Profit without exploitation? - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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Discourse exclusively on the basis of historical materialist methodology.
Forum rules: No one line posts please. This forum is for discussion based on Marxism, Marxism-Leninism and similar revisions. Critique of topics not based on historical materialism belongs in the general Communism forum.
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By Fitzy
#13171117
I made this thread on S-E, but as usual, kirov makes no sense. I can understand marx just fine, but the quotations this guy uses just dont explain it. From what I can tell, marx is just commenting on speculation and speculators. What I want to know is how profit can be made without exploitation. Why is the bank able to charge interest? How does the retail store make profit? How can capital be advanced when new value is not being created?

I could make an educated guess, but I want to see what my comrades have to say about it.
By Khalq
#13176568
Profit cannot be made without exploitation.
Exploitation will always exist, under any system where society can advance and evolve. But it's its nature and the use of the created surplus value that will change.

In both of your examples, there is exploitation and creation of surplus value and profit.
Retail stores exploit their workers and, indirectly, other companies' workers.
Banks make profits by lending financial capital (their core business) and are therefore exploiting the entrepreneurs and their workers. The entrepreneurs exploit their workers and pay a portion of their profits back to the bank.
The exact same process goes with stock markets.
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By Fitzy
#13177022
I thought Marx said that cashiers create no new value, and that their only purpose is to realize profit.
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By ihofidel
#13672760
Workers in capitalist couuntries tend to be more productive (according to Smithians) because the state dangles high tech products and innovative ones which whet their fetishist appetite. But only if one has job security. If none, then how can they increase GDP or productivity when they are recipients of welfare? Mind commenting on this issue, posters.
By Social_Critic
#13672790
Let's say I make a clown outfit and I rent it to would be clowns who want to entertain at children's parties. I profit from such rentals. Do communists think this is exploitation? Or am I supposed to let the clown outfit go without profit? Or just forget the clown outfit and let children have parties without a proper clown?

The clown case is pertinent because Cuba's communist government has decided it's OK to make clown outfits and work as a clown as a profit making enterprise. They do have regulations regarding what the clown outfit can look like. This means the clown can't, for example, be dressed like Fidel Castro with a big red nose.
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By ihofidel
#13672799
You see, sir social critic, the old man Fidel has complete rights to the profits of the clown. He was clothed the Cuban way, his needs were addressed, his daughters were schooled in ballet school, a type of education which carries hundreds of thousands in tuition fees in capitalist countries, the privilege of studying medicine free of charge, etc. How much does a clownn profit? 10 percent of his subsidies. How much subsidies does he receive? 160% of his profits. C'mon, make the calculations...
By Social_Critic
#13672814
But is the clown profiting and therefore this is contrary to marxist dogma? If Castro turning to the capitalist road when he allows these guys to clown around?
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By ihofidel
#13672817
Have you read your Marxism, sir sociall critic? Marx defines a capitalist as those who employ labour numbering from 10-100 or a 1000 or more. The clown was working for himself. He was not employing a worker. Therefore he is not a capitalist. You should read Fidel Castro's seminal work on the Leninist centralist economy criticizing his brother Raul in 'POR FAVOR RAUL, DON'T CHANGE HORSES IN MIDSTREAM. exposing Raul's mistakes in 'allowing clowns to fend for themselves.'.
By Kman
#13672820
ihofidel wrote:Have you read your Marxism, sir sociall critic? Marx defines a capitalist as those who employ labour numbering from 10-100 or a 1000 or more.


So marxists dont have an issue with free market capitalism as long as each business owner limits himself to 9 employee's each ?? that sounds great!!! Although I get the sense that communists have been misreading Marx then somehow.
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By ihofidel
#13673154
He made exceptions: the guild, the artisans..I am not talking baloney, kman..I am arguing seriously..although some posers here referred to me as the 'clown' as per instruction of 'carribean islands' which is a code for fending for himself. You see kman, cuban spies have to fend for themselves.. and clowns fend for themselves..It was a pat on the back by El Hefe Maximo..I love national security you know as much as I love the blond Cuban ladies that line up at my door... :lol:
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By Lightman
#13690454
Would I be correct in saying that Marxists (well, not vulgar Marxists, but Marxist intellectuals at least) do not mean "exploit" in a necessarily judgmental sense, but rather that Marx's use of the word "exploit" is more similar to "exploiting a resource"?
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By chuuzetsu
#13690500
Would I be correct in saying that Marxists (well, not vulgar Marxists, but Marxist intellectuals at least) do not mean "exploit" in a necessarily judgmental sense, but rather that Marx's use of the word "exploit" is more similar to "exploiting a resource"?


When the means of production are owned by anyone other than the workers themselves, then it is the capitalists exploiting their labor.
By Conscript
#13690920
Neither really. The former is moralistic (instantly non-marxist) and the latter is another word for make use of. A capitalist makes use of labour, but there insofar there is no exploitation, it's when the worker is paid a fraction of the value produced that there is exploitation. We use exploit in the parasitical sense.
By Social_Critic
#13692644
Chuuzetsu, I've lived in a couple of communist societies, and I have just left Venezuela, where the government says it is trying to move the country towards socialism/communism. Having lived through it and having observed the way it works in the real world, I concluded many years ago communism as proposed by Marxists is hogwash. The workers have never owned the means of production in a communist society, and they never will.

I can point out the practical outcome is the emergence of a "communist elite", party members, security services honchos, military officers, and a few sports figures and artists get the honey, live in large houses, and get the large slice of the pie. So what communism achieves is the replacement of one ruling class by a new ruling class, which is usually incompetent and loves autocratic rule and human rights abuses. Another interesting fact is that eventually this elite realizes that even paying lip service to "marxist economic theory" is really hurting their interests, and they shift gears, moving towards kleptocratic fascism. This is what we have seen happen in China, Russia, Viet Nam, Angola, and is now happening in Cuba. Chavez in Venezuela claims to be implementing socialism of the 21st century. This, as far as I can tell, is fascist-militarist-fascism with a dash of populism and bs, coupled to personality worship of the creole fuehrer, a megalomaniac and autocrat.
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By chuuzetsu
#13692817
I've never been to Venezuela, but to me it seems that Chavez is the first person there to actually do anything for the poor. I don't know where the country will see itself in the next five to ten years, but I think that Chavez at least has an international drive unlike more nationalist-communist movements/societies.

China has had a market economy since the 1980s, and I would agree that outside of the Communist Party name, China doesn't really see itself on a path toward Communism. As for places like Cuba (and China and North Korea as well), Nationalism and Socialism are interchangeable, there is no difference between the two. There are historical events that have led these nations to develop the way they have (whether you find it right or wrong, that's how it is). I don't think any real Marxist today considers China, North Korea, or even Vietnam as Socialist or Communist (because seriously, when has Communism ever happened? It never has).

I would like to point out that in the Soviet Union, everyone had investment in the state. These elites you refer to still lived a life way more simplistic than any of the elites of the West did. I think in a place like the former Soviet Union, your status as an elite had some basic benefits (nice apartment, nice car, a little benefit here or there), but nothing that I would call extravagant. I never understood that criticism in the context of how the rest of the world operated at the time.
By Conscript
#13693064
I've never been to Venezuela, but I would be hesitant to draw any conclusions on the changes Chavez, or perhaps even other Venezuelan socialists, will bring as it's only the beginning. Venezuela itself is merely state capitalist, still on the road to forging relations with other countries opposed to western imperialism, and is still in a power struggle with the bourgeoisie. Not to mention, the revolution is still vulnerable to hijacking because it partly depends on the old, intact state. The fate of venezuela is uncertain, but if the socialists succeed it can only mean breaking the shackles of neo-liberalism and allowing it to become a shining example to other impoverished latin american people, like the USSR was to the third world.
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By Ataxia
#13705128
The clown costume can't exist without exploitation at some point in the production process, just not of the petty producer who assembles the materials into the form of the costume.
#13808587
According to Martin Nicolaus, "it is not the rate of profit as commonly understood which measures the degree to which the worker is exploited, but that it is rather quite different, tendentially inversely directional rate of surplus value. The rate of profit, Marx shows, actually falsifies the rate of exploitation, and falsifies it to a higher degree as capitalism develops.....Nor are 'services rendered' confined to the specific question of the profit rate..." Read Grundrisse and the book will enlighten you.

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