Re: class

Marx stole his ideas of class and class analysis from French
libertarian
writers ....Bruce Majors

Interesting..... name some.....
These fellas below?
nominal9

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:French_libertarians
Category:French libertarians
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Libertarianism portal
This category collects all individuals of French nationality that are
categorized as libertarians.

Pages in category "French libertarians"
The following 9 pages are in this category, out of 9 total. This list
may not reflect recent changes (learn more).

B
Frédéric Bastiat
C
Charles Comte
D
Charles Dunoyer
F
Édouard Fillias
H
Sabine Herold
L
Henri Lepage (economist)
M
Alain Madelin
S
Pascal Salin
Jean-Baptiste Say

On Oct 9, 2:42 pm, Bruce Majors <majors.br...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Marx stole his ideas of class and class analysis from French libertarian
> writers
>
> It is interesting that your blurb quotes Marxist economist Joan Robinson on
> how Marx's economic theories are incoherent
>
> In general Marxist academics often say Marx was wrong about THEIR field but
> right about some other field they don't know about (Robinson on economics,
> Kolko on history etc)
>
>
>
> On Sat, Oct 9, 2010 at 2:01 PM, nominal9 <nomin...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marx/
> > 2.3 Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts
> > The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts cover a wide range of
> > topics, including much interesting material on private property and
> > communism, and on money, as well as developing Marx's critique of
> > Hegel. However, the manuscripts are best known for their account of
> > alienated labour. Here Marx famously depicts the worker under
> > capitalism as suffering from four types of alienated labour. First,
> > from the product, which as soon as it is created is taken away from
> > its producer. Second, in productive activity (work) which is
> > experienced as a torment. Third, from species-being, for humans
> > produce blindly and not in accordance with their truly human powers.
> > Finally, from other human beings, where the relation of exchange
> > replaces the satisfaction of mutual need. That these categories
> > overlap in some respects is not a surprise given Marx's remarkable
> > methodological ambition in these writings. Essentially he attempts to
> > apply a Hegelian deduction of categories to economics, trying to
> > demonstrate that all the categories of bourgeois economics — wages,
> > rent, exchange, profit, etc. — are ultimately derived from an analysis
> > of the concept of alienation. Consequently each category of alienated
> > labour is supposed to be deducible from the previous one. However,
> > Marx gets no further than deducing categories of alienated labour from
> > each other. Quite possibly in the course of writing he came to
> > understand that a different methodology is required for approaching
> > economic issues. Nevertheless we are left with a very rich text on the
> > nature of alienated labour. The idea of non-alienation has to be
> > inferred from the negative, with the assistance of one short passage
> > at the end of the text 'On James Mill' in which non-alienated labour
> > is briefly described in terms which emphasise both the immediate
> > producer's enjoyment of production as a confirmation of his or her
> > powers, and also the idea that production is to meet the needs of
> > others, thus confirming for both parties our human essence as mutual
> > dependence. Both sides of our species essence are revealed here: our
> > individual human powers and our membership in the human community.
>
> > It is important to understand that for Marx alienation is not merely a
> > matter of subjective feeling, or confusion. The bridge between Marx's
> > early analysis of alienation and his later social theory is the idea
> > that the alienated individual is 'a plaything of alien forces', albeit
> > alien forces which are themselves a product of human action. In our
> > daily lives we take decisions that have unintended consequences, which
> > then combine to create large-scale social forces which may have an
> > utterly unpredicted effect. In Marx's view the institutions of
> > capitalism — themselves the consequences of human behaviour — come
> > back to structure our future behaviour, determining the possibilities
> > of our action. For example, for as long as a capitalist intends to
> > stay in business he must exploit his workers to the legal limit.
> > Whether or not wracked by guilt the capitalist must act as a ruthless
> > exploiter. Similarly the worker must take the best job on offer; there
> > is simply no other sane option. But by doing this we reinforce the
> > very structures that oppress us. The urge to transcend this condition,
> > and to take collective control of our destiny — whatever that would
> > mean in practice — is one of the motivating and sustaining elements of
> > Marx's social analysis.  .....
> > 3. Economics
> > Capital Volume 1 begins with an analysis of the idea of commodity
> > production. A commodity is defined as a useful external object,
> > produced for exchange on a market. Thus two necessary conditions for
> > commodity production are the existence of a market, in which exchange
> > can take place, and a social division of labour, in which different
> > people produce different products, without which there would be no
> > motivation for exchange. Marx suggests that commodities have both use-
> > value — a use in other words — and an exchange-value — initially to be
> > understood as their price. Use value can easily be understood, so Marx
> > says, but he insists that exchange value is a puzzling phenomenon, and
> > relative exchange values need to be explained. Why does a quantity of
> > one commodity exchange for a given quantity of another commodity? His
> > explanation is in terms of the labour input required to produce the
> > commodity, or rather, the socially necessary labour, which is labour
> > exerted at the average level of intensity and productivity for that
> > branch of activity within the economy. Thus the labour theory of value
> > asserts that the value of a commodity is determined by the quantity of
> > socially necessary labour time required to produce it. Marx provides a
> > two stage argument for the labour theory of value. The first stage is
> > to argue that if two objects can be compared in the sense of being put
> > on either side of an equals sign, then there must be a 'third thing of
> > identical magnitude in both of them' to which they are both reducible.
> > As commodities can be exchanged against each other, there must, Marx
> > argues, be a third thing that they have in common. This then motivates
> > the second stage, which is a search for the appropriate 'third thing',
> > which is labour in Marx's view, as the only plausible common element.
> > Both steps of the argument are, of course, highly contestable.
>
> > Capitalism is distinctive, Marx argues, in that it involves not merely
> > the exchange of commodities, but the advancement of capital, in the
> > form of money, with the purpose of generating profit through the
> > purchase of commodities and their transformation into other
> > commodities which can command a higher price, and thus yield a profit.
> > Marx claims that no previous theorist has been able adequately to
> > explain how capitalism as a whole can make a profit. Marx's own
> > solution relies on the idea of exploitation of the worker. In setting
> > up conditions of production the capitalist purchases the worker's
> > labour power — his ability to labour — for the day. The cost of this
> > commodity is determined in the same way as the cost of every other;
> > i.e. in terms of the amount of socially necessary labour power
> > required to produce it. In this case the value of a day's labour power
> > is the value of the commodities necessary to keep the worker alive for
> > a day. Suppose that such commodities take four hours to produce. Thus
> > the first four hours of the working day is spent on producing value
> > equivalent to the value of the wages the worker will be paid. This is
> > known as necessary labour. Any work the worker does above this is
> > known as surplus labour, producing surplus value for the capitalist.
> > Surplus value, according to Marx, is the source of all profit. In
> > Marx's analysis labour power is the only commodity which can produce
> > more value than it is worth, and for this reason it is known as
> > variable capital. Other commodities simply pass their value on to the
> > finished commodities, but do not create any extra value. They are
> > known as constant capital. Profit, then, is the result of the labour
> > performed by the worker beyond that necessary to create the value of
> > his or her wages. This is the surplus value theory of profit.
>
> > It appears to follow from this analysis that as industry becomes more
> > mechanised, using more constant capital and less variable capital, the
> > rate of profit ought to fall. For as a proportion less capital will be
> > advanced on labour, and only labour can create value. In Capital
> > Volume 3 Marx does indeed make the prediction that the rate of profit
> > will fall over time, and this is one of the factors which leads to the
> > downfall of capitalism. (However, as pointed out by Marx's able
> > expositor Paul Sweezy in The Theory of Capitalist Development, the
> > analysis is problematic.) A further consequence of this analysis is a
> > difficulty for the theory that Marx did recognise, and tried, albeit
> > unsuccessfully, to meet also in Capital Volume 3. It follows from the
> > analysis so far that labour intensive industries ought to have a
> > higher rate of profit than those which use less labour. Not only is
> > this empirically false, it is theoretically unacceptable. Accordingly,
> > Marx argued that in real economic life prices vary in a systematic way
> > from values. Providing the mathematics to explain this is known as the
> > transformation problem, and Marx's own attempt suffers from technical
> > difficulties. Although there are known techniques for solving this
> > problem now (albeit with unwelcome side consequences), we should
> > recall that the labour theory of value was initially motivated as an
> > intuitively plausible theory of price. But when the connection between
> > price and value is rendered as indirect as it is in the final theory,
> > the intuitive motivation of the theory drains away. But even if the
> > defender of the theory is still not ready to concede defeat, a further
> > objection appears devastating. Marx's assertion that only labour can
> > create surplus value is unsupported by any argument or analysis, and
> > can be argued to be merely an artifact of the nature of his
> > presentation. Any commodity can be picked to play a similar role.
> > Consequently with equal justification one could set out a corn theory
> > of value, arguing that corn has the
>
> ...
>
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>
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