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question for you economists out there...(vanity) question about role of labor in Marxism
me ^ | 4-29-06 | Rakkasan1

Posted on 04/29/2006 11:23:12 AM PDT by Rakkasan1

What's the role of labor in Marx's concept of individual and social existence?

if labor is not the source of wealth, what is?

(Excerpt) Read more at freerepublic.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy
KEYWORDS: individual; labor; marx; marxism; production; social; wealth
thanks in advance from Freeponomists out there.
1 posted on 04/29/2006 11:23:19 AM PDT by Rakkasan1
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To: Rakkasan1

I don't think Groucho ever said anything about labor one way or the other.


2 posted on 04/29/2006 11:28:13 AM PDT by P-40 (http://www.590klbj.com/forum/index.php?referrerid=1854)
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To: Rakkasan1
if labor is not the source of wealth, what is?

Money.

3 posted on 04/29/2006 11:28:25 AM PDT by rickmichaels
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To: P-40

too busy oppressing Harpo


4 posted on 04/29/2006 11:29:15 AM PDT by Rakkasan1 (lead ,follow or get out of the majority.start with our borders.)
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To: Rakkasan1

And Zeppo kept playing his "Switzerland" role.

Pretty sad, all in all.


5 posted on 04/29/2006 11:31:16 AM PDT by freedumb2003 (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1623690/posts?page=228#228 clawrence3:"law abiding illegals")
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To: Rakkasan1

The mind AKA; thinking, imagination and creativity, these are at the root of wealth creation. Muscles do not create wealth, thought does!


6 posted on 04/29/2006 11:32:18 AM PDT by freeforall
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To: Rakkasan1

People investing capital in superior production methods to more efficiently make items of higher demand creates wealth.

Capital mobility facilitates this, it means people and money are free to move where they receive the most gain.

Marx never considers that the value of things depends on demand, so every object that takes the same amount of labor to make is equally valuable under marxism. Gee why didn't that work.


7 posted on 04/29/2006 11:51:43 AM PDT by Mount Athos
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Labor or Abstract labor?


8 posted on 04/29/2006 11:55:53 AM PDT by combat_boots (Dug in and not budging an inch. NOT to be schiavoed, greered, or felosed as a patient)
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To: Rakkasan1
This question is addressed at length in the classic The Wealth of Nations; which part concerning the role of labor did you not agree with?
9 posted on 04/29/2006 12:03:02 PM PDT by Publius6961 (Multiculturalism is the white flag of a dying country)
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To: Mount Athos
so every object that takes the same amount of labor to make is equally valuable under marxism. Gee why didn't that work.

Not quite accurate.
More like equal amounts of effort.

If two assemblers build two identical Chevies, and one builds his to Rolls Royce Standards in a week, and the other takes a month to meet Yugo standards, both must be considered equal, at least, or the Yugo must be sold for the price of a Rolls... since they were both intended to have value proportional to the effort expended..."

Remember the bread lines in the Soviet Union? Generations of them.
How hard is it to make bread?

10 posted on 04/29/2006 12:09:02 PM PDT by Publius6961 (Multiculturalism is the white flag of a dying country)
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To: Rakkasan1

Source of wealth was supposed to be "added value" derived from pernicious exploitation. Labor was considered to be the primary source of this "added value" [as being the most convenient and plentiful to exploit], hence the "avant-gard of society" with all the rest of that crap thrown in there like the icing on a cake.


11 posted on 04/29/2006 12:17:11 PM PDT by GSlob
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To: Publius6961

not saying I didn't . Just wanted opinion/clarification on what Marx alleged.

I agree with Adam Smith, that it is the free market, not socialism, that promotes the common good.


12 posted on 04/29/2006 12:22:12 PM PDT by Rakkasan1 (lead ,follow or get out of the majority.start with our borders.)
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To: Publius6961


Adam Smith found economic value - which he called "natural price"- by adding the costs of production. In a society without private ownership of land and which used only the simplest of tools, labour would make up the entire cost of production.


13 posted on 04/29/2006 12:42:57 PM PDT by Rakkasan1 (lead ,follow or get out of the majority.start with our borders.)
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To: Rakkasan1

Google "Marx Labor Theory of Value."


14 posted on 04/29/2006 12:44:15 PM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: Publius6961
"How hard is it to make bread?" - Not too hard. But how hard was it to harvest grain without big losses, then store the harvest so that much of it did not rot, then transport without a lot of it being blown away by the wind, and finally process it? Baking itself was the least of the difficulties.

For some reason, some people insist on pursuing points made in the open forum in private email.
I don't.
This remark was PM'd to me and I neglected to make a note of the sender before I blew it away...

Implicit in my original remark (assuming readers here all have a minimal grasp of the differences between state control vs. private property) is the underlying failure of collectivist production of anything, vs the invisible hand of self interest.

When all the means of production (aside from labor) are driven by selfish interests, none of those negative influences are allowed to occur.

15 posted on 04/29/2006 1:06:37 PM PDT by Publius6961 (Multiculturalism is the white flag of a dying country)
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To: 1rudeboy

thanks. I gather economic and intellectual capital is the source of wealth.


16 posted on 04/29/2006 1:10:47 PM PDT by Rakkasan1 (lead ,follow or get out of the majority.start with our borders.)
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To: Rakkasan1
I liked this description. However, I only briefly skimmed it and know nothing of that particular website.
17 posted on 04/29/2006 1:17:21 PM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: P-40

I know Harpo didn't.


18 posted on 04/29/2006 1:30:40 PM PDT by Old Seadog (Inside every old person is a young person saying "WTF happened?".)
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To: Rakkasan1

Labor is ultimately the source of all wealth but undifferentiated labor is not the measure of the value af anything. Marx was wrong in that he thought that labor was indiscriminately quantifiable, i.s. an hour working a drill press on an assembly line has the same value as an hour on a shovel. Labor is the source of wealth. But some labor produces less wealth than other labor.


19 posted on 04/29/2006 2:47:33 PM PDT by arthurus (Better to fight them OVER THERE than here.)
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To: 1rudeboy

I found that site helpful too. I can't believe how many classmates find Marxism and communism to be admirable goals that just didn't work out.


20 posted on 04/30/2006 4:33:49 PM PDT by Rakkasan1 (lead ,follow or get out of the majority.start with our borders.)
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