New translation of Karl Marx's "Capital."

Hume said:
By all means, right wingers should avoid this thread. You would not want actual knowledge of Marx to interfere with what you think he said.
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Other than that it's mostly rubbish, why should we?

For example, Marx starts off with a long discussion of money and commodities (tangible stuff) and the supposed way the two interact. In all of something over 500 pages of drivel Marx never recognizes the time-value of money or how investment works. He sees money and commodities as fixed assets. That is, if you have $100 or you have chair worth $100, those things are interchangeable and immutable. That is your $100 is always worth $100 and the chair is always worth $100.

Where he fails in that discussion is the concept of the Time Value of Money as originally conceived by Martin de Azpilcueta, a Spanish theologian and economist in the 16th century. The Bank of England was one of the first institutions to put this concept to work, so Marx should have known about it.

What the Time Value of Money does, it argue that you can invest money and it will grow in value on its own without the exchange of goods, services, or tangible stuff. In Marx's terms, he describes transactions as (M = money C = commodities) M -> M or M->C ->M. There is no acknowledgement that money can accumulate in value on its own. That is, Marx, like many Leftists, think the size of the economic pie is fixed.

With Time Value of Money what you have is you deposit $100 in a bank, say. The bank says if you leave that money there in the account, in one year you'll have $110. The bank then lends your $100 to someone else for a year but charges $15 in interest for the loan. At the end of the year, the bank has $115, you get $100 and the bank makes $5 for their services. No commodities change hands and the money grew in value.

That simple idea made the modern world possible. Without it, we would still be stuck in a cash society much like the ancient world was where the accumulation of great wealth was largely, if not entirely, built on accumulation of actual, tangible, goods like gold.

Marx seems to want to return to that dead concept and basically upend and destroy the world's economy in the process because he sees it as inherently unfair.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
Other than that it's mostly rubbish, why should we?

For example, Marx starts off with a long discussion of money and commodities (tangible stuff) and the supposed way the two interact. In all of something over 500 pages of drivel Marx never recognizes the time-value of money or how investment works. He sees money and commodities as fixed assets. That is, if you have $100 or you have chair worth $100, those things are interchangeable and immutable. That is your $100 is always worth $100 and the chair is always worth $100.

Where he fails in that discussion is the concept of the Time Value of Money as originally conceived by Martin de Azpilcueta, a Spanish theologian and economist in the 16th century. The Bank of England was one of the first institutions to put this concept to work, so Marx should have known about it.

What the Time Value of Money does, it argue that you can invest money and it will grow in value on its own without the exchange of goods, services, or tangible stuff. In Marx's terms, he describes transactions as (M = money C = commodities) M -> M or M->C ->M. There is no acknowledgement that money can accumulate in value on its own. That is, Marx, like many Leftists, think the size of the economic pie is fixed.

With Time Value of Money what you have is you deposit $100 in a bank, say. The bank says if you leave that money there in the account, in one year you'll have $110. The bank then lends your $100 to someone else for a year but charges $15 in interest for the loan. At the end of the year, the bank has $115, you get $100 and the bank makes $5 for their services. No commodities change hands and the money grew in value.

That simple idea made the modern world possible. Without it, we would still be stuck in a cash society much like the ancient world was where the accumulation of great wealth was largely, if not entirely, built on accumulation of actual, tangible, goods like gold.

Marx seems to want to return to that dead concept and basically upend and destroy the world's economy in the process because he sees it as inherently unfair.
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rubbish
 
T. A. Gardner said:
Forced altruism doesn't work. Not now, not ever. Marx's ideas are an utter failure.
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Don't think of it as "altruism". In a very real sense we all benefit from each other. In reality no one is truly giving everything and getting nothing.

I wouldn't go so far as to want to be a Marxist state, far from it. But we are a society. And as such we kind of become socialists of a sort. We all pool our resources for some things we all want to enjoy.

When I pay my taxes and I know part of them go to support the poor I am not troubled even though I am not poor. I am able to help in my way and everyone together is more efficient. But the real key is that someday I MAY VERY WELL BE POOR...and I will hope that if that unfortunate day comes I will have at least some support.

We all age. We all become old an frail and not much use to the economy anymore. We decrease our spending, when we retire we often go to a more restricted standard of living, some even much worse. Since everyone who survives gets old we as a society want to ensure that the old are not just tossed aside because they are no longer valuable resources to the economy. So we set up social security systems etc.

We live in a society. We are not individuals facing nature on our own. We are alive precisely because we live in societies...we are not great predators like lions on their own. We are a social animal. As such we are by definition "socialists" to some greater or lesser extent. Whether we like it or not.
 
Truth Detector said:
Everyone with at least half a brain has realized that after one hundred years of failure, Marxism is a dumb and lunatic idea.
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The US military has been a socialist structure for nearly 250 years. The framework is broken now but that's another topic. Understand how the US military got broke, and you start to see Marx critique of capitalism.
 
Kafka said:
Don't think of it as "altruism". In a very real sense we all benefit from each other. In reality no one is truly giving everything and getting nothing.

I wouldn't go so far as to want to be a Marxist state, far from it. But we are a society. And as such we kind of become socialists of a sort. We all pool our resources for some things we all want to enjoy.

When I pay my taxes and I know part of them go to support the poor I am not troubled even though I am not poor. I am able to help in my way and everyone together is more efficient. But the real key is that someday I MAY VERY WELL BE POOR...and I will hope that if that unfortunate day comes I will have at least some support.

We all age. We all become old an frail and not much use to the economy anymore. We decrease our spending, when we retire we often go to a more restricted standard of living, some even much worse. Since everyone who survives gets old we as a society want to ensure that the old are not just tossed aside because they are no longer valuable resources to the economy. So we set up social security systems etc.

We live in a society. We are not individuals facing nature on our own. We are alive precisely because we live in societies...we are not great predators like lions on their own. We are a social animal. As such we are by definition "socialists" to some greater or lesser extent. Whether we like it or not.
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It is absolutely altruism.

al·tru·ism
[ˈalˌtro͞oˌizəm]
noun
  1. the belief in or practice of disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others:
 
Kafka said:
So you opted not to read what I actually wrote? OK. Fair enough.
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I read it. You conflate the idea of cooperation and mutual benefit with the idea of altruism. In communism or socialism you need altruism to make it work. People have to be willing to allow the state, community, whatever, to take what you produce and redistribute it as the state, community, etc., sees fit. You get only what the state allows. Roads, a military, etc., benefit those who contributed just as they benefit those who didn't. Welfare on the other hand, benefits those who contribute little or nothing being taken from those that contribute a lot.

With taxation in a democracy we vote to have some degree of our productivity taken for the good of everyone, like funding roads, a military, etc. Everyone benefits from those including the person(s) that gave some wealth up. In communism or socialism the non-productive benefit directly from the productive. The state redistributes wealth equally to all regardless of the individual's productivity. The lazy, stupid, and worthless get an equal share to the energetic, smart, and productive.

That requires that the latter be altruistic.
 
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