• timdrake@lemmy.ml
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    8 minutes ago

    You repeatedly say I never made an argument or gave examples despite me doing both, you just reassert things in opposition to these arguments and examples which you deny the existence of and then in the same breath say that ~“simply saying things is not in fact a counter.” You are the one that doesn’t know the difference between making an argument and just saying things.

    You insist that naturally occurring things need to be “processed” before they can be sold despite anyone with a functioning brain knowing that’s not universal. Do we even live on the same planet? At a certain point all I can do is say it’s obvious.

    Marx’s chief argument isn’t that use-values exchanging means they must have an underlying value alone, it’s that the prices in an economy are not random, and so must be the result of their common elements, as can be exchanged for the universal commodity, money.

    The problem is that I’ve read his argument and know for a fact that it goes exactly how I described it, that Marx does not establish prior in the argument that prices in an economy are not random, with the common element notion following from this; in fact, this is a conclusion he gets to simultaneously with the conclusion that exchange-values are a reflection of this third thing, these are actually the same conclusion. You can’t read what I’ve said, you can’t read what Marx said, what else can I do? This is the start of the argument:

    Hence exchange value appears to be something accidental and purely relative, and consequently an intrinsic value, i.e., an exchange value that is inseparably connected with, inherent in commodities, seems a contradiction in terms. Let us consider the matter a little more closely.

    A given commodity, e.g., a quarter of wheat is exchanged for x blacking, y silk, or z gold, &c. – in short, for other commodities in the most different proportions. Instead of one exchange value, the wheat has, therefore, a great many. But since x blacking, y silk, or z gold &c., each represents the exchange value of one quarter of wheat, x blacking, y silk, z gold, &c., must, as exchange values, be replaceable by each other, or equal to each other. Therefore, first: the valid exchange values of a given commodity express something equal; secondly, exchange value, generally, is only the mode of expression, the phenomenal form, of something contained in it, yet distinguishable from it.

    Again, no capitalist is going to calculate SNALT, they are going to notice the cost of production and sell above that, meeting the market roughly where similar commodities are sold. Supply and demand therefore regulate price to value

    You don’t need to reiterate that it isn’t intentional twice in response to my message where I acknowledge Marx says it isn’t intentional. And you are just assume value = SNALT again.