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by funcDropShadow 636 days ago
> This was the beauty of Karl Marx's thinking. He postulated that the best way to measure value is in the amount of human labor that goes into the output.

This is indeed the most beautiful insight of Karl Marx that I ever read. This predicts perfectly why all socialist/communist economies collapse. They value inefficiency. The more work is needed to build a product, the more valuable it is --- according to Marx. That is one of the most fundamental error in his theories.
1 comments
rakoo 635 days ago
You're assuming socialist/communist economies must, for some reason, be run exactly the same as capitalist economies. Of course if you're trying to mix both it will collapse.

The point of Marx isn't that we should create markets where the value is decided by the amount of labor. The point of Marx is that if Labor creates value, then Labor should be in charge. The problem being that Labor is hard, so the end goal cannot be to maximize Labor (or value), contrary to your implied way of thinking were the most value must be created.

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funcDropShadow 635 days ago
If maximizing value is not the goal, then why should Marxism redefine value in a counter-intuitive way?

Btw, "Labor" cannot be in charge, outside the UK at least, because Labor is an abstract concept. In Marxist societies people are in charge that pretend to have the laborers best interest in their hearts. But as they "Some are more equal than others."

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rakoo 635 days ago
> If maximizing value is not the goal, then why should Marxism redefine value in a counter-intuitive way?

Because it's only an exchange value and doesn't take into account the myriad of things that also have value but are not a consequence of work ? And the goal of Marxism might not be to maximize exchange value ?

> In Marxist societies people are in charge that pretend to have the laborers best interest in their hearts

Hard disagree, looking at societies applying values evolved from Marxist theories I see people in charge of themselves. I think of the old Commune de Paris, of the Spanish Revolution, of the Rojava. You need to look further than the one example you have in mind.

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