Re: Profit and Value, was: Re(2): [ox-en] extrinsic motivation = coercion

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of course it's deeper. Subtlety abound. But getting the really simple
stuff right is very important...

  - Smári

marc fawzi wrote:
> it's deeper than that, in my view, but that's as useful as saying nothing..
> 
> 2009/5/6 Smári McCarthy <[email protected]>:
> I disagree. But I think this opinion may stem from a misunderstanding of
> the meaning of "profit".
> 
> Profit != benefit. All work and produce thereof is, we can imagine, in
> some way beneficial. However, profit comes only when the value of the
> product is higher than the cost of production. If I try to profit from
> you, I am trying to get from you more than what I am offering is worth.
> In a free market, price theory says (which is, as Diego correctly points
> out, an equilibrium theory, but equilibriums occur naturally in the
> absence of external "coercive" influence), the ability of any player to
> profit from another is decreased by the ability of third parties to
> compete. If the market is free, competition (or, better, cooperation) is
> on equal ground, and profit is driven to zero.
> 
> Once we rid ourselves of the necessity of increase, value comes from
> deeper causes such as necessity. If profit is zero, there is still
> production, but production becomes a function of necessity or desire
> rather than the result of economic enslavement. If I do not have to play
> the game, I won't.
> 
>  - Smári
> 
> 
> Franz Nahrada wrote:
>>>> Smari  writes:
>>>>> We shouldn't need to ban usury. One of the core tenets of neo-liberal
>>>>> price theory is that, in a free market competition will force profit to
>>>>> zero. (see definition of 'normal profit' for more on this).
>>>>
>>>> that is very interesting, I never heard of that.
>>>>
>>>> If profit is zero, there will be no production.
>>>>
>>>> For me the best "proof" of the "labour theory of value" is simply the fact
>>>> that there is production.
>>>>
>>>> If labour would not add value that can be turned into profit, there would
>>>> be no capitalistic production, no transsubstantiation of money into means
>>>> of production and labour force.
>>>>
>>>> This is - by the way - the ultimate solution of the riddle of the "proof"
>>>> of value.
>>>>
>>>> therefore value is not "at cost", this is a big error. Nobody would
>>>> produce for selling "at cost". And if we consider a non-market economy,
>>>> the term "cost" makes no sense as well as the term "profit"...
>>>>
>>>> and we see that logically interest or usury are logical consequences of
>>>> this process, not the other way round.
>>>>
>>>> Franz
>>>>
>>>> _________________________________
>>>> Web-Site: http://www.oekonux.org/
>>>> Organization: http://www.oekonux.de/projekt/
>>>> Contact: [email protected]
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>>

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