# On the Many Failings of Capitalism **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 15, 2015, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-many-failings-of-capitalism/709911 "2015-01-15T17:51:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2015, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-many-failings-of-capitalism/709911/201 "2015-01-22T13:38:55Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Sure: > > [https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080702142514AA9ijQY](https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080702142514AA9ijQY) > > Sorry to hear that Google doesn’t work all browsers. LBJ had a war on poverty and Ronald Reagan had a war on the poor. A war still carried on today. Ronald Reagan was an extraordinarily despicable human being. Do you have a real cite for what you claimed? Your link doesn’t do it. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2015, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-many-failings-of-capitalism/709911/202 "2015-01-22T17:58:35Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Do you have a real cite for what you claimed? Your link doesn’t do it. > > Regards, > Shodan The link is thread discussing Reagan’s treatment of the mentally ill and is really quite thorough. I would think that it deserves better than a drive by dismissal. Nevertheless, it does have a link itself to a “scholarly article” discussing the issue. Reagan was the worst thing ever to happen to mental illness in this country, and I’m surprised that conservatives don’t own it, he certainly wasn’t ashamed of it, as he repeated as president what he did as governor. [http://www.sociology.org/content/vol003.004/thomas.html](http://www.sociology.org/content/vol003.004/thomas.html) Are you suggesting that Reagan didn’t dramatically reduce funding for mental illness treatment as both governor and president? Cite? Ronald Reagan was a loathsome human being. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2015, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-many-failings-of-capitalism/709911/203 "2015-01-22T18:01:40Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > The link is thread discussing Reagan’s treatment of the mentally ill and is really quite thorough. I would think that it deserves better than a drive by dismissal. Nevertheless, it does have a link itself to a “scholarly article” discussing the issue. Reagan was the worst thing ever to happen to mental illness in this country, and I’m surprised that conservatives don’t own it, he certainly wasn’t ashamed of it, as he repeated as president what he did as governor. [http://www.sociology.org/content/vol003.004/thomas.html](http://www.sociology.org/content/vol003.004/thomas.html) I am asking for a cite for what you claimed. If you don’t have one, just say so. > [@](#): > > Cite? You amuse me. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2015, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-many-failings-of-capitalism/709911/204 "2015-01-22T18:18:45Z")
What is your definition of a citation? ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2015, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-many-failings-of-capitalism/709911/205 "2015-01-22T18:26:41Z")
> [@Enterprise](#): > > (and value, as noted, is socially necessary labor time). So, to backtrack: I have 1,0 value at _any_ given point in time, because of my labor, and this splits up in various fractions of use- and exchange value. But it never changes, until I add to this value through my labor. But we’re circling around again. We seem to agree that socially necessary labour time, as defined by Marx, is the amount of human effort, in time, that it takes to make something given average inputs. Who notes that it’s equal to “value”? Marx? What’s value, and why would we assume that SNLT is equal to it? Is value utility? It can’t be, the way you’re describing it. If it’s not… well, this is why utility’s a useful concept and “value,” as you’re using it, isn’t. Things change in value depending on who has them. Value is subjective. I’m sitting right next to a perfect example; my 32" Samsung TV. It presently has a value of absolutely zero to me, because I no longer need it; we’re moving in with my fiancee, and there is no place for this television. I don’t want it anymore. However, some people do want it. They could use a decent TV. The TV has more utility to them than it does to me. It has no fixed “Value.” (You can’t practically sell it.) But it could have utility to someone. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2015, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-many-failings-of-capitalism/709911/206 "2015-01-22T18:29:07Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Reagan was the worst thing ever to happen to mental illness . . . And vice-versa. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2015, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-many-failings-of-capitalism/709911/207 "2015-01-22T18:34:36Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > What is your definition of a citation? citation (saɪˈteɪʃən) noun 1. a passage or source cited to establish an assertion 2. something not found in **The Second Stone**'s post Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2015, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-many-failings-of-capitalism/709911/208 "2015-01-22T18:57:54Z")
[http://www.sociology.org/content/vol003.004/thomas.html](http://www.sociology.org/content/vol003.004/thomas.html) doesn’t do it for you then? Did you read it? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2015, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-many-failings-of-capitalism/709911/209 "2015-01-22T19:14:26Z")
I’ll take that as a No. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2015, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-many-failings-of-capitalism/709911/210 "2015-01-22T19:28:16Z")
As will I. ---
**Author:** ![Hellestal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3ab097/32.png) [@Hellestal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hellestal)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-many-failings-of-capitalism/709911/211 "2015-01-23T02:38:25Z")
> [@Enterprise](#): > > Good. Just to make sure, that was to be supposed a thread that explains how the Marxist (well, a version of it) of capitalism works, right? “Your interpretation of Marx” is how I put it. I guess your description is the same thing. Teeny-tiny baby steps. If you’re not partial to using comparisons with standard economics, there’s no problem. You can explain it how you like. > [@Enterprise](#): > > Yes, but _where_? I mean, I’m here to learn, right? So a simple pointer towards a question that I asked that I should (you think) know about would be helpful. If you’ve had exposure to a limited amount of standard econ, the most basic stuff, you should know about: **price discrimination** and how it might work **economic surplus** , consumer and producer surplus and how it’s calculated (and for slightly more depth, the assumptions behind it) **indifference curves** , _specifically_ that they’re relative and not absolute (ordinal and not cardinal) A broader understanding of **wealth** might also be helpful, but I have to admit this is a slightly weirder topic. **How supply and demand determine prices**. Required. I can point to examples where knowledge of all of these ideas might have been demonstrated. In reverse order: > [@Enterprise](#): > > I’d think most market advocates would agree (as I think **Sam Stone** does) that its supply and demand together that (somehow) determine price. “Somehow”, as if you don’t understand the given reason. This isn’t proof of anything, but the comment stuck with me. > [@Enterprise](#): > > I mean, your example doesn’t even work: if I make something and trade it to you for something else, we are exactly as wealthy as we were before–unless, of course, you have traded me something that is worth less than I traded you, in which case I’ve lost out and you’ve gained? I’m not getting it. It might be that the notion of wealth as “anything of value” (here value=utility) isn’t commonly expressed in those terms. But it’s at least noteworthy that you hadn’t encountered it before. At around this point, **RickJay** made the comment about Econ 101 and failing the midterm, which means he was also thinking you had limited exposure. (I was still giving you benefit of the doubt at this point. I thought to myself, “Well, maybe failing a short answer question, but not necessarily the whole midterm. Most of the points will probably be moving around lines on graphs…”) > [@Enterprise](#): > > how MUCH wealth did you think we have produced by our simple act of equitable exchange? And how would we go about monetarizing that wealth? The pressure builds. There’s just no evinced relationship at all with any standard economics. You don’t need to remember the name of the Edgeworth box to at least connect with the idea. But there is no connection, no probing, nothing. You’ve heard of utility curves, but now would be a good time to remember that they’re ordinal and not cardinal. It would be good to remember that people try to achieve the most preferred state given their resource limitations – they don’t just jump to infinity. You ask about “monetarizing”. We might interpret this as a shift from utility to supply and demand, but you make no connection with consumer and producer surplus (also Econ 101, by the way, and a graph question, too). This would be about the right time to mention it, but you demonstrate no awareness of it. I actually started to draft a reply to this very post, but I quickly noticed it would’ve gotten lengthy. I abandoned the draft. My actual first contribution was much more limited in scope. I guess I could return to that abandoned draft if you wanted. > [@Enterprise](#): > > What do you mean when you say “it’s worth $100” to him. That he would have paid 100, too? Well, then you just lost 50, didn’t you, because you’re a bad salesman? This is the worst example. It sealed my evaluation. This isn’t just failing to mention things that directly relate, as above. This is you explicitly bringing up an intro topic, and then… nothing. A silly question only. You show zero sensitivity to how price discrimination might work or might fail. The “bad salesman” comment is especially ridiculous since the example was an eBay auction. You might ask why this is so bad, but that would again make my point. It’s an extremely important and recurring topic why a person willing to pay 100 might only pay 50. The very notion of a “market price” hinges on this. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-many-failings-of-capitalism/709911/212 "2015-01-23T03:08:12Z")
> [@Hellestal](#): > > This isn’t just failing to mention things that directly relate, as above. This is you explicitly bringing up an intro topic, and then… nothing. A silly question only. You show zero sensitivity to how price discrimination might work or might fail. The “bad salesman” comment is especially ridiculous since the example was an eBay auction. You might ask why this is so bad, but that would again make my point. It’s an extremely important and recurring topic why a person willing to pay 100 might only pay 50. The very notion of a “market price” hinges on this. Your point seems to be that Enterprise is a less than desirable person. An ebay auction is a perfect example of how a salesman can be bad. Presentation on ebay can have a huge difference in how the auction occurs. I’ve seen the same item on ebay have a large price differential in the same month depending on the pictures and description. So please explain to those of us unworthy of your question begging “You might ask why this is so bad, but that would again make my point.” No, it doesn’t. Make you own point by carefully explaining it, not begging the question and writing condescendingly to someone with a different view. ---
**Author:** ![Hellestal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3ab097/32.png) [@Hellestal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hellestal)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-many-failings-of-capitalism/709911/213 "2015-01-23T03:12:28Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Your point seems to be that Enterprise is a less than desirable person. I can understand how someone who did not read my posts in this thread could come to that conclusion. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-many-failings-of-capitalism/709911/214 "2015-01-23T06:01:54Z")
> [@Enterprise](#): > > …Aside from that, **Hellestal** , as I noted to some other posters already, I would appreciate some common courtesy with regard to the language of debate. I’m fine with you claiming the labor theory of value is wrong; I’m less fine with you insinuating that I’m uneducated and ignorant simply because I do not share in your valuations. Thank you. > > … > [@Hellestal](#): > > I can understand how someone who did not read my posts in this thread could come to that conclusion. I’ve got to agree with Enterprise on the tangent Hellestal’s posts are taking this thread. Your response to me is pretty much the same thing. I’ve read your posts. I’m offended for Enterprise, and I don’t think much of Marx’s philosophy. I think the legitimate points you are trying to make are getting lost in the sly and backhanded put downs. You want to educate us, fine, we’d like that, but skip the sarcasm and insinuations please. ---
**Author:** ![Enterprise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/76d3ee/32.png) [@Enterprise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enterprise)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-many-failings-of-capitalism/709911/215 "2015-01-23T07:25:26Z")
> [@Hellestal](#): > > “Your interpretation of Marx” is how I put it. I guess your description is the same thing. Teeny-tiny baby steps. > > If you’re not partial to using comparisons with standard economics, there’s no problem. You can explain it how you like. Okay, that seems fair. I’ll try to remember to do so. > [@](#): > > It might be that the notion of wealth as “anything of value” (here value=utility) isn’t commonly expressed in those terms. But it’s at least noteworthy that you hadn’t encountered it before. At around this point, **RickJay** made the comment about Econ 101 and failing the midterm, which means he was also thinking you had limited exposure. (I was still giving you benefit of the doubt at this point. I thought to myself, “Well, maybe failing a short answer question, but not necessarily the whole midterm. Most of the points will probably be moving around lines on graphs…”) **Hellestal** , I’m very much obliged for your examples of what you take to be evidence of my ignorance about basic economic thought. I won’t say in all cases that I was merely quizzing whoever it was that I quizzed about their conception of these issues (I received a very small number of replies to this)–in some cases, as in the wealth=utility issue, I have already noted I had not encountered the notion before, and tried to find a cite, or an explanation or the reasoning, and failed). But in some cases, I was, because it’s not clear to me that I should be doing all the explaining of my reasoning (when, as noted, much of it can be found in any intro to _Capital_), while everybody else gets a pass to just claim things. But more fundamentally, I still think that what this boils down to is that I can only give you evidence for my understanding of economics by holding with its explanations–though truth be told, this is largely about macroexplanations. But, again, this is neither the purpose of this thread nor particularly fair. I’m not accusing you here, by the way: I’m merely pointing out that this seems to me to force us into unprofitable circles at this juncture. (You know, of course, that some of the things you have listed (and thanks for that) barely conflict with Marx–supply and demand determining prices doesn’t, except at the point where (as **RickJay** would have it) price suddenly becomes equal to value. I don’t agree with this step. I agree with Marx that we need to keep value separate from price, because this better explains what’s going on in the world.) Do you think we could raincheck this particular part of the discussion? If, in the further course of this thread, I seem to explain some complaint of mine through a false understanding of mainstream economics, be sure to call me out on it; but I’ll try to keep to Marx’s critique. ---
**Author:** ![Enterprise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/76d3ee/32.png) [@Enterprise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enterprise)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-many-failings-of-capitalism/709911/216 "2015-01-23T08:04:36Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > But we’re circling around again. We seem to agree that socially necessary labour time, as defined by Marx, is the amount of human effort, in time, that it takes to make something given average inputs. > > Who notes that it’s equal to “value”? Marx? What’s value, and why would we assume that SNLT is equal to it? Is value utility? It can’t be, the way you’re describing it. > > If it’s not… well, this is why utility’s a useful concept and “value,” as you’re using it, isn’t. Things change in value depending on who has them. Value is subjective. I’m trying to give this a brief precis, and it’ll be inaccurate in its details, but here we go. Marx starts by noting that we live in a world of commodities: goods produced for trade in the market produced by wage labor. He sees that people buy commodities and that this is a fundament of people’s lives (under capitalism!). He asks about the standard of measurement that permits the continual exchange of goods and hits, first, on use value (which we may parse as utility). But he also notes that in market economy, commodities cannot just have use value, but they need to commensurable with one another in order to be traded for one another: they must have exchange value; and he notes that in practice, this seems a difficult proposition to hold out because of the evident “purely relative” exchange rates actually occuring. For Marx, the fact that they are still all exchangeable for one another means that there must be a common element to them that permits a way of on social average determining the origin of their exchange value. And that’s labor, because it is the only thing that you cannot get below: all commodities in the last instance are the bearers of labor. Thus for Marx, labor is the irreducible source of all value. > [@](#): > > I’m sitting right next to a perfect example; my 32" Samsung TV. It presently has a value of absolutely zero to me, because I no longer need it; we’re moving in with my fiancee, and there is no place for this television. I don’t want it anymore. However, some people do want it. They could use a decent TV. The TV has more utility to them than it does to me. It has no fixed “Value.” (You can’t practically sell it.) But it could have utility to someone. The problem with these kinds of examples (as indeed all kinds of examples) is that Marx’s isn’t a microeconomic theory of individual exchanges, as I’ve noted before. Your example of “value to you” has no meaning in Marx’s theory (though congrats on moving in!) in the sense you’re using it here. It actually has a kind of value to you (exchange value); and it does have value as such because no matter what your personal use value is, it still embodies labor. Try this for an explanatory note (it’s not wildly accurate, but illustrative, perhaps): Marx’s argument Samsung would not have sold its TV to anybody (barring unexpected problems) for anything else than its cost of production, because it would realize a net loss through doing so. The value of the TV thus is its cost of production–something you can’t simply ignore in setting the price, the basis of the TV’s price, if you will. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-many-failings-of-capitalism/709911/217 "2015-01-23T08:06:24Z")
Second Stone - we’re basically discussing the history of thought in this thread. That’s a challenging area of study, as you have to hold a lot in your mind at once. What we know now and how they relate to current paradigms. Past paradigms, why they believed them, what facts they didn’t know, what ideas they had not yet grasped. One tendency among non specialists is to essentially cordon off these separate spheres of knowledge, without joining the argument. Because joining the argument is hard. Anyway, Hellestal isn’t merely being a snob. **Enterprise** may have studied some mainstream economics, but I haven’t seen any indication that he has the fluency in it of, say, a business major. It’s just a little odd having a discussion with somebody who hasn’t quite come to grips with material that was included in textbooks during the 1890s. Now look, my knowledge of physics and chemistry is pretty abysmal. And I run out of gas quickly in philosophical threads. But I try to keep my ignorance in mind when I participate here. Marxists have it tough. I read a little Marx in a political economy class back in my college days. Frankly we didn’t join the labor theory of value/marginal analysis argument either. It’s hard as noted above and I haven’t really attempted it. ---
**Author:** ![Enterprise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/76d3ee/32.png) [@Enterprise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enterprise)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-many-failings-of-capitalism/709911/218 "2015-01-23T08:12:40Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Anyway, Hellestal isn’t merely being a snob. **Enterprise** may have studied some mainstream economics, but I haven’t seen any indication that he has the fluency in it of, say, a business major. It’s just a little odd having a discussion with somebody who hasn’t quite come to grips with material that was included in textbooks during the 1890s. Now look, my knowledge of physics and chemistry is pretty abysmal. And I run out of gas quickly in philosophical threads. But I try to keep my ignorance in mind when I participate here. Tongue only very slightly in cheek, the complaint here seems to be rather analogous to saying to the atheist that he doesn’t seem to have the fluency in theology that a doctor of divinity has. “Learn what we have to say about the nature of God and his ineffable ways, and then come back to us. You can’t really make a coherent claim for the non-existence of God until you’ve heard our best arguments!” > [@](#): > > Marxists have it tough. Yes, don’t we. It’s a stony path well worth the treading, though… ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-many-failings-of-capitalism/709911/219 "2015-01-23T08:27:02Z")
The economist Brad DeLong discusses Marx in a blog post. He delineates Marx the prophet, Marx the political activist (with 3 big ideas), and Marx the economist (with 6 big ideas, 3 good and 3 bad). [http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/04/delong-understanding-marx-lecture-for-april-20-2009.html](http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/04/delong-understanding-marx-lecture-for-april-20-2009.html) The labor theory of value doesn’t make the big 6 list, but DeLong discusses it a little. He thinks Hegelian methodology gave Marx a bum steer: > [@Bradford DeLong](#): > > Marx says that the value of a good is something inscribed within it and attached to it–the socially-necessary labor time for its production—that then bosses people around. And it is the values–not the prices at which things are actually bought and sold–that are the elements of the real important reality. And those values: “appear as independent beings endowed with life and entering into relation both with one another and the human race.” Now I have never found anybody who thinks this way. > > Nobody I talk to believes that “values” are objective quantities inherent in goods by virtue of the time it took to produce them. > > Everybody I talk to believes that things are both (a) useful to me and (b) useful to other people, and moreover (c) we live in a society where we exchange stuff–where we, in Adam Smith’s words, truck, barter, and exchange. If the combination of my wealth and its usefulness to me makes me value it the most, then I use it–it is to me what Marx calls a use value. If there is somebody else out there whose combination of their wealth and its usefulness to them makes them value it more than I do, then I trade it away to them directly or indirectly for stuff that I value more–they consume it, and it is to me what Marx calls an exchange value. But what Marx calls exchange values are really use values to others: a combination of (a) bargaining power–wealth–and (b) utility to actual concrete breathing humans. Things have value not because of the abstraction that socially-necessary labor time is needed to produce them but because of the concretion that somebody somewhere wants to use it and has something ese that others find useful to trade in turn. What Marx calls the mysterious and bizarre dual character of commodities is nothing mysterious or bizarre: it is simply the fact that I am not the only person in the world, and that things very useful to me may be less useful to others, and vice versa. > > Moreover, capitalist production has nothing to do with what Marx describes as this mysterious dual character of commodities. The distinction between use-value and exchange-value is not something invented by or peculiar to the capitalist mode of production: it is found in all human societies… > > In my view, Marx has trapped himself. He has been primed to expect a deeper layer of real reality underneath mere appearances. And he has chosen the wrong model of the underlying real reality–the labor theory of value, which is simply not a very good model of the averages around which prices fluctuate. … ---
**Author:** ![Hellestal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3ab097/32.png) [@Hellestal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hellestal)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-many-failings-of-capitalism/709911/220 "2015-01-23T15:13:12Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Marxists have it tough. So do extremist Austrians. Some positions deserve to have it tough. They don’t deserve the unfairness, but they do deserve a sharp reception. There’s a reason why these ideas were abandoned. If another goldbug poster materializes, we shouldn’t be rolling out a red carpet. The analogy here should be clear. > [@Enterprise](#): > > Do you think we could raincheck this particular part of the discussion? Yes. I didn’t particularly expect a response. You asked for a specific place that gave me the impression that I have. I showed the progression of posts. That’s enough for me. > [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > I’ve read your posts. Your eyes flickering on the screen in front of you is not “reading”. The specific request from **Enterprise** was: “So a simple pointer towards a question that I asked that I should (you think) know about would be helpful.” You can go ahead and scroll up to confirm this. I was responding to that specific request. Your criticism to me was “make you own point by carefully explaining it”. I was asked to provide an example from **Enterprise** ’s posts, so I provided examples. I didn’t explain it because I wasn’t asked to explain it. _I did make the offer to explain, if it was wished._ Right there in that very same post, I said I was willing to return to my previous draft and go into more depth if that’s what **Enterprise** wanted. You can just scroll up for all of this. It’s all right there. I answered the request that was put to me, I even offered to go into more depth, but that offer was declined for now. Now apparently you personally want me to go into more depth, as I offered to the OP. I’m willing to do that, on a condition. If you’ll read the post above and acknowledge that I answered the question that was actually put to me, rather than the question you thought I had been asked, I’m willing to flesh out all those examples I listed in a way I didn’t do before [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-many-failings-of-capitalism/709911.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-many-failings-of-capitalism/709911.md?page=12)