Really wonderful stuff! As someone about 600 pages into Volume 1, hearing about how Volumes 2 and 3 expand upon the foundation in Volume 1 is both motivating and exciting. Thanks again so much!

This is good. Covered the essential, yet often unmentioned or misunderstood points up front. I'm lovin' it.

@groovalotfunk4147

Жыл бұрын

McDonald's is coming after you for that copywritten phrase 😄

@luker.6967

Жыл бұрын

Still not fully sold on the labour theory of value, but this video brought to my attention the failure of a utility based explanation to make sense of exchange value.

@Srijit1946

Жыл бұрын

kzread.info/dash/bejne/epZqxrqLZqTMiKg.html

Professor Basu does a good job of summarizing the essential points of Kapital and also the points of controversy, especially the Transformation problem concerning value and price, a problem of how to account for the changing value of production inputs over time (which IMHO is well discussed in Mr Mandel's introduction to volume 3. Penguin edition. ). Two points, though: it would have been good if Professor Basu discussed how mainstream economists conceived of the nature of profit, which for them is a simple addition of profit rate to the cost of production, in contrast to the source of profit from the surplus value generated in production, and secondly, I recommend reading, before Kapital, Marx's earlier work, A Contribution to the Critique of the Political Economy, written in 1859. In it are the essential outlines of Marx's thoughts that were elaborated in volumes 1 to 3, with a very good introduction to the nature of money. OK a third point, I advise reading all three books of Volume 4 (Theories of Surplus Value) which is fantastic in it's presentation of economic history, from Stuart to the physiocrats, Smith, Ricardo, etc. (It cost about $130, coming all the way from London). What the vulgar economists call profit, as addition to cost of production, is called by Stuart as Profit Upon Alienation, discussed in Book 1, and Book 2 has a very good discussion of Crisis. All good reads, I guarantee, PLUS, it gives a very good insight into the nature of current phenomena, such as inflation. Happy reading!☺️

@stevieschmidt3719

Жыл бұрын

Read Andrew Kliman

@onestraw-zx1ph

Жыл бұрын

@@stevieschmidt3719 Thank you very much for the suggestion. I definitely will make an effort to read Professor Kliman's work on TSSI (I came across the controversies he is quite concerned about, but I didn't go much deeper into reading about it). But the timing is right this time, I think.

Great interview, looking forward to reading the book

Thank you, Deepankar Basu and Cale.

Thank you Deepankar for making basic concepts of Marxism so easy in understanding

This was a great interview! My attention span is pretty short these days and I watched the whole thing!!! Woooo!!!!

Wow gotta love jacobin for these interviews

fantastic discussion and interview!!

Algo Boost

@CayenneGaramonde

Жыл бұрын

Algo Boost #2

@bermo6066

Жыл бұрын

Touré Algo Boost

Excellent! Inspiring me to contribute beyond Volume 1, to the rest of Capital. ♥️📚

@SuperMrHiggins

Жыл бұрын

They are a lot denser, imo. Never read 3 or the one on surplus value I think it is? The latter one is tricky to find. But vol 2 I would say was harder than one. He was deceased, yanno? They made it from his notes. But One was all him.

@justinlevy274

Жыл бұрын

recommend david harveys commentary for helping with vol 2&3, helped me a ton

Saw the price for the book yikes. Hopefully, Cambridge brings it down a bit I would like to read it,please it sounds fascinating

The step by step is what i need..cuz reading das kapital on my own is a lost cause..its so dense and i barely graduated high school.

@RobinHerzig

Жыл бұрын

If you're looking for Marxian economics go to Richard Wolff / Democracy at work. If you're just looking for Marxist analysis there's tons on youtube, everything from a few mins - 2+ hrs at a time. Depends on your level or how deep you wanna dive, from easy baby steps to realistic contemporary analysis Could give you some recommendations if you want 😃 good luck

Great video, guys. Thank you.

Should get Steve Keen on sometime. He wrote a few papers in the 90s arguing Marxian economics is ideal as a basis to build Post-Keynesian economics on. But he also argued Marx was wrong in asserting surplus could only come from exploiting labour. Keen argues Marx came to understand he was wrong but was reluctant to admit it because he was determined to show the tendency for profit to fall.

@luker.6967

Жыл бұрын

He was fantastic on Lex Fridman, which I imagine you've seen

@Srijit1946

Жыл бұрын

I like Steve Keen but kzread.info/dash/bejne/qKiNzc9yYqe4p8o.html kzread.info/dash/bejne/hXl7qdiPmdG7kdI.html

@bermo6066

Жыл бұрын

Pretty tired of the MMT gurus to be perfectly honest.

I always like to trot out the reserve army of labor whenever someone says that Marx had no valuable insights. If Marx had no valuable insights, then why is the U3 unemployment rate the official measure used for unemployment? The U3 is essentially Marx's reserve army. It is the number of people who are unemployed but are still in the market for a job. The U5 or the U6 would be a more accurate measure of how many people are unemployed, but those numbers don't matter to a capitalist because the people that are in the U5 but not the U3 are not in the labor force anyways and therefore don't impact the cost of labor. We use Marx's theories all the time without even realizing it.

@tapan97

Жыл бұрын

I have a question about this idea of reserve labour supply. Suppose capitalism reaches a stage where all of the potential working class is employed. Marx says this would lead to a crisis for capitalism because labour demand > labour supply, and hence their wages would inevitably have to rise. But isn't that contingent on the assumption that the market prices of finished products remains the same. If workers' wages, and thus the general income level, rises, then demand for products would also rise, and so would the prices of the products. In that case, why wouldn't the capitalist simply increase their profits and thus ensure an inflationary loop? Why is the reserve army essential at all?

@TheCommonS3Nse

Жыл бұрын

@@tapan97 You can’t assume that prices will rise because wages rise. That ignores competition. Firms are price takers, not price makers. They set their price around what they think the market value is, and the market determines whether that price is acceptable given the competition available. If not, the price goes down until it is acceptable. The only time that prices can rise because demand rises is in industries with a monopoly, because they can raise their prices without the fear of losing market share. For example, if Walmart pays their employees more, then decides that since their employees make more, they can charge more for their products, then they will lose their market share to Amazon who didn’t raise their prices. Amazon may make less of a profit on each item, but they will sell more products to make up the difference and Walmart will lose out. If you want a real life proof of concept, compare Marx’s reserve army to the U3 unemployment rate. They’re virtually identical. The number of people who are currently unemployed and *are actively looking for a job*. Why do we use the U3 and not the U1 or U5? Because it’s the one that has the biggest impact on the economy. The people who aren’t actively looking for a job don’t impact the price of labor, so they don’t matter.

@tapan97

Жыл бұрын

@@TheCommonS3Nse Thanks for the reply. Let me think out loud here. Why would Walmart increase wages unless the demand for labour is more than the supply in the market? In such a situation, Amazon would also be forced to increase wages, and so would every other firm. If people have more income, they would also demand more products, and hence the firms will be ablr to increase prices as well. Therefore the need for a reserve army doesn't feel inevitable. What am I missing? I apologise as I do not understand the concepts of U3 or U4 unemployment. Will have to read on that.

@TheCommonS3Nse

Жыл бұрын

@@tapan97 Yes, as with any other resource in the economy, as the supply nears zero, the price will go up. That’s just another way to interpret the reserve army. Walmart and Amazon would be raising prices to a certain extent, but not that much. I remember a study that showed that for McDonalds to pay all of their employees $15/hr nationwide it they would have to increase the price of the Big Mac by something like 20 cents. The issue you are raising involves them increasing it by more than the 20 cents in order to increase their profits simply because there is more demand in the market. If Walmart increases their prices by 50 cents because there is more demand in the market, that doesn’t mean Amazon has to increase their prices by 50 cents. They can just raise it 20 cents and maintain their same profit margin. Then they will have a better price than Walmart, while still making the same profit as before. Just because there is more demand in the market doesn’t mean there isn’t enough supply in the market. There have been plenty of documentaries detailing how much food we waste and how Amazon just throws away returns because it’s more cost effective than restocking it. We have more than enough supply of the basic needs of life, other than houses, but that’s a whole different topic. As for the U3 unemployment, I am simply pointing out that there must be something correct about the reserve army if that is the key aspect of unemployment we hear about on the news.

What I wish Marxist economists talked about was the topics in the six volume plan that Marx didn't get to, especially the theory of wages and the theory of world trade.

@justinlevy274

Жыл бұрын

look up Anwar Shaikh, his book Capitalism: Competition, Conflict, Crises goes into those topics and many more, he also has lectures online where he takes a grad class through his work. He presents a unified theory of capitalism which covers pretty much all the major topics youd want to hear about from a marxist persepctive. Amazing stuff.

There's a typing error in the description of the video. You typed in die instead of did. Just a heads up This was very informative. Thank you!

good job journalists

According to Paul Cockshott, the empirical data says that there isn't really profit rate equalization. Industries with higher organic composition have lower profit rates. I still think that the movement of capital towards industries with higher profit rates is a thing, but would have appreciated if he's addressed this stand of research.

@justinlevy274

Жыл бұрын

Anwar Shaikh's work shows turbulent equalization of profit rates overtime, driven precisely by differential new investment.

@NathanWHill

Жыл бұрын

@@justinlevy274 I saw Shaikh's stuff over a year ago and loved it, but then I saw this video of Cockshott's and I don't know who to believe. kzread.info/dash/bejne/YoitzrONo7LWc5c.html

it seems to me marx's main contribution to philosophy was historical materialism. secondarily he points out that exploitation and crisis are foundational aspects of capitalism. i would argue that his dialectic taken from hegel does necessarily forecast a future in which capitalism collapses to be replaced by a socialist state, then a world communist culture. the idea of a historical dialectic is that it progresses forward.

I saw the name Jacobin being British I thought about our Monarchy and King James that plus your guest.The origins of modern Sociology

@zozmachine

Жыл бұрын

It's French, from the revolution. You're thinking of Jacobites

Why is it so hard for interviewers, especially this one, to let the guests speak?

read Michael Heinrich

@edwadedwad2542

Жыл бұрын

yes

This analysis of commercial capital seems strange to me. If Walmart and Amazon are making profit by appropriating surplus from industrial capitalists and the workers "aren't making anything" then why are they constantly pushing workers to work faster? The way I see it the commercial capitalists are buying products at their value and increasing their value by incorporating them into a new labor process, that of organizing those commodities into a storefront or marketplace.

Guess he is deepanking the capitalist economy :))

👍

one major aspect of modern capitalism that marx did not analyse was branding. perhaps in marx's day the impact of branding/marketing was not a factor. i consider branding one of capitalism's greatest achievements in order to transform commodities into something like local monopolies. what do marxist scholars have to say on this phenomenon?

@conservativelibertarian

Жыл бұрын

Marketing is real capitalist innovation, as it's how the ruling class develops new innovative ways to extract more capital from the consuming and laboring class. Branding is just a form of marketing, marketing is the essence of extracting maximal wealth from the consumer. Branding is a manifest form of market competition. The brand is just the particular form of how commodities are presented on the market, generally differentiated only by intellectual property ownership. The brand is only an idea that presupposes the actual commodity that is sold, usually the driving force behind the purchase; the dream that is sold along with the actual commodity. Considering branding an achievement of the capitalism is like considering pileups the achievement of a blizzard. In both cases, one is just the natural manifested consequence from the root cause. Basically, branding or marketing couldn't not exist in a modern-day capitalist society, like wage labor or property rights.

@NathanWHill

Жыл бұрын

To the extent that branding creates a distinct use value (a Nike shoe is not just another shoe), it is just a way to create a monopoly rent, intellectual property rights is another common way. Discussed in volume 3 and in theories of surplus value.

Just go to "Socialism For All". He has Full socialist audiobooks with helpful/accessible commentary putting the topics mentioned into an easily understandable context.

The preesnter makes a basic mistake in suggesting that Vol I was the only volume that was completed by Marx. This is untrue. In fact Marx had completed the volumes in reverse order. Volume I was completed last but was the first that was ready for publication. the entire three volumes were completed back to front. Marx's research actually encompassed capitalist production as a whole. See Rosdolsky (The Making of Marx's Capital).

@edwadedwad2542

Жыл бұрын

i mean that's just not true. he had drafts of the works but they weren't necessarily "completed" by any means, and if anything marxs work on v2 into the 80s is proof of that, as well as a counter-proof of the claim that they were finished in reverse order. not to mention that v1 itself underwent significant changes and at the end of his life marx was predicting further, massive changes to the entire plan which he never lived to see.

Is anybody else watching a bunch of primers on Marx as a way of putting off actually reading Marx, or is it just me?

We need a program to get Leftist literature, Parenti, Huey newton etc. to Ex-Cons. Educate the disenfranchised!

@asdfjkl361

Жыл бұрын

haven't they suffered enough?

@LinusE

Жыл бұрын

Though it might not be the literature you are referring to, the Anarchist Black Cross works with getting literature to prisoners in order to educate them on class struggle (among other things that they do)! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_Black_Cross

I just want to point out that his book is $91 lol

@pdoyle17

Жыл бұрын

Hey, he's just making sure he gets as much of his surplus value as possible

@ylyg123

Жыл бұрын

@@pdoyle17 and much of that 91 is going to publishers' pocket

@groovalotfunk4147

Жыл бұрын

Burn. To be fair, authors are often shocked at the markup though

@justinlevy274

Жыл бұрын

high priced academic books are to gouge libraries

@conservativelibertarian

Жыл бұрын

that's capitalism. in a socialist society intellectual property ownership wouldn't exist and the book would be free to all in the digital form

Capitalism is like feudalism but people like it.

I got my 3 volumes of CAPITAL long time ago, but never got to read them as his analysis was highly technical and so never finished the three volumes. Deepankar reveals the intricacies of Marxian analysis so easily that I get the impression how Xi Jinping was able to navigate through the complicated capitalist system of the west and beat them and even overcome all that they threw at him and yet dictate terms to them that they fail to ignore.

Marginal Utility of a product and dissonance

Long live Naxalism

@whythelongface64

Жыл бұрын

Yes

@sabithussain6412

Жыл бұрын

Lal Salaam Comrade

Richard Wolff's books on Marxism David Harvey as well.

Marx is the Book of Revelation but translated into economics

@ludviglidstrom6924

Жыл бұрын

As a Marxist I have to say that that book definitely is my favorite book in the Bible, might be some connection there…

Interviewer: tell us how Marxism isn’t just about predicting crisis and explaining economy as class struggle. Interviewee: Marxism is about predicting crisis and explaining the economy as class struggle

@whythelongface64

Жыл бұрын

The mechanics, you need to understand it. There are more contradictions in capitalism than merely class contradiction

@pesquer2211

Жыл бұрын

@@whythelongface64 example?

@whythelongface64

Жыл бұрын

@@pesquer2211 The contradiction between the forces of production ( the machinery, labour of various kinds, etc) and relations of production ( how the labour, machines, and produce relate to one another, how are the produce is distributed). There is contradiction between buyers and sellers of commodities which determines the money price of a commodity. The contradiction within a particular class, such as national bourgeois opposing imperialist foreign bourgeois, despite both exploiting labour to varying extents. There is contradiction arising in the superstructure of capitalist society; such as cultural shifts eliminating some markets while creating new ones. There is the overarching contradiction between wider nature and the nature we create via civilisation. There can be class contradictions with classes from earlier modes of production as well.

@whythelongface64

Жыл бұрын

@@pesquer2211 I hope this helps

@pesquer2211

Жыл бұрын

@@whythelongface64 not to mention the contradictions in our own hearts, minds, friendships, and families… which is what I’d rather focus on

Interviewer : please be more concise with setting up your question.

Well, this was very interesting and enlightening, but I would suggest people to look up Moishe Postone for a really deep analysis of the fundamental concepts in Marx, like “value” and “commodity”. These terms are not used in the common-sense way.

Where are these people who distribute properly? I'm not saying your philosophy, (it's not economics) will not work. It sounds like fantasy.

That book is $120 :(

Marx was a very deep thinker. But he made one fundamental error - he insisted that only human labor could create “surplus value” and hence profits. His prediction of socialist revolution was based on this false premise. But he was certainly correct on pointing out that capitalism is based on exploitation of labor and is an inherently unbalanced system. A system that is entirely based on capital accumulation and not in satisfying human needs will never produce a decent and fair society. Selfishness and cutthroat competition is encouraged and the greedy psychopaths grab all the money for themselves.

@suezcontours6653

Жыл бұрын

China is an example of Communism done well. It's a global superpower now. Perhaps Capitalism isn't for every nation. Third World Countries don't benefit since the biggest Capitalist winners are already established colonial enterprises. Now China is helping Africa industrialize and for the first time, they are rising.

@justinlevy274

Жыл бұрын

Not exactly true, in theories of surplus value he discusses profit on exchange, but that is in essence just a shifting of already existing wealth and not the creation of new wealth. Human labor is what creates surplus value, if the workers go on strike nothing gets made and there are no profits. If the workers slow way down until they only create value equivalent to what they are paid there are no profits. It is just the wage/profit share.

@syourke3

Жыл бұрын

@@justinlevy274 I think you missed my point. Marx adopted the labor theory of value from classical economists like Ricardo and Smith, according to which only human labor could create surplus value and hence profits. He predicted that capitalists competed among themselves to produce cheaper goods and that they would continue to increase the use of machinery in the productive process. This would mean that less human labor would be used in production proportional to machinery, and this the rate of profits would necessarily fall because profits depend on surplus value and only human labor - according to Marx - could produce surplus value and hence profits. As the profit rate fell, wages would be pushed down to the point where they could hardly maintain the workers any more and they would be forced to revolt in order to avoid starvation. Marx’ erred insofar as he did not think that machinery could produce surplus value. This was a gross error and it negated his prediction that workers would inevitably be forced to revolt against capitalism. Machinery can and does create surplus value, probably vastly more so than human labor. That’s why wealth production has increased exponentially over the last fifty years or so while wage rates remain stationary since the 1970’s, at least in the USA. Marx was simply wrong. Human labor is not the only source of surplus value. Any source of energy - a horse pulling a plow or a machine or even the energy from the sun - can produce value. He

@justinlevy274

Жыл бұрын

@@syourke3 No, I understood you perfectly. I would say you are mistaken on Marx's use of value. You seem to be using 'value' int he conventional sense (or perhaps confusing value and use value) when you say things like a horse pulling a plow can produce value. You are using it as a conventional term, the classical economists use it as a technical term. The theory of value is essentially a theory of differential prices in the market. A car costs more than a shirt because it requires more direct and indirect labor time. It therefore has a higher value (in the technical sense). The increase use of machinery in an industry simply reduces the amount of direct and indirect labor time relative to other goods on the market. It has nothing to do with simply having some kind of productive effect. The machines cannot produce surplus value (in the aggregate) because they have fixed costs and production rates. Human labor negotiates for wages, can slow production, or go on strike. So with human labor it is possible to get them to create more for the company than they are paid, you cannot do the same with machines. Machines have led to an increase in productive capacities, as has a variety of organizational features at work. This is not what Marx is talking about with surplus value however. An additional, I would say primary, pillar of the modern world is the growth of governmental, corporate, and household debt that offsets the freeze in real wages. We are living on borrowed time in that regard.

@syourke3

Жыл бұрын

@@justinlevy274 You don’t know what you’re talking about but I’m not going to waste time arguing with you. Machines do create “surplus value”. Marx was wrong. You are wrong. Machines are no different from humans in terms of creating surplus value and this profits.

1/5 OF PROFITS SHOULD BE ALLOCATED TO LABOR AND ANOTHER FIFTH TO TAXES. IF YOU DON'T SHARE THERE IS NO VIRTUOUS SPIRAL. WE NEED A SOCIALLY ENVIGORATING CAPITAILISM

boring but somewhat useful like most of this channel's videos,

@AQuietNight

Жыл бұрын

If you found this exciting you need to get therapy.

@0MVR_0

Жыл бұрын

@@AQuietNight an explanation of the material interaction of society is exciting

The one issue that was barely address was brought up at the very end... that the price of the book set was a bit too high. Pricing goes into consideration of making and selling a product and if the price is not seen as advantageous to the consumer, they won't buy the product. I can say with absolute certainty, I never had a customer insist on paying more. Would have nice though. Calling management non-workers shows an arrogant streak as without management, no large scale project could ever happen.

@thedadoftown1774

Жыл бұрын

I think the distinction he's trying to make by using 'non-worker' is between a proletarian worker and a bourgeois manager, the former who sells his labor for a wage and the latter who is compensated with dividends or profit sharing. In practice there's a ton of management levels, but when we differentiate between a manager and a worker we're trying to define someone's relation to production and exploitation.

@AQuietNight

Жыл бұрын

@@thedadoftown1774 Na, this is a way of inflaming class war, just as the way exploitation is used. Or, you have a laborer who has time to trade for an agreed upon wage, is the laborer exploiting the contractor since he wouldn't work unless he got the wage he wanted?

@whythelongface64

Жыл бұрын

There is no arrogance, the concrete relationship is being described only. To build a political movement on this understanding, one must be pragmatic however. You should study Krupskaya's writing on the need for good management.

@justinlevy274

Жыл бұрын

@@AQuietNight The exploitation is in the farming of surplus value. Exploitation here does not mean its typical english definition, it means something more akin to extraction. Capitalists extract surplus from the workers. Labor is also in a place of dependence as the means of production have been taken from them over the centuries. It is therefore work or starve. Academic books are priced so highly by publishers to gauge libraries, they know what they are doing.

@NathanWHill

Жыл бұрын

@@AQuietNight Smith and Ricardo had a very similar understanding of management as non value creating, Marx mostly follows them here. Smith and Ricardo are both pro capitalism, so it's a valid analytical question aside from one's normative dispositions.

Oh NO! Basu is is profit squeeze idialogue!!

TRICKLE DOWN ECONOMICS, ULIMITED GROWTH, AND PROFIT ONLY STRATAGIES, ARE A FAILURE.

THE MANAGEMENT OF GARBAGE IS A NEW PRIORITY. THERE IS MANUFACTURE WITH OUT SALES, SO, THERE IS LOT OF UNBOUGHT GARBAGE. THEN, IN CHINA THERE IS A HUGE PILE OF BIKES THAT WERE SOCIAL LENDING BIKES THAT JUST GOT THROWN AWAY IN A BIG PILE. AND. AS FOR TIRES, THEY STILL HAVAN'T FOUND WAY TO DEAL WITH THEM, THE MALARIA PROBLEM IS WORSE AT TIRE GRAVE YARDS.

Ouch. Steer clear of "how to read".

Marx 🤮

1st rule. don't read it

Income inequality in Cuba, China, Russia and North Korea are greater than in the United States....... Stop being lied to. Get an education.