Introduction to the Law of Value - Marx in Minutes

[Xexizy]

Would really appreciate a like/share on this one, a lot of effort went into it!

[jama]

graphics so smooth I though i was watching a Prager U vid lol.

[Barcuun]

I really learned something from this video and I feel I understand Marxism better - still not nearly enough but better at least! Thanks Xexizy and AnActualJoke

[Elprogre]

I am from a southamerican country, and i will traslate you video to spanish, its very interesting, and maybe this help to understand the basics of the basics of the subject in my country and others...

[Mexie]

great collab you two! really well done. I need Sonia editing for all of my videos lol

[lavenderandred_]

The left needs more of this. Old, complicated ideas and words being transferred into slick, digestible content. This is how we get people taking our ideas on board. Well done comrades ❤️

[cassiedevereaux-smith]

"The Frankfurt School Of Witchcraft and Wizardry". AMAZING joke!

[sihplak]

Just a few minutes in; I was like "whoa when the fuck did Xexizy get so good at editing" then you brought up working with AnActualJoke. That'd explain it

[organiccomposition]

Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence.

[chayabat-tzvi]

One criticism here: in the past few centuries of its existence, capitalism has been able to *adapt* and mold itself to avoid outright collapse (namely, move its problems around as David Harvey has pointed out). There were quite a few times when socialists believed capitalism would inevitably kill itself due to how crisis-prone it is as a system (Second Internationale and, unfortunately, some leftcomms), yet capitalism survives to this day by virtue of its ability to change.

This is also why those who assume capitalism can be ended by gimmicks - as opposed to direct action - are mistaken.

Shabbat shalom!

[_Novaya]

Esoteric Entity:
BUT YOU'RE JUST STRAWMANNING!

[rrios]

Brittish people explaining the law of value be like: The lower value

[boomerdwayne]

100 million ppl dead because of YOUR video HOW COULD UUUU GRRRR

[vallraffs]

Best video you've ever made, honestly. And I'm not just saying that 'cause of the sweet anactualjoke-visuals. The presentation is great aside from the animation, the information is solidly informative and clear, the jokes are good. Just a fantastic video, man!

[numetalmarkchavez]

17:20 literally disproves peoples misconception (especially on the right) that capitalism encourages innovation.

[owenmacdonald]

Terrific video. People act as though Marxism is a totalitarian act of violence and a threat to "capitalist democracy"... when in reality it serves as a lens through which you understand capitalism, and how it is inevitably destined for collapse and decay. Hopefully people will see this and gain more understanding of critique of capitalism!

[itamarreina]

The toothbrushes belong to the proletariat!!!!

[funeralmany]

"the frankfurt school of witchcraft and wizardry" sounds like someone's tumblr url

[flataffect]

First of all, Marx did not invent the notion that labor is the source of value. That notion is usually attributed to John Locke, though his reason for claiming so were different than Marx's. Marx is absolutely not the only person to develop ideas about the source of value in any detail (he actually followed on the coat tails of folks like Adam Smith and David Riccardo.) Marx's followers are the only people in the modern era to have not followed the developments in economics that have occurred since Marx first published his ideas.

The main problem with the Labor Theory of Value (properly called such because there are other theories that have existed before an since, ) is that it doesn't consider that the true source of value is human beings. The thing to understand is, that 'Exchange Value' is not a universal thing, not even within a single economy. One person may value gold more highly than wheat and another may value wheat more highly than gold. This can be due to practical concerns: a person with Coeliac Disease would certainly value wheat less than a person without that concern but it can also be moral, personal, a matter of taste, or just entirely inscrutable to the outside observer. This concept is called 'Subjective Valuation' and anyone who wants to critique modern economies needs to understand it.

The idea to understand is this: value is not an object quality that exists in the world. It is a concept wholly in the human head. The price of any good is set by the tension between the subjective valuation of the seller and the subjective valuation of the buyer. Because human beings do have a degree of self-interest, and in aggregate, are relatively predictable (though not totally; few contemporary economists still unreservedly use the 'homo-economicus' model of human behavior, ) practical do nearly always come into play when a price is being set and it's possible to a degree to model how a price gets set in practice. Supply and Demand, then is an attempt to map these concepts together. The price of supply is based on the subjective valuation of the seller and the price of demand is based on the subjective valuation of the buyer. It should be obvious to anyone paying attention that this is a super simplification because that factors that go into supply and demand are literally all of the factors involved in an economy, ALL of them (including "marketing, branding, culture, etc."), and mapping them out is not something anyone has ever or really could ever do.

With regard to 'Market Value, ' one thing to understand is that this is not distinct from 'Exchange Value'. Currency is just one good that can be exchanged. Typically, money's only value is that it can then be exchanged for other goods in turn, which makes it a useful placeholder for 'value' generally, more useful than an IOU and more flexible than barter, but it's value, like the value of any other good is also subjective and depends on people generally sharing similar opinion as to its value. Market value then becomes, as you would say, 'a social construct', and that's something that few trained economists would deny (though they would probably use different terminology.)

Some people might object to the idea of value being a subject concept rather than something objective in reality, but I'd suggest those people look up the concept Hume's Guillotine. Hume points out that when discussing topics of morality, its impossible to derive moral truths from simple object level descriptions of the world. The world is just an arrangement of matter; it's humans that give it meaning. That said, it's helpful to consider that there is a great overlap in human experience (a concept known as intersubjectivity) and from that extensive overlap, some things approaching objectivity can be gleamed. For example, all humans need to eat, therefor food will generally be something that everyone places at least some value on. However, the valuation given to each individual food item will change based on specific needs, tastes, and trends.

So there's a reason why most people tend to look askance at Marx's theories regarding the source of value.

[OrElseEllipsis]

Great introduction. I've only started reading Das Kapital, but have read other books by Marx. I have also read a few of the books leading up to Kapital: Plato's Republic (The OG, the book required for all philosophers, and wannabe philosophers like myself), Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, and several philosophy books in general, but really feel I need to read Hegel, I've only just starting listening to lecture on him, but need to read his actual books, which from friends, I've been told are a very difficult read, but I've read Kant and nearly every work by Nietzsche, so hopefully it's not too much more difficult than that. :P