Das Kapital - Top 10 Ideas

[mysty]

This channel has been a lifesaver. I’ve always been interested in economics but haven’t had the time to read these giant books. Please keep doing more.

[tomp.]

I've been reading capital and this has been really helpful with understanding the ideas

[a.k.s.]

Best example of rise & fall of Capitalism can be seen via history of The "East India company" it's lifecycle was almost the same as marx predicted.

[HoriaIoan]

Nice format. Made me curious of this book, especially after finishing Adam Smith

[jtlachappelle]

At 3:18 is the key to marx’s biggest flaw: “Labor is the only thing that can create value.”

That may be true, but marx’s failure was to define labor as only MANUAL labor. The problem is that labor comes in many forms, and, out of his blind, infantile hatred of the owning and managerial class, marx totally dismissed the MANAGERIAL labor that goes into production.

Managing and organizing production is most certainly labor. It is the expenditure of energy that, in marx’s own terms, ends up embodied in whatever product is being manufactured. To deny this is the most ludicrous and infantile folly.

Anyone watching this and considering the labor theory of value should also go take a look at Alfred Marshall and his Marginal Theory, which blew marx and the labor theory out of existence, and how it holds SCARCITY as a major contributor to a given thing’s value.

[stephenhemingway]

Good summary. Very helpful. And your sense of humour is always appreciated.

[goji]

The "Monopoly for millennials" that you talk about already exists... made by Hasbro themselves. It's literally called "Monopoly for Millennials" and works pretty much how you described. I gifted it to my sister, about 10 months ago. We played it and it's actually pretty fun.

[terminsane]

Im a sculptor, not a distributor or door-to-door salesman. When someone buys my sculptures and resells them, they are providing a valuable service, and it is indeed a type of labor.
I sell far more sculptures, and more people can access my product, because of it.
How can you consider that "exploitation"?

[evanshlom]

The rate of surplus value is the most important concept for the masses to take control of the system. People are waking up increasingly during the modern Information Age, where we see how blatantly so many capitalists are willing to destroy their workers’ unionization efforts, and how so many capitalists refuse to help the common laborer.

[terminsane]

Profit is what i get for doing labor. I buy a 5$ log, i perform labor to widdle it into a statue, and sell it for 10$. I have 5$ profit. This is not exploitation

[terminsane]

What is a "worker"? Can someone do an activity that you look down your nose at, and still be considered a "worker"?
Isnt a worker just anyonr who provides some value to another? Who dictates for us all, what value a particular type of labor is worth? Why cant the involved individuals decide what their labor is worth on their own?

[digital-being]

Are you from Vienna? Cool videos - using it for my macro eco studies currently

[jhonklan]

Value is not tied to the amount of labor necessary. Increased capital almost always leads to increased profit, due to economies of scale.

[matthewrichardson]

How does price not dictate the value of labor, considering that labor is a line item in price? Is it not true that if there are 10 computer programmers in a labor pool, that their value is more if there are millions of computer programmers? A price is also not the only aspect of value. Price, Availability, and Quality are all a component of determining value. India banned silk looms, refused to modernize, cited Das Kapital.

[jackbrady]

“Human labour” is a flawed idea. Really it’s about “Experience”.

The reason why capitalism is a flawed economic system and will be usurped is because $20 does not equal $20 for everyone, meaning, human lives, which are all worth the same, unalienably, under God, as it is self evident, are valued differently. Each individual human Experience is worth the same, and should be valued as such
Edit: not ‘usurped’ just altered as we evolve to one/two/much fewer credit systems

[aluisious]

It's endlessly funny when businesses complain "we can't find skilled labor." I have worked for two companies that complain about this. The first company lost me to the second company because they didn't pay enough, and the second company lost me to my current employer because they refused to pay more. Oddly I have not heard my current employer complaining about this, because many people have been applying to work here.

I recently heard the second companies' customers were complaining at a trade show about the poor quality of service recently, and boom, a friend of mine got a huge raise to make more than I've ever heard of the week before he was set to leave and join my employer. But I thought they couldn't "find" skilled labor? Gee the second they paid more it turned out they already had it.

[terminsane]

If its 'exploitation" to offer employment contracts, what do you call it when socialism forces you to work for the state?
Or are you going to tell me i can skateboard, and youll provide me with free food and housing for my whole life?

[atomariola]

Commodity fetish is "reification"--a key term in Marx and Phenomenology. Also, worker control-of the point of production, meaning as Richard Wolf puts it, democratic control of companies by workers. The state of constant economic crisis is bearing out amongst workers in America. Finally, the illusion that capitalism is somehow inevitable and seems to be the sole method or organizing and manifesting an economy is key. This, along with constant crisis allows capitalism to sustain itself while consuming itself to exhaustion, which I believe is happening.

[jhonklan]

Yeah the division of labor is absolutely debunked. In fact its the opposite. More specialized labor means more training required, which means less supply of that labor and thus less replaceability.

[jhonklan]

The labor thoery of value is deeply flawed. Labor is valueless unless directed. If a worker can lift 100 pounds that skill is useless unless directed to a purpose. Business provides and find tunes this purpose.