tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post6327921557230682569..comments2024-03-28T06:07:03.667-04:00Comments on The Philosopher's Stone: THE THOUGHT OF KARL MARX PART EIGHTEENRobert Paul Wolffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-59747273711481651842011-02-12T22:17:32.562-05:002011-02-12T22:17:32.562-05:00Thank you again for this tutorial. I am going to ...Thank you again for this tutorial. I am going to move back to English Jerk's question. <br /><br />It would seem like a basic income guarantee could weaken the divide between capitalists and workers. Everyone now owns a share of a community's wealth. <br /><br />A guaranteed income is different from other Welfare State provisions. In those, someone is hired to assess whether or not an applicant is entitled to the provision. With a BIG, it is a holding-- a right. <br /><br />In Alaska, a small grant is derived from a rent charged to oil companies drilling on public land. Semi-pro theater companies and musical acts often time their productions after the checks are mailed out. I think of the benefit a larger grant would pose to other cooperative organizations. (AK sends out about $1200 per person. Of course, snowmobiles are also purchased.) <br /><br />If a BIG were large enough, one would have to wonder what advantage there might be in having a state replace a Basic Income Market society with something else. <br /><br />On the other hand, a BIG can work as an organizational subsidy and a "strike fund for all" (Erik Olin Wright). Then it might pose a better prospect for organizations shifting some of our fulfillment over from the for-profit realm to a voluntary one. What if other needs were met in the way our blood supply is met?Murfmenschhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00031877154740991965noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-50273795394207614412011-02-12T15:37:22.433-05:002011-02-12T15:37:22.433-05:00I'm not getting the point here. If the use of ...I'm not getting the point here. If the use of labor plays no special role in the determination of the magnitude of surplus value or relative prices, then why is it absurd to put it on the same footing as the other inputs in equations by which the magnitude of the surplus and relative prices are determined? Those equations do not mean to capture the human meaning of the economy; they are meant to show how quantitative magnitudes are determined. <br />Lastly, it would seem that the charge of absurdity depends on a certain privileging of the human or even a humanist metaphysics. But if Marxism is a kind of anti-humanism, then why should it be bothered by the anti-human implications of those equations?Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07370745564564640761noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-74489215027237776902011-02-12T13:40:52.343-05:002011-02-12T13:40:52.343-05:00Right, so wouldn't the welfare state just be a...Right, so wouldn't the welfare state just be a victory of labor to garner more for their "wage subsistence" to embolden their "socially necessary labor time." Yet it still remains a capitalist economy, and the worker is still exploited, just less exploited than before.Chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08250295324149056708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-28444818956338359902011-02-12T12:59:35.082-05:002011-02-12T12:59:35.082-05:00Yes, it would be what has come to be called The We...Yes, it would be what has come to be called The Welfare State. The surplus is extracted from the workers, and among the allocations or distributions of it is a sum sufficient to keep afloat those workers who cannot ind jobs [or, indeed, who refuse to work, although that complicates matters].<br /><br />I have talked before on this blog about James O'Connor's interesting old book, THE FISCAL CRISIS OF THE STATE, in which he suggests that some of what the state pays to the workers is essentially an effort to tamp down what would otherwise be disruptive and profit-interrupting social protest.Robert Paul Wolffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-55055131432335695032011-02-12T12:16:44.318-05:002011-02-12T12:16:44.318-05:00This might be a dumb question, but here goes: woul...This might be a dumb question, but here goes: would an economy still be capitalist, according to Marx's analysis, if the state intervened to offer a guaranteed (subsistence-level) income to all citizens? In that case, workers would still be metaphysically tied to their bodies, but work would be more voluntary--one could simply refuse to work and still survive.English Jerkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14960822939548263926noreply@blogger.com