The economic red pill was the first I took

phreshstart · 2017-02-17T06:29:58+00:00

My conclusion is to start a business and work for only myself.

Been there, done that. Truth is you don't work for yourself, you still work for others, your clients. I found joy in small passive income and a minimalist lifestyle.

account4189 · 2017-02-17T10:22:24+00:00

No. The Marxist theory of exploitation is wrong. Here's Bohm-Bawerk's critique, and it's one that I think demolishes Marx's labor exploitation narrative completely. I hesitate to get away from MGTOW ideas and into economics, but Marx has come up enough times on this subreddit that I finally feel compelled to address it.

First, a characterization of Marx: Capitalist owns raw goods at price X. Capitalist hires labor at price Y. Labor transforms raw goods into finished goods. Capitalist then goes and sells raw goods at some price Z > (X+Y). Capitalist profit is Z-(X+Y). The capitalist "exploits" labor because the capitalist receives profit while the capitalist doesn't add any value to the raw good himself.

And now, Bohm-Bawerk: Capitalist owns raw goods at price X. Capitalist hires labor at price Y. OVER SOME PERIOD OF TIME, labor transforms raw goods into finished goods. Laborer is paid wage at price Y BEFORE the goods are returned to the capitalist. Capitalist takes finished goods to markets and ATTEMPTS to sell the finished goods at some price Z greater than X+Y. If Z > (X+Y), the capitalist earns a profit. If price Z < (X+Y), the CAPITALIST LOSES MONEY.

See the difference? In the case that the capitalist earns a loss, he can't go back and claw back the wage that he's already paid out to the laborer. What Marx leaves out of the story is the time that elapses in the production process and the risk that the capitalist bears when he faces the market to sell goods. The potential profit attributed to the production process, that is, Z-(X+Y) if and only if Z>(X+Y), isn't exploitation as much as it is COMPENSATION for TIME and RISK. The laborer gets paid a CERTAIN AMOUNT early in the production process, while the capitalist gets paid an UNCERTAIN AMOUNT late in the production process.

More remarks on Marx (my own): What's very interesting to me about the Marxist characterization that I laid out is that there is seemingly nothing explicitly wrong with it. It's true that the capitalist pays the labor a certain wage. It's also true (in many observable cases) that the capitalist gets a profit with the goods touching no other hands but the laborer's between the raw goods stage and the finished goods stage. From there, Marx makes the argument that because the laborer provided the transformation value - he should get the profit and not the capitalist. So far, so good, it seems - for the Marxist.

By leaving out the case where the capitalist loses money, Marx doesn't have to respond to this train of thought: If the capitalist loses money because the market doesn't want to pay some price Z > (X+Y) but will only pay some price Z < (X+Y), was the laborer overpaid - and therefore UNJUSTLY PAID?

In an extreme case, what happens if the market price Z < X? That would mean that the transformation process didn't add any value to the raw goods at all, but instead transformed them to something worth less than they were in a state of nature. Does the capitalist then have some sort of monetary claim against his laborer for decreasing the value of his raw goods despite being paid a fixed, riskless wage to add value?

Another thought - is Marx's omission of time and risk from his description of the production process deliberate, or did he not just think about the market more broadly? Also - when people find Marx's ideas appealing (in the sense that they seem to cohere with existing belief or provide a justification for feeling or acting a certain way towards the "bourgeois") is it because they can't imagine the counterfactual circumstance of selling goods at a loss, or is it willful self-deception - a purposeful ignoring of detail that would otherwise threaten their current narrative and identity?

Thoughts on communism being proved wrong by history (or anything being proved wrong by history):

Depends on what you mean by proof. Bohm-Bawerk's critique of Marx doesn't wait for an empirical instance of communist organization to fail - it's an a priori refutation - an attempt to show that the idea is wrong BEFORE it's ever implemented.

And along those lines, would the failure of historical instances of communist organization be proof of the failure of Marxist ideas per se, or only the peculiar instances and implementations? That is the problem with empiricism, it doesn't "PROVE" anything. It only proves that something "didn't work" SO FAR if it "proves" anything at all. And because of this, the adherent of a certain ideology (not just Communism or Marxism) is always insulated from empirical refutation, i.e. disproof, because he can bail out to the excuse, "well, it would have worked if we had done things a little differently."

So - no - it wasn't proven wrong by history. If it's wrong - and I think it IS wrong - it's proven wrong by showing that its fundamental characterizations of market activities are incomplete in a way that's inconsistent with "exploitation" under a more complete view of the market. In this sense - Marxist ideas wouldn't have ever needed to be "tested" out from an empirical sense because the justification for implementation, i.e. the exploitation of labor, would have never been seen to be exploitation - but rather compensation to the capitalist for bearing time and risk - neither of which are borne by labor.

Darth_Bicycle · 2017-02-17T12:56:36+00:00

There is a downside, or darker side to all human systems. That includes capitalism as well. I mean there is this sleazy, hustling side to it all, but on the other hand I would never ever want to live in a Communist system. I mean I like private property just fine. I sell stuff on the market place and all that, but still it's never perfect. I'm sure that the next system, what ever it will be, will have it's uglier side as well. We are humans after all. Everything we do reflects that. There's no utopia coming.

MGTOW_Monger · 2017-02-17T23:00:17+00:00

Do it as your premise is correct.

You may fail a few times, just do it

2017-02-17T15:45:55+00:00

Peter Schiff's 2006 speech did it for me. That showed me how a system can be explained as a series of simple and rational actions. Things like real estate can be valued based on cash flow and market rent. The expected return is always relative to the risk free return. Instead of blindly saying houses are overpriced, one should try to calculate what they think a house should cost and then see if anything is cheaper than the expected price.

Peter gets a lot of shit for hyping gold, but he did cover a lot of good points. I started learning economics and never looked back. Life is so much easier now.

account4189 · 2017-02-17T23:58:21+00:00

Well isn't that obvious? A business owner has to make profit or he'll go bust.

That's not necessarily unfair. After all, there is a certain risk in starting a business. The owner carries the risk of bankruptcy and lost opportunity in other careers.

For a functioning market economy you need both: the entrepreneurs and owners who provide capital on the one side, and the employees who work for a salary on the other side. Personally I think the risks and rewards are not balanced well and strongly favor the owners, but that's a different discussion.

Novashadow115 · 2017-02-18T00:19:45+00:00

Except history demonstrates that humans have been communistic for millenia. Talk to any anthropologist worth their shit and they would tell you as such. Our ancestors didnt survive for millions of years because they great invisible hand of muh markets, but by a gift economy and communal resource sharing.

Title	The economic red pill was the first I took
Author	mathsisbetterthansex
Upvotes	16
Comments	53
Date	February 17, 2017 6:13 AM UTC (9 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MGTOW
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MGTOW/comments/5ukmzi/the_economic_red_pill_was_the_first_i_took/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MGTOW/the-economic-red-pill-was-the-first-i-took.606626 https://theredarchive.com/post/606626

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