I.
Let us start our investigation by examining the equalization of Profit, how different Capitals within particular fields of production, despite slightly differing ratios of C:V come to assume equal rates of surplus value.
What causes some commodities to depreciate in value and others to rise in value? This glass that i am drinking out of is probably worth less or will fetch a lower price on the market than what i originally paid for it, while that antique desk from 1708 is probably worth more or will fetch more than it was originally sold for in 1708,---or would it?? is the rise in the cost of this antique desk the result of inflation of money, or rather the inflation of labor, today's equivalent of that year's labor?---is this also with respect to the Average Rate of Profit?
This glass might sell for less than i bought it for in today's market, but let's check back in, say, 500 years from now and see if it hasn't risen in value above the real nominal price that i paid for it adjusted for inflation and independent of the Average rate of profit for Glass cups (assuming that it's still in good condition). Exactly what other factors must we consider in the specific determination of value---And exactly how much value do these factors represent, i mean, quantitatively, exactly, precisely---do we, can we, assess that according to Labor theory of Value??
And what about celebrity items? That Mariano Rivera baseball on my bookcase (or better yet ((so as to contrast art as a commodity with the unique achievement of the practicing artist))---this original manuscript of Capital Vol. 1 by Karl Marx and a mass produced copy of Capital Vol. 1 made in 2003)???----Or, items that exist outside of the Capitalist Production Process, that are not a result of the Capitalist Production process? What is it that makes the signed baseball more valuable than a regular baseball (and likewise with a book or piece of art)? Is it the labor of Mariano Rivera signing it, whose value as an individual, and thus also his labor, is worth more to society due to the collective social investments made in Mariano Rivera? Likewise, with our Antique desk, if the Artisan who produced it was highly skilled, and he invested a large sum of labor into it, reflected in the quality of the desk itself, will it not be worth more than a haphazardly constructed desk made by some novice or individual for the sake of merely meeting his or her immediate needs? Same with say a luxury car produced in 1950 and sold in today's market.... Why is it that some cars depreciate in value while other cars rise in value?
What is more important the ideal or the Material? According to Labor theory, the more we invest in people, and the more time they spend in productive Labor, the more value that is created---that this is the formation of real value that serves as the basis for average or abstract value, after which deviation can occur due to certain, abstract, non-material factors that exist outside the realm of material production.... but what is the true source of these factors, what are they, but ideas? and these ideas even more so than the "material" factors of production (which are coincidentally also just reflections of ideas and hence also ideas) play the ultimate role in determining the final exchange value of a Commodity.....
We need to start looking at Capital as more of an Abstract idea, rather than a material force. Capital as alienated surplus value set into motion, real life energy expropriated from its material form in the human being, set free to exist on its own. Capital is not a Material thing of a definite form, but rather more like energy: at one time it is money, at another point it is an antique desk; it can pass through walls, people, inhabit material objects themselves.... Capital as an idea.... A dollar, for instance, abstracted from its material conditions considered in isolation in and of itself is merely a piece of paper, but as soon as it serves as a means of exchange, enters into the C-M-C / M-C-M process, it comes to life, it is charged, set into motion, its existence demands action, forces the individual act.... Likewise with Gold.
Relative relations of value, the distinction between production value and market value---Art doesn't put food on the table, but why!?? Because there is not enough social investment in the arts, the material demand is placed on the Maths and sciences. Needless to say, if so much more value and investment is placed in the production of labor in science or the profession of say a nurse, then of course the natural the cost of these goods is going to be higher according to Labor theory of Value, and who sets the price for the production of nurses and doctors, is it the schools and universities?--some secret NWO or illuminati group that exists somewhere in some secret underground facility?.... or is it CAPITAL?
Let us take a closer look. Labor has become more specialized, less intuitive, since the industrial revolution: increasingly dependent on the possession of a college degree in the maths & sciences; According to the BLS "Employment in STEM occupations grew 10.5 percent, between 2009 and 2015, compared with 5.2 percent net growth in non-STEM occupations." Moreover, "The national average wage for all STEM occupations was nearly double the national average wage for non-STEM occupations." This is furthermore a product of things like the average length of class time, of a semester, etc.--and these themselves are purposely expanded on by the capitalist production process itself so as to maximize profits. These educational institutions thus come to serve as gatekeepers, but under what principle do they operate?.... Take A degree from an American college, for instance, in order to graduate, you probably, really, only need about 30-50 credits total for your major (to be able to perform your job), but you need to pay for 130+ (?) credits---the goal is to keep you there for as long as possible so as to make the most money---it's a business, the more students they can enroll, the more trees they can cut down, the more dormitories they can build, and . . . the more students they can enroll, etc. And this trickles down into the cost of goods and services, taking up an ever increasing portion of the National Capital at the expense of other fields.
---So, again, why doesn't art pay the bills!??, because the capitalist production process tends to emphasize investments in the maths & sciences at the expense of the arts because it is more conducive to the rise in the organic composition of Capital of which it is constrained to follow: the ultimate objective of Capital being the total and complete enslavement and subordination of Humanity.
II.
Imagine a state-owned industry, except based on the American ideal of democracy, egalitarinism and free speech....
Yes, imagine, it's just a temporary illusion, a mirage, they say we are crazy, that we are dealing with Imaginary things, but they are the ones who are seeing things that aren't actually there, and it affects them---They are not, however, suffering from mental illness, just a Poverty of Philosophy.---mental illness doesn't exist.
*Angrily slaps forearm repeatedly with back hand*
Imaginary things, like all of their money, where is it? What is it doing right now, i wonder? Is it just there, sitting in the bank where they deposited it? Are you sure it's there? But How do you know? Did you check on it tonight before you went to bed? Tuck it in? Or, rather, is it continuing to operate independently of you as Capital? Is it being used somewhere else, for something completely different Without your knowledge?....
Fictitious Capital - Stocks, bonds, commodity options and futures contracts, fixed rate and adjustable mortgages, interest rates, compounding interest, the currency exchange, CDO's and synthetic CDOS.... Non-tangible, Imaginary Capital functioning and operating as real Capital only to vanish into thin air.---Where does it all go?, to what realm, what alternate, parallel reality,---was it even there in the first place?
*Angrily slaps forearm repeatedly with back hand*
The Variability of the Labor of the worker is best contrasted with the static wage that confronts him.... He can produce more or less during his shift, but he still gets paid the same! His wage is fixed, his Labor is not.... Work in this Walmart for 1 hour, get paid $7.55.
"Nonsense! what imaginary things!??"
"Well let's start with yourself...."
"Solipsism! When major side characters in your short stories make side appearance in your novels... and these abstract, metaphysical ideas of theirs affect them, yet you say they don't exist, that they are not important!"
"Imaginary things!!!!?, blah, right now, all i see is this public road, some woods, power lines.... that's it, all else is private property and thus off limits to me, a limitation on my world, a wall which can not be breached...."
------A business is like a black hole, it traps all surplus Labor, nothing escapes.
The problem with materialism is Capital stagnation, capital as a static entity, and not an idea, that moves the human being, forces him to act & speak in a certain way.... And what of the pre-history of humanity, are we to come to regard this period as non-existent, prior to commodity production? According to historical materialism the course of humanity is determined by economic forces, economic necessity, economic forces and their relations, but what of humanity before the stone age? before the agricultural revolution and the development of civilization? In Kerala, India, there is a group of Brahmins who recite ancient chants containing sounds and speech patterns devoid of modern linguistic meaning, passed down tens of thousands of years, as part of a vocal tradition. What if there is more to humanity than a material reaction to external economic forces, what if the course of humanity is not the development of economic relations, but rather the development of the idea, of concepts and the human consciousness, and these ideas themselves would go on to produce the agricultural revolution and the subsequent economic relations which would then go on to reflect back on the human consciousness, to determine its course and character and also to act as a means of self-realization?
The universal equivalent, or money, tends to assume the most intangible abstract form possible, compare a piece of paper to the content of 1 hour of productive work, to Dibcoin....
...The U.S. Hospital system is an example of a crisis of overproduction, the product of a rise in the organic composition of Capital (Living Labor Vs. Dead Labor). As investments in constant fixed capital increase (as well as variable capital absolutely), the cost of healthcare continues to rise so as to become utterly out of reach to the average wage earner without insurance.....
Well, What is the true price of this paper, from whence does its value derive?---
And what is inflation, or more precisely, what is the true cause of inflation, is it because the amount of money in circulation continues to increase?....--> Well, we know that inflation naturally rises by a small percentage every year. --What is inflation: a decrease in the value of the purchasing power of money, or a rise in the cost of goods; So, is it due to higher production costs, or an increase in the cost of raw materials, leading to a higher product cost, as well as an increase in the total supply of cash in circulation?; interestingly enough the cost of production of a $5 bill and $100 bill (like our example of the textbooks ((see the previous chapter))) are roughly the same and yet they have very different values in the market and represent very different quantities....
And What is supply and demand? And how does it act to determine the price of a commodity?---What if the Supply exactly coincides with demand? What then? Well the whole of Capitalist Academia would spontaneously combust while the entire edifice of bourgeoise capitalist economics itself would come crashing down....
The rate of surplus value is rarely ever fixed and differs between differing periods of production due to varying levels of worker productivity, and natural forces, and other external factors, creating differing exchange values for certain stocks of commodities, the constant material elements taking up a different value distribution in greater or lesser stocks of commodities---whereas in Capital, we usually proceed under the assumption that the rate of surplus value is fixed. This accounts for supply, but what is demand but money & need, which creates pressure, and leads to increased capital investment to facilitate that demand... And what causes different National rates of surplus value?
---What is the true cause of inflation but the declining rate of profit, or the increase in the constant portion of capital as compared to that of the variable part..... What is the cause of Inflation but CAPITAL.
III.
The relationship between the worker and the capitalist is not a fair one at all and totally 1-sided, there is little-to-no negotiation when it comes to wages, nor can there be any negotiation as to the prices of commodities.
What can there be but labor in the determination of the real value of commodities, supply & demand, rather, seems to be a secondary consideration that nonetheless exerts either a positive or negative push on this real price in the market but only after the fact and secondarily to Labor---oh, the joys of Labor theory of Value!---how it makes sense of the incomprehensible dribble of the modern economists, and provides the individual with a glimpse, shines of ray light into the abyss that is Capitalism and the field of economics just like the seeing of the Ancient Mexican Shamans....
What can i say? We Communists aren't much for empty words... We will show you what we mean, with hammer & sickle & Anvil, and hard work....
Rent (and private property) in Land used in capitalist production (or business) not only serves as a deduction on Profit for the Capitalist (to be distinguished from the Landowner and also the Finance Capitalists), but it also results in lower wages for workers, i.e., a reduction in variable capital as well....
--What is the precise cause of an economic collapse? Just like what is the precise cause of a Tornado? but a multitude of factors, two high powered forces or winds coming together at the same time, crashing, clashing, to bring down the market, like funnel, just like during the 08 financial collapse.
---And Why is it that we find the Artistic product treated with such disdain in Das Kapital? And what is it about the Artistic product that makes it so difficult to deal with in regard to Labor theory?---Well, for one, the Artistic product is distinct in that unlike other fields of production, it does not follow the typical pattern of a rise in the organic composition of capital---more constant capital as opposed to variable capital--indeed, the artistic product stubbornly defies the capitalist production process like no other field of industry--yeah, it is the one field of production where human labor will never become obsolete, where it is indispensable, and where we will never be replaced by machines, and thus forms the ultimate, absolute ideal (and most necessary source for the subsistence and liberation of the proletariat. The production of Art, as we shall presently see with our current investigation, holds even greater wonders and marvels than this, treasures of unimaginable wealth, such that were they written on the eyelids of man in gold ink, they would serve as a crown jewel delight for all posterity and even the angels.
Now, a computer is perfectly capable of producing something that resembles art, say, a song or a painting, but such things are not Art; neither is a landscape in and of itself; the sun setting over a midwestern field may be aesthetically pleasing to some, but it is not art, rather the artistic product is inextricably linked to the producer or artist directly and deals wither inner condition, human feeling and emotion, unique conceptions, and thus to do away with the human element is thus to move away from what is the defining element of Art....
According to labor theory of value and Communist Materialism, all value is derived from human labor, the expenditure of productive energy by the worker. Well, communist idealism asks: what about the productive energy spend on my mind!?---After all, what is the source or driving force behind labor, but the idea? in order to act, i must will it, and so what about all this labor that i've expended on the development of my mind? How do we measure this? Where does it all go? What value will the Capitalist pay me for my thoughts, or is it all for nothing?---What is Nothing in a positive sense?
Communist idealism regards the idea as the formative element, the motif operandi and driving force behind the physical expenditure of labor; the idea thus at once assumes if not a position of primary importance in relation to material labor, an equal footing with it, and where communist materialism blatantly disregards the idea and the realm of the mind as non-existent, a reflection of the material world, communist idealism see it the other way around---and, this, the idea, is that which Capital tragically does not pay for, but rather blatantly steals and appropriates for itself, and via the mechanism of private property uses it as a means of enslaving its own creator.... From out tweets, our art, everything we post online, and even that comes out of our own mouths... but a day is coming when this value must be realized and physical, material expressions of labor have become superfluous---so, invest in your minds, comrades, labor on your mind rather than a physical material object that can be alienated and expropriated from you, guard your thoughts, value and store away your treasures and dreams....
The free production of art takes on an entirely new meaning during the digital revolution. The whole of Social media is just a mechanism for Capital to extract our thoughts, our dreams, our ideas, to appropriate and them free of charge, assess our objective material worth within the capitalist production process and assign us our relative share and position within its hierarchy---that idea for a movie, or commercial, or invention, your art that you just posted on deviant art, Capital takes it and reproduces it with its high-tech equipment, sell it in its sorts, through its channels of production, at which point it belongs to Capital, it makes millions off of it, and never pays you a cent, but perhaps it does if this suits itself.... Meanwhile, you re none the wise, and sitting there on on Twitter, wondering why nobody is liking your tweets, wondering if anybody is out there, The answer is Yes: Capital is watching you.
Nothing is, therefore, more absurd than the idea that we, as humans, are going to stop producing art. Indeed, as was said, the one field of production where humanity will never become obsolete, where it is indispensable, is the production of art.
---It follows that we will, thus, never be able to abolish labor entirely, that full automation is impossible, a reactionary Capitalist's wet dream, utopia, precisely because machines will never be able to produce our art, for to do so would be to replace man with machine entirely, which creates a little bit of a problem for Capital.... For were it not for Art, we would all be mindless zombies, vegetables, hooked up to an I.V., but then again, the problem was never Labor, Labor is what makes us Unique, but rather it is the alienation and exploitation of Labor, fictitious capital, circulating around on the stock market.
After all, what is this chair, comrades, but an Idea? The manifestation of the alienated product of an other's idea, whether they are dead or alive is of no consequence whatsoever, staring back at us. What are all of these things that surround us but ideas? their qualities only representations of what is useful to us, only important in that they serve some productive useful purpose to us as human beings:
According to Marx, "the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind and translated into the various forms of thought (Marx, afterword to the German Edition of Capital Vol. I), whereas, We, the Communist idealists, "see the Idea as an independent subject, as the demiurgos (creator) of the real world, and the real world as only the external phenomenal form of the idea".... the Idea as a source of Value, if not the only and true source of value, the key to the liberation of the proletariat from a Materialist world dominated by machine Labor the result of a rise in the organic composition of Capital, and from the fall in the average rage of profit. So let us now take a closer look at the Idea....
IV.
The digital revolution is a relatively new phenomena, the full implications of which are still playing out. We are witnessing firsthand a technological revolution just as consequential if not more so (in terms of extent and speed) as the industrial revolution..... When we are dealing with the transitional product, we are not talking about the transitional product as defined by Marx, but rather the product in the process of its production, the work in progress....
What is the cost of production of a digital copy of a video game compared to the physical copy of a video game: naturally it has a lower cost of production compared to the physical form and this manifests itself in a lower market price, but is this market price the real exchange value of this product? Well, if we recall the transitional product (more on the transitional product later), we will find that while the cost of the transitional product constantly fluctuates, in a capitalist society the transitional product must assume a fixed or set value, so what we have now is a commodity whose real exchange value is subject to fluctuation: it can either rise or fall below its market price; while we can’t be sure of the real exchange value of the digital commodity, we can assume that its price is partially determined by the need of Capital to promote some sort of balance between the digital copy and the physical commodity which is clearly still the most profitable deal for it, and thus we can assume that its market price is an inflation of its exchange value....
Such a transitional product, not to be confused with the finished transitional product (again more on this later) did not exist during the industrial revolution, except perhaps in the form of the play or live performance.---And what about Sex Work? What is sex work but performative art? Due to a shift in the means of production the very nature of the transitional product as a commodity has itself been altered and allows for even greater manipulation and capitalist exploitation as we mentioned in regards to social media.
Also, we must consider the distinction between the physical copy of a Video game and the digital copy of a video game, which does not exist in the form of a physical object that i can hold with my own two hands, but quite literally exists in a different realm....
What is the value of sheldon’s labor today?
For example, if i'm just an ordinary consumer, and i buy an Xbox One, i can't sell it for more than i bought it for after i use it; on the contrary, it begins to fall in value as soon as i open the box....
Well, i can deceive or trick you into paying more than it is actually worth, so there does seem to exist this distinction between exchange value and final market value....
unless by using it, i am adding some sort of labor value to it in the form of games that are downloaded digitally, but even then i'm probably not going to sell those games for their full market value or the value that i paid Microsoft for them and Microsoft is going to make sure of this by gradually dropping the market price of its old games....
V.
And what about the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank? Is this a Private or Public Institution? Who owns the Federal Reserve Bank?... What is the difference between private and public, private and State? Capitalism is also Statist. It is state for a handful of private corporations....
In the final formation of value We have already Accounted for transportation; it's not actual exchange value, but the *average* exchange value. We are not transporting beers by the glass or pint, we're transporting them in mass amounts..... And that cost of transport is broken down / reflected into smaller amounts in the cost of a single beer, but obviously there is some other added value to the cost of the beer, and that is the labor of the workers which is likewise broken down into smaller amounts. Labor theory deals with Capitalism, we are seeking a new theory of value to deal with life in the Communist state....
A 40oz costs $2.00 at the 7/11, 2 or 80oz for 3.00. So 3.00 for a beer (12oz.) at the bar (during Happy Hour only), 4 cents of which is tax that goes to the state, so the market cost of the beer comes to 2.96, how does that break down? $3.00, what elements constitute the price of this beer? well, there is the cost of the materials of production, the cost of the bartender's neccessary labor and also her surplus value, which goes to the bar, and ultimately the bank account of the owner for him to do with as he or she likes: in the material world it breaks down to a couple dollars to the bar, one dollar to the bartender, 4 cents to the state--is this really what we're fighting over? a couple dollars? should we really bring about a Bolshevik Revolution to alter this formula ever so slightly so that the State makes 1 dollar, the bartender two? is it really worth all that trouble??.... Except beers only cost $3 during happy hour, normally they go for average cost of $4-5 altering the distribution scheme even more.
In Miami, there is a KFC that sells flan, the unique creation of a Cuban cook who would use company ingredients and means of production to bake his flan for his fellow co-workers to eat. One day a customer came in and said, "i want that Flan." Word spread, and soon more and more customers were asking for the flan. It was so good that the recipe was passed on and the store started selling it. When KFC was later brought by Yum brand corporation, Yum made a special exception for this one KFC allowing them to continue selling flan as part of the menu, and now people travel from all across Florida and North America to try this flan that they can't get anywhere else. Let's make it so that our state owned industries allow for worker innovation, instead of merely treating the Worker as an animal to obey all orders, lets realize the potential of the American worker and the enormous potential for innovation that is currently lying dormant due to the hierarchical, centralized nature of the Capitalist production process.
We can Not merely apply the same dogmatic principles as universals to every single particular stock, commodity and currency, but rather each one must be treated as a particular with its own unique contradictions and conditions, its existence constituting a unique relationship with all other commodities, and this arising precisely from its unique existence as an individual commodity distinct from others.
Now then to what can we ascribe the disproportionate Capital flows between the Maths & Sciences and the Arts? What could it be but a product of the natural rise in the organic composition of Capital inherent in the Capitalist mode of production (capital investments in the Maths & sciences being more conducive to this phenomenon)? From the perspective of Communist idealism, events such as military conflicts and war are a phenomenon that arises out of and justifies the conditions necessitated by the economic (and in this case, the Capitalist) mode of production itself; these things are the product and not the cause, the material shell or external form that the internal, abstract contradictions that the Capitalist mode of production assumes. Did the Market crash today because of the Trade War? or is it rather that the Trade War came about as a means to justify the need of the market to crash?
At this point the Manuscript breaks off.....
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