and what not, there is some common "value" other than exchange value that makes the exchange value of two things equal, I disagree with this.

>statements
Woops, I meant things*

>that does not entail that both the persons must have something in common.
something else in common, other than their height.**

How is that a proof?

It shows that the theorem does hold true.

The theorem states that something must NOT be (or rather, need not be) the case for all X, Y and Z

(note, for any and for all mean the same thing in this context

math.stackexchange.com/questions/430646/difference-between-for-any-and-for-all
).

The proof works because it gives the case of a particular X,Y,Z such that X=Y is true and [ X=Z,Y=Z ] is not true.
Therefore, it cannot be the case that X=Y entails X=Z,Y=Z.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Material_conditional

No, Marx outlines that. Marxism and you both overly rely on generalisations, but Marx at least did address the microeconomic problems that creates.

Pricing (exchange value) does play into demand, but Marx makes it clear that exchange value is not value itself. Things can only have an exchange value when they're exchanged. If you don't buy the banana, but do buy the apple, apples have an exchange value and bananas don't. Yes, they have a price sticker on them, but if nobody actually pays for the exchange, it doesn't have an actual exchange value. There's a subtle difference between having a pricetag and having an exchange value.

There is still a value on the banana, but not an exchange value without it being exchanged. Marx made sure he had the third volume written before publishing the first volume of Capital because of this confusion between a pricetag (which is a hypothetical exchange value, not an actual exchange value), an exchange value (where the price is actually paid, and which plays into demanding more of that from the system), and the value which would exist even if we didn't have money or bartering and were picking bananas off the bush.

OP here.
>No, Marx outlines that.

There's a reason I said "extent" of demand and not demand, I am well aware the the existence of demand is a necessary condition for value. This says nothing of how much demand there is.

>Pricing (exchange value) does play into demand, but Marx makes it clear that exchange value is not value itself. Things can only have an exchange value when they're exchanged. If you don't buy the banana, but do buy the apple, apples have an exchange value and bananas don't. Yes, they have a price sticker on them, but if nobody actually pays for the exchange, it doesn't have an actual exchange value
Yes. Correct.

>There's a subtle difference between having a pricetag and having an exchange value.
I don't care very much about the pricetags on things, you can assume that prices whenever I used the word refers to the prices of things that are being traded.

>There is still a value on the banana, but not an exchange value without it being exchanged
Yes.

>Marx made sure he had the third volume written before publishing the first volume of Capital because of this confusion between a pricetag (which is a hypothetical exchange value, not an actual exchange value), an exchange value (where the price is actually paid, and which plays into demanding more of that from the system), and the value which would exist even if we didn't have money or bartering and were picking bananas off the bush.
I don't know if that was the reason (only reason or any reason or even one of the smaller reasons) for him doing that, care to cite?

>I don't know if that was the reason (only reason or any reason or even one of the smaller reasons) for him doing that, care to cite?
It's in Capital II (Chapter 5) he says the third volume is mostly technical difficulties. He'd written most of the pieces on prices and credit etc in 1864-5, and you can get the original manuscript of that now. Vol I was published 1867. The original manuscript coming out was a big deal in the 1990s because it showed how much Engels had edited the whole thing while saying he'd only made minor changes

>it gives the case of a particular X,Y,Z such that X=Y is true and [ X=Z,Y=Z ] is not true
But it doesn't.

My claim is that people being of the same height does not entail they have something in common.
Alright technically absolutely proving this would require an extensive biological survey and even then in so far ad you're welling to go all non-positivist on me you could always conceive an abstract immeasurable quantity that makes both these things the same.

I doubt you will do that though and I doubt you have contentions with the biology of it all.

Why not agree with my claim then? Am I really going to think of another example.

I'm not disagreeing with the claim I'm saying that it's not a valid proof.

price and exchange value aren't the same thing

How so?

Alright let me try and dwell more on what was originally a TL;DR:

Theorem: For all two A and B where A and B are noun-phrases or singular common nouns (henceforth denoted NPSCN), and p() is a mapping that outputs a certain quantifiable attribute "P" (if it exists) of an NPSCN (where an attribute is anything that can be expressed in the form "(NPSCN) of")...
p(A)=p(B) implies that there is another quantifiable attribute of both A and B that is not considered P, say Z, which can be considered as belonging to both A and B such that [Z of A]=[Z of B]

Disproof: Considering NPSCNs Person A and Person B and p() as the mapping that outputs the quantifiable attribute of height for each person (height of A, height of B), assuming both persons are of the same height, p(A)=p(B), but there is no countable attribute belonging to both A and B that is not their height.

Note that this theorem is not intended to apply in cases where the p(A) exists but the p(B) does not, or vice versa,or neither p(A) nor p(B) exist.
For example, weight of chair, weight of table (applicable)
weight of chair, weight of abyss (not applicable)
weight of fun, weight of abyss (not applicable)

>[Z of A]=[Z of B]
I mean [Z A]=[Z B] (Z itself is, being an attribute, an NPSCN of something)

ikr it's like i was saying it's "not an actual exchange value" for some reason.
>tfw user has a hard time reading me but wants me to think he got Marx

>tfw user has a hard time reading me but wants me to think he got Marx
Wasn't me

>demand is a necessary condition for value
Woops, sorry Burger.
I meant exchange value of course, hope that was clear.