[Unthinking Majority]

(Again.)

In the context of the artist's studio, the cleaning of the paintbrushes is a *must*, a social necessity that's akin to doing-the-dishes for a *chef*.

That *is* labor, since the artist wouldn't want to interrupt *their* personally favored activity, to tend to the mentally-numbing but logistically-necessary in-house chore.

*Without* that labor, as anywhere else, the (studio) workplace would cease production and would grind to a halt, due to a lack of productive implements, clean paintbrushes.

How much value, in wages, does the brush-cleaning assistant *get* from the revenue that they helped to enable? What proportion *should* they get, of the net income?

So yes the assistant is providing necessary labour. If the assistant didnt do clean the brushes, then Picasso would have to, taking away time for him to perform the labour that's much more valuable of his time and skills (painting). Its more economically productive for him to have the assistant.

And I agree with you that the question then is: what is the actual value that the assistant is providing? Is his value being properly rewarded by his wage? I'm not really sure, because I don't know how to properly determine value.

One could argue accurately that Picasso would be making a lot less money if he had to clean his own brushes, which is true, but the actual task of cleaning brushes requires very little skill, so much that almost anyone could be his assistant, which makes the assistant's value someone low if their labour can be easily replaced. Compared to Picasso himself, whose skills are extremely rare and in-demand and thus his labour is extremely valuable.

@Fasces also brings up a valid point, which i'll try to address later.

[Unthinking Majority]

Yea, but if you have no credit score, in many cases, you cannot even rent an apartment.

I guess they'd have to rent an apartment from some private individual not looking for a lease or credit check, like renting a basement apartment.

Most people have a credit score, if they have a credit card, which most have. I use mine to build credit and get the rewards points, plus defer payment of everything I buy for a month which nabs me a little interest, and always pay off the bill every month.

But I get that some people in poor circumstances do get into financial difficulties and need to use it for credit and can't pay it back in a month, or need to go to one of those money lenders marts.

[ckaihatsu]

And I agree with you that the question then is: what is the actual value that the assistant is providing? Is his value being properly rewarded by his wage? I'm not really sure, because I don't know how to properly determine value.

Okay, thanks for acknowledging the complexity of it ('chains of value converging at the table', perhaps).

To go-forward, let me put things *this* way: Could the assistant conceivably / potentially *withhold* their labor? Would that be socially 'acceptable' -- ?

Could there be a Brush Cleaners Union, to where *all* brush cleaners decide to withhold their labor, and they stop cleaning artists' paintbrushes, for *all* 'Picassos' -- ?

Economically-speaking would it be okay if those *brush cleaners* determine the value of their labor by collectively withholding their labor, for more-favorable terms from artists -- ?

[Unthinking Majority]

Okay, thanks for acknowledging the complexity of it ('chains of value converging at the table', perhaps).

To go-forward, let me put things *this* way: Could the assistant conceivably / potentially *withhold* their labor? Would that be socially 'acceptable' -- ?

Could there be a Brush Cleaners Union, to where *all* brush cleaners decide to withhold their labor, and they stop cleaning artists' paintbrushes, for *all* 'Picassos' -- ?

Economically-speaking would it be okay if those *brush cleaners* determine the value of their labor by collectively withholding their labor, for more-favorable terms from artists -- ?

Well of course they can withhold their labour. Wages are negotiated, and how well that negotiation goes depends on leverage. All brush-cleaners striking means the artists can't do their work properly. If all the paint-makers strike then the artist can hardly do their work at all. This essentially means the brush-cleaners and paint-makers can ask for whatever wage they want. In fact they may have more power than an employer has over non-unionized employees, since employees can at least quit and find another job with higher wages if an employer is offering a wage lower than the competition, which if the workers were unwise/greedy would present economic inefficiencies ie: workers could ask for wages so high it would be unsustainable, and put the company out of business or financial trouble since prices for their product might have to rise to compensate (what happened to North American car companies).

But in an economy where all brush-cleaners and paint-makers are unionized in the same trade union, they would have control over the price of essentially all new paintings because the cost of paintings would need to be at a certain level to pay for their wages if they demanded high wages. And if the workers were greedy the price of paintings could become so high that people simply stop buying paintings. At which point the union would likely lower their wages and thus lower the cost of paintings.

If workers were greedy they might also raise their wages so high that the artist isn't making enough money to make it worth their time painting, running the business, and taking the financial risk, and so might just either close down their business, or do it smaller scale by doing all the brush cleaning and paint-making themselves.

So workers and owners have a mutual interest of keeping the business healthy and afloat and prices and wages at reasonable amount. The problem would be in businesses that are essential and have no competition or reasonable alternative. Unionized workers could gouge their consumers. Although keeping in mind that essential products/services also need to be consumed by the workers as well.

But in all of this, we still don't know if the workers are getting a fair wage vis-a-vis the owners. Maybe the owners would be getting exploited in some cases if the worker's wages were overvalued.

[Fasces]

@wat0n

Go ahead and make a perfect copy of the Mona Lisa and sell it as a Da Vinci. Let's see how that goes for you, eh?

[wat0n]

Except that it *is* -- ever hear of *credit ratings agencies* -- ?

As long as there's a *chance* that the loan won't perform there's financial *risk* there (*arguably* so, though, overall, given near-infallible government intervention in the markets to *underwrite* any emergent financial sinkholes -- 'bad banks' and 'zombie corporations').

So? There are plenty of projects you can do that may make you lose money.

Yea, but if you have no credit score, in many cases, you cannot even rent an apartment.

Indeed, another example of why reputation matters.

[wat0n]

@wat0n

Go ahead and make a perfect copy of the Mona Lisa and sell it as a Da Vinci. Let's see how that goes for you, eh?

Or just sell the copies of the Mona Lisa as replicas. What's your point?

[Fasces]

Yes @wat0n if you don't defraud people you're less likely to be convicted of fraud, great point.

Not if Picasso had the idea, and all the assistant did was to actually paint it.

At least we're past this inane take.

[ckaihatsu]

So workers and owners have a mutual interest of keeping the business healthy and afloat and prices and wages at reasonable amount.

You're sounding like it's 50/50, when that's *far* from the case -- owners have *capital* at risk, and wouldn't consider workers to be on the same level ground *because* of that.

If the company stays in business the workers don't get any kind of 'mutual interest' bonus check for hanging-in-there for the sake of the business. The workers need *an* employer, but really just about *any* employer, and not necessarily the particular one they're *currently* employed by.

But in all of this, we still don't know if the workers are getting a fair wage vis-a-vis the owners. Maybe the owners would be getting exploited in some cases if the worker's wages were overvalued.

The owners *can't* be 'exploited', because the workers don't have any *capital* invested in the company, by-definition, with which to *exploit*. (Workers don't have capital to fall back on, hence they *have* to sell their labor-power to an employer for a necessarily-economically-exploitative wage.)

[ckaihatsu]

Borrowing and lending is *speculative*, *financial* activity, and is certainly not the same thing as *liquidity* / cash itself.

Except that it isn't. It's not when you get a loan for a degree or a mortgage for a home. It's not when governments borrow either.

Except that it *is* -- ever hear of *credit ratings agencies* -- ?

As long as there's a *chance* that the loan won't perform there's financial *risk* there (*arguably* so, though, overall, given near-infallible government intervention in the markets to *underwrite* any emergent financial sinkholes -- 'bad banks' and 'zombie corporations').

So? There are plenty of projects you can do that may make you lose money.

The original point was that loans / debt are *not* the same value quantities as liquidity / cash. Cash doesn't have to have *credit ratings agencies* to rate whether the cash is 'risky' or not -- cash is cash, and is the default go-to for *value* for most of the world.

[ckaihatsu]

The workers need *an* employer, but really just about *any* employer, and not necessarily the particular one they're *currently* employed by.

I have to add that this wouldn't actually be *good practice* -- one has far better (collective) bargaining power with the rank-and-file than on one's own, frequently returning to bounce-around in the jobs marketplace.

[Unthinking Majority]

The owners *can't* be 'exploited', because the workers don't have any *capital* invested in the company, by-definition, with which to *exploit*. (Workers don't have capital to fall back on, hence they *have* to sell their labor-power to an employer for a necessarily-economically-exploitative wage.)

If any entire industry is unionized, and workers would have control over pretty much everything at all the companies in a given industry, including deciding their wages/benefits, and the owners aren't adequately rewarded financially for their capital and risk, then yes the owners would be exploited in that case. They couldn't sell the company either (who would want to buy it?) so they'd be screwed. Since you're biased towards workers over owners you probably would never admit this.

Just because workers don't have a huge amount of capital to fall back on doesn't automatically mean they sell their labour power for an exploitative wage. A wage is only possibly exploitative if the wage they receive is less than the value of the labour they provide vis a vis the value that the owners are providing also. The worker needs to be remunerated for the labour they provide and the owner needs to be remunerated for the capital/investment, risk, and labour they provide (management of the company etc).

It's also false that profit/surplus value is created only through exploitation of labour. A company could run entirely on AI machines to produce their goods and still be profitable. Picasso could work alone for himself and still be very profitable. Value added to a product above the costs needed to produce them (profit) is created through creativity. The worker who invented the iPhone is contributing a ton of creativity and economic value, so they're certainly not paid what they're worth. But a labourer on an assembly line is a trained monkey and not providing much if any creativity to the business/product. A machine that doesn't think and only follows instructions could do their job as good as they can. Which is also why an assembly line worker makes little money...anyone could do it, it takes virtually no intelligence.

If the engineer who invented the iPhone wants to quit Apple and work somewhere else to make more money he can give his resume to a ton of IT companies and let the highest bidder decide that he's worth. LeBron James is an employee and he makes a huge amount of money because his skills are rare and employers bid on his services. Should LeBron make almost all the money his team gets in profit? Well no, because somebody has to build the arena, finance the team, sell the hot dogs and jerseys etc.

[Unthinking Majority]

In your example, @Unthinking Majority that painting being presented as a Picasso is not one, because Picasso did not paint it. If it is sold as a Picasso painting, that would be fraud even under a capitalist system. People have been prosecuted for this before.

I don't understand your comments, they don't seem to relate with what I said, how did Picasso not paint it?

Re: the tweet above. Yes, and if Picasso were employed by an art company he would likely get a massive salary due to the rarity of his skills and the amount of revenue those skills produce. Just like how LeBron James get a massive salary worth tens of millions annually due to the same factors. However, Picasso and James don't get all that money. And there is always the likelihood that an employee is not adequately paid for the value they add to a company.

For example, if the engineer who invented the iPhone was making $150k he was obviously underpaid. He might get a bonus and a raise and a promotion, but he'd probably still be much underpaid based on how much money iPhones make Apple. However, he also needs Apple to create the iPhone too. He needs the facilities, marketing, brand power and marketing of Apple, the trucks to ship the phones etc. But if he were still making 150k he would be extremely underpaid for his value provided, and he could always quit and pass around his resume to every IT company he could find (having "inventor of iPhone" on your resume would make you very in-demand) and he could work for the one who offered the most money. If he could routinely invent popular tech products then companies would offer tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in salary for his services, just like how Lebron James makes hundreds of millions of dollars in salary over the length of his contract. However, the assembly line worker who puts the iPhones together is worth far less, and is paid such since their labour is easily replaceable since anyone can do it. They certainly don't deserve millions of dollars of the iPhones profits since they aren't the ones creating much of its value.

So how does the market not determine the value of wages accurately in a competitive labour market where workers will accept employment from the highest bidder for their labour? Is LeBron underpaid?

[Fasces]

I don't understand your comments, they don't seem to relate with what I said, how did Picasso not paint it?

In the example of Van Gogh, the capital was owned by the hospital - it was the hospital's paints, the hospital's canvas, the hospital's brushes on the hospital's land. Who provided the most value: Van Gogh, who did the labor of painting, or the hospital, which provided the physical capital?

Same with the Picasso example raised by @wat0n. If Picasso provides the brushes, paper, studio, paints, ideas, etc - but an assistant physically paints the piece, is it proper to call the piece a painting by Picasso? If you can call it a Picasso because he provided the capital and the idea, can you call any replica of a Picasso painting a Picasso? Or is there something intrinsically valuable in the laborer himself? A Picasso is valuable because it was painted by Picasso, not because it was painted by Picasso's brush or paints or canvas or in his studio.

However, he also needs Apple to create the iPhone too.

Yes, he needs Apple, the organization and structure and other workers. He'll need managers and equipment and etc.

He does not need any of the owners. They do not provide value integral to the production process. They extract value from the finished results, but the results would still exist absent their presence. They are not a necessary part of Apple's continued existence (even if they founded the company and at one point labored).

They certainly don't deserve millions of dollars of the iPhones profits since they aren't the ones creating much of its value.

The question isn't whether the assembly-line worker should be paid equally to the engineer or whether they both equally contribute to the value of the product.

The question is whether the assembly-line worker is providing more value to the product than the son of a millionaire that used his inheritance to buy a single share of AAPL but otherwise hasn't worked a day in his life.

Under the current model, the owner of that single share of AAPL gets paid a dividend, or some share of Apple's profits. The assembly-line worker does not. The owner of that share is not contributing to the value of Apple's products in any meaningful way. He is not a necessary part of the process of producing, distributing, marketing or designing iPhones. He is extracting surplus value despite this.

[Rancid]

Under the current model, the owner of that single share of AAPL gets paid a dividend, or some share of Apple's profits. The assembly-line worker does not. The owner of that share is not contributing to the value of Apple's products in any meaningful way. He is not a necessary part of the process of producing, distributing, marketing or designing iPhones. He is extracting surplus value despite this.

What would make this situation more fair? FOr example, what if one of those owners of AAPL wasn't some rich kid, but a teacher's union pension fund? Does that change anything?

Aside from that, what would be the solution? Eliminate secondary markets for company ownership? Eliminate dividends and stock buy backs? Let's say we did do that, I wouldn't be surprised if some new system were setup where as if you own stock in apple, you become an employee and get paid for doing nothing and in proportion to how much apple you own. These people have all sorts of ways to work around shit.

[wat0n]

Yes @wat0n if you don't defraud people you're less likely to be convicted of fraud, great point.

Still don't get what your point is.

At least we're past this inane take.

Inane or not, plenty of artists employ assistants, and they are not granted authorship even if they are the ones who paint/sculpt/draw or whatever under the directions of their boss. Even if they are the ones doing the bulk of the physical labor and their boss isn't. Instead, they get paid (often not too much) and gain experience which they can use to become independent artists themselves.

Yes, to sell a VG painting as a Picasso would be fraud, but not because Picasso didn't paint it. It would be fraud because Picasso didn't create it, which is different. The VG painting would also still be a VG painting if he had had assistants doing all the painting under his supervision.

Furthermore, these two are different from the issue of the ownership of the work at hand. Often, whoever funds it, owns it. So even then, the tweet you posted isn't normally correct, especially if art is commissioned by someone else. On top of being paid a hefty amount, the artist also gets paid in reputation and possibly being remembered after death if the work's good... Something Marxian economics can't really explain and arguably doesn't aim to.

At last, it's also not clear if this artist is part of the worker class or part of the bourgeoisie from a Marxian perspective. I can imagine both cases can be made, if the artist doesn't own the physical inputs used to paint he could be a worker but if he does he could be considered a capitalist who's being paid to turn those raw inputs into a piece of art, even if he doesn't hire any assistants and does all the work himself (and even more so if he does hire assistants).

The original point was that loans / debt are *not* the same value quantities as liquidity / cash. Cash doesn't have to have *credit ratings agencies* to rate whether the cash is 'risky' or not -- cash is cash, and is the default go-to for *value* for most of the world.

So?

[Wellsy]

Since yous are still talking about art, Walter Benjamin’s ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ and then James Berger’s A Ways of Seeing which is just a rehash of Benjamin does point to the state of art as commodities and how reputation and authenticity plays a role in trying to express the value of works amidst mass reproduction of the same images.

But the earlier point that art becomes a commodity misses the point within Marx that it does not have value as its not a reproducible commodity.

The images and replications are. Which can be discerned in their value where the original works have price but more arbitrarily true to subjective value theory.
And in terms of artists as workers one should consider them within production of massive works like movies, books, videogames. In videogames many who produce its contents do not get credited with it or end up being erased in fact. These are the artists who are workers. Even with independent contract work with a graphic designer they still work according to the same market logic and are not somehow exceptions. Many artists however re so well off that it isn’t to earn money to survive.

Hbomber guy discusses this issue towards the end of this lengthy examination of a bloke just lying about his own contributions to videogames.

[Unthinking Majority]

In the example of Van Gogh, the capital was owned by the hospital - it was the hospital's paints, the hospital's canvas, the hospital's brushes on the hospital's land. Who provided the most value: Van Gogh, who did the labor of painting, or the hospital, which provided the physical capital?

Same with the Picasso example raised by @wat0n. If Picasso provides the brushes, paper, studio, paints, ideas, etc - but an assistant physically paints the piece, is it proper to call the piece a painting by Picasso? If you can call it a Picasso because he provided the capital and the idea, can you call any replica of a Picasso painting a Picasso? Or is there something intrinsically valuable in the laborer himself? A Picasso is valuable because it was painted by Picasso, not because it was painted by Picasso's brush or paints or canvas or in his studio.

Sure people should get credit, especially in the arts. For example, in movies the director, actors, writers etc get the credit they deserve for their creative contributions, and nobody really cares about the executive producers.

Yes, he needs Apple, the organization and structure and other workers. He'll need managers and equipment and etc.

He does not need any of the owners. They do not provide value integral to the production process. They extract value from the finished results, but the results would still exist absent their presence. They are not a necessary part of Apple's continued existence (even if they founded the company and at one point labored).

Of course they are needed, somebody has to pay for the offices, warehouses, factories, materials, shipping vehicles, etc. The worker provides nothing but their labour, the means of production are provided for them by the owners.

The question isn't whether the assembly-line worker should be paid equally to the engineer or whether they both equally contribute to the value of the product.

The question is whether the assembly-line worker is providing more value to the product than the son of a millionaire that used his inheritance to buy a single share of AAPL but otherwise hasn't worked a day in his life.

Under the current model, the owner of that single share of AAPL gets paid a dividend, or some share of Apple's profits. The assembly-line worker does not. The owner of that share is not contributing to the value of Apple's products in any meaningful way. He is not a necessary part of the process of producing, distributing, marketing or designing iPhones. He is extracting surplus value despite this.

Yes they are providing value to Apple, as i've said above. The means of production do not appear out of nowhere like magic, it needs to be bought and paid for. A person who buys a share of Apple is taking a risk and contributing investment money for the company to invest that money in any way the company deems best to help expand the business, whether that's buying more equipment, more offices, R&D, more marketing and/or expanding into different markets etc.

The shareholder isn't going to give them this investment money for free, they need a financial incentive. The average reward is about 6.5% per year (average annual growth of all S&P 500 companies). An investment of 100k into all the S&P 500 companies would yield $6500 per year on average, plus i believe a 2% dividend yield = $8500 total average return. A truck driver makes about 60k. What's the issue? Apple workers want free loans from millions of investors so they can work? Obviously that's ridiculous.

The part about the wealthy son doing nothing living off dividends or works 70 hours a week is irrelevant. Retired people also live off dividends. So what? They obviously deserve some reward for the money they're providing a company and the risk involved, otherwise nobody would invest.

If workers also want to be owners they are perfectly free to use their money to buy stock in their company or other companies, and most do, and they can retire on those investments and supplement their retirement with dividend income etc. Or a group of workers are perfectly free to create a workers co-op where all the workers own the company they work for and receive the profits along with a wage. But that means the workers must also contribute investment money and accept the risk if the company suffers losses.

The point here is how do we accurately define the economic value that the labourer and the owner provide? The solution in capitalism we know. I have no idea if its accurate or not.

[AFAIK]

If Van Gogh was an employee of Disney then anything he created on company time or with company equipment would belong to Disney. Depending on his contract he may have no expectation of receiving credit or royalties for his work.

[Truth To Power]

Of course they are needed, somebody has to pay for the offices, warehouses, factories, materials, shipping vehicles, etc.

Socialists refuse to know the fact that such things would not otherwise be available. Natural resources, however, would otherwise be available. That is the fact capitalists refuse to know.

The means of production do not appear out of nowhere like magic, it needs to be bought and paid for.

Natural resources are already there, ready to use, without any help from their owners or any previous owner. So why are their owners legally entitled to demand that producers pay them just for permission to access the advantages government, the community and nature provide?

The point here is how do we accurately define the economic value that the labourer and the owner provide?

The market values them. Problem is, the market values privilege -- legal entitlements to take without contributing -- just as readily as productive contribution.

The solution in capitalism we know. I have no idea if its accurate or not.

It's not, because under capitalism, everyone is forced to subsidize the privileged, especially landowners.