:: Yeah. But 'enabling production' IS NOT 'working', is it.
Enabling production includes the design and preparation of the means of production. Thats hard work.:: Somewhere in the line, investment still exists. But, in that case,the money is in Socialism no longer "capital". It's not capital investment. It becomes social investment. The commodities which were aquired in order to enable production, through those investments, belong to the workers. So the credit for it goes to the workers.
:I'm glad you appreciate the necessity of setting aside resource for investment and the 'earnings' of investment.
Yeah, but it's more of a conceptual thing. The "investment" itself means "investment of capital" under a capitalist society. The 'earnings' are returned to the investors as dividend.
:: Buying productive goods do not produce goods. Buying and offering these goods is not the same with 'working' and actually 'producing' something. These things were not offered to the workers for their own good, but for the capitalist himself - to make money, and with it, more money. Now this is something which pisses the workers off, because the top-dog takes off some of the total value created for himself, taking credit for investment, when this accumulation of capital itself, which enabled the investment in productive goods, was actually derived from the workers themselves. That's what the LTV was trying to prove.
:Thats what it doesnt really prove adequately.
Well, yeah. Since you don't think it's right, you think it proves nothin'. That's natural, I guess. Can't blame you for thinking that way.
:: But that's only playing games with words.
:eh?
:: The only thing that is "objective" there is that the man is starving(even this is subjective, come to think of it). But to what extent is his starvation at? Does the starving guy write that down on his forehead? Is there a "starv-o-meter" which figures how much he is starved? Is there an American Standard on measuring starvation levels? Can two starving people be compared?
:Those are the questions to be asked. Can you objectively show a man to be starving more-less than others, I imagine medical assessments would go along the way. You deny that its objective though?
:: Imagine there is a lunatic who thinks he is starving to death, but his physical conditions are prime. Now between a "really" starving man, and this lunatic, who is MORE starving and by HOW MUCH? Can we say it in objective point of view that the pain of starvation is greater in the "really" starving man, than the lunatic?
:We can look at their physiologies and make a comparison.
Look, you are making this difficult. I honestly think yer not being fair here. If we were to make a bread and set its price, we must measure it through a medical process how much the customer's physiological need for a certain lump of carbohydrate is?
:: I think not. Unless we are telepaths or something(if we were all telepathic, THEN we would be able to experience both of these people's emotions. THEN it would be objective).
:then it would be an insight into the emotional state of two minds, and provide no objective evidence for starvation.
No, in that case, it would give objective evidence. 'Desire' is more of a psychological phenomenon. That's because the physical need of certain things do not have to match with desires, not necessarily. Like the 'lunatic' I mentioned up there. Their physical need may vastly differ, the problem is, does that make the lunatic's 'desire' for bread lesser than that of the "really" starving man? Mental conditions or illnesses like fetishes, obsession, hydrophobia etc. prove this. Therefore, if all people of the society were empathically linked, we may be able to experience the 'desires' of both men and objectively judge which one's desire is greater. But we're not.
:: Yeah. That's difficult. Why? Because, there ARE NO OBJECTIVE, CALCULABLE GROUNDS on proving those things, when they are left on a subjective level of desire - A needs bread more than B needs a yacht. We're not telepathic. We don't know how deep A's desire for bread is. We can't write down B's desire for a yacht on a spreadsheet. The only objectiveness in this comparison is that both obviously want something. That's as objective as it gets, no more.
:Given that this is your view (it differs from SDFs) then how would you set about 'planning' distribution, or would you stay well away?
That's why we need certain OBJECTIVE standards for OBJECTIVE measurement of economical values and worths, remeber?
:: And THAT'S EXACTLY THE REASON WHY people have placed an objective means of exchange - free from one's emotions and whims.(I'm quite confused. The last paragraph you wrote, Gee, is something that SUPPORTS, not REFUTES, the validity of the LTV. Why did you write down something that is self-contradictory?).
:You can argue that all wealth is product of mankind (thus supporting the LTv in its broadest context) and argue that it doesn nothing to prove exploitation, do any more than 'tack on after' market exchange as a means to calculating value, nor say anything about 'desire.
Maybe. If that's what you think. (You know, to tell you the truth, I can't really understand what this last paragraph means, grammatically. What are you saying?)
But I remeber you were "down", having admitted the subjectivity of desires. So having realized that ain't very objective, now you have to go invent a process which transforms 'subjectivity' into 'objectivity'. You argue 'subjectivity' can be measured 'obejectively'.
Then we would not call that 'subjective'. We would call that 'objective'. The words 'Subjective' and 'Objective' were MUTUALLY INCOMPATIBLE, rememberrrrrrr...?
