SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the promote-them-to-where-they-can-do-the-least-damage dept.
Geert Hofstede's "Culture's Consequences" is one of the most influential management books of the 20th century. With well over 80,000 citations, Hofstede argues that 50 percent of managers' differences in their reactions to various situations are explained by cultural differences. Now, a researcher at the University of Missouri has determined that culture plays little or no part in leaders' management of their employees; this finding could impact how managers are trained and evaluated globally.
"We all want a higher quality of life, a desirable workplace environment and meaningful work -- no matter our home country," said Arthur Jago, professor of management in the Robert J. Trulaske College of Business at MU. "In management theory, we focus more on leaders' differences rather than their similarities. By analyzing the data in a new way, I found that managers across country borders and across cultures are more alike than different."
Crud. Does this mean you can't get away from PHB's no matter where you go?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 22 2016, @12:19AM
capitalism dehumanize human work
There's another word that is much more appropriate than "dehumanize". "Abstract". We don't need "humanized" human work and there's no value to gain from flooding you with information every time you interact with the rest of society.
OTOH, if you really were capable of understanding what capitalism does for all of us, then maybe you wouldn't be trash talking it.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday December 22 2016, @12:51AM
Unregulated or improperly-regulated capitalism does dehumanize people. Remember that saying about government being like fire and why? Same applies here. You can't deny this, because the evidence is all around you.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday December 22 2016, @02:08AM
Unregulated or improperly-regulated capitalism does dehumanize people.
So does anything else of that nature. As I noted in my reply to aristarchus, unregulated 20th Century-style communism dehumanized a hell of a lot worse.
I don't believe complete absence of regulation is a good idea and I think its problems go to harms far beyond mere dehumanization.
But regulation doesn't humanize anything either. You can't regulate into me a respect for ethnic groups, beliefs, or genders. You can't regulate into me an understanding of all the lives that are touched by anything I do. You can't regulate into me the raw I/O and processing requirements that it would take to achieve that sort of understanding on a credible level.
And any display of respect that is forced by regulation would be unworthy. For example, I currently work in the tourism industry and occasionally read letters of appreciation and thanks from guests who were helped by my coworkers (I more work behind the scenes). Those have value to us because they are unforced. No one has to send us a letter. They have a sincerity that you would get no other way.
But suppose we force everyone to write thank you letters for such interactions to "humanize" them. Suddenly, they lose their value. Everyone is sending form letters and any notes of genuine sentiment are lost. It wouldn't be worth our while to go through the pile for the good letters (but I'm sure such regulation would require some sort of theatrical effort to appear to care). Similarly, we'd probably see less tourists as a whole. After all, who wants to go through that bother just to see some trees?
That would be merely a great hindrance. But there are situations where humanization is not merely a hindrance, it can actually kill. If we tried to humanize road interactions, we would create enormous distractions. There's nothing to be gained from being aware that there are thousands of humans per hour with their own lives driving on the other side of that highway divider. As a driver, you need to be focused on not killing other people not blinded by the awareness of all the humanity you're colliding with.
IMHO transactions in markets and similar manifestations of capitalism fall solidly in the camp where humanization is a bad idea. It's not just that I would choose to ignore or bypass any attempts to humanize capitalism or markets, it's also that I don't have the capacity to care about humans on that level. I don't think anyone does. Perhaps you could enhance someone with cybernetics to where it would become a viable (though still not desirable for me) feat, but even in that case, you could be doing a lot more with those capabilities than mere enforced appreciation.
The whole point of abstraction of human interaction is that human interaction is hard and complex. When you're interaction with a few dozen people, it tends to be quite manageable. If you're interacting with thousands of people, then you start reaching the limits of humanization. And interactions with billions of people in today's world is not even close to something that we could do. So to make things easier we abstract common interaction tasks like the purchase of goods and services. Sure, a lot is lost in this sort of very limited interaction, but what is gained is the ability to function in a modern, high population society without having a supercomputer built into your skull.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday December 22 2016, @03:30AM
You were doing fine for the first couple of sentences. Then you went on a long, diarrhetic rant full of false analogies.
Listen, fuckstick, no one is saying to legislate courtesy or outward actions, and you know goddamned well that's not what I'm taking about. We are not speaking of "forcing people to write thank-you letters." More like "preventing what happened in Flint." See the difference? Thank-you letters aren't necessary to survival; clean water is. The fact that you can't seem to tell the difference speaks volumes about you.
Especially this one: "You can't regulate into me a respect for ethnic groups, beliefs, or genders. You can't regulate into me an understanding of all the lives that are touched by anything I do." Fuuuuuuuck. Yoooouuuuuu. No one is trying to change your mind, such as it is, with the law; the regulation in these cases is there to make sure that no matter what that twisted little mind of yours believes, you can't translate it into actions that harm the groups you mention.
If you think laws that codify the principle of your right to swing your fist ending where your neighbors' faces begin are some kind of oppression or tyranny, guess what: you're not fit to live in human society. Go out into the woods somewhere and live alone. It is those very laws you deem oppressive and stifling that are going to prevent someone who has had enough of your shit from hunting you down and express-mailing you to Hell with a few dozen bullet holes pre-drilled, at least not without life-ending consequences to themselves.
In summary: quit your disingenuous bullshit; you fool no one but yourself with it. You're the exact kind of sociopathic asshole who will look at the homeless and ill and accuse them of "politics of envy." As long as you continue to drop trou and pollute this venue with your toxic flux I will continue to hose your bare ass down with the fire extinguisher and point and laugh at your tiny shriveled man bits.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 22 2016, @10:57AM
More like "preventing what happened in Flint."
We don't need to humanize a thing to prevent what happened in Flint. What we would need to do is prevent the actions that led to lead being released into the water supply. And it's worth noting that actually did happen, not because of the humanity of the regulatory process, which had already anticipated this very problem and apparently was bypassed for a time by a conspiracy of government employees, but because someone decided to get their water independently tested.
Standing up for ourselves beats more humanity in the regulatory process any time.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday December 22 2016, @07:14PM
I don't think we're using the word "humanity" the same way here. Perhaps we're running into a sort of operator-overload conflict. Because from the sound of it, "humanity" in this context is another content-free snarl word to you, whose closest meaning seems to be "hurr hurr feelz over realz derka duhhrrr."
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 23 2016, @12:40AM
Because from the sound of it, "humanity" in this context is another content-free snarl word to you, whose closest meaning seems to be "hurr hurr feelz over realz derka duhhrrr."
I think you understand well enough. We might as well demand more fur in our law.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday December 23 2016, @06:33AM
Okay Mr. Hallow, let me put it another way: What is the purpose of economic activity? That is, why do we engage in capitalistic pursuits? Think about this one for a while before you answer.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Friday December 23 2016, @12:49PM
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday December 23 2016, @05:10PM
Ah, so economic activity just happens, without any human actor behind it? Good to know. I guess that's just the Invisible Hand of the Free Market (TM) tugging on the Invisible Cock of the Free Market (TM) or something then?
...try again, Mr. Hallow. We humans engage in economic activity for at least one reason. What is/are that/those reason(s)?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 24 2016, @05:57AM
Ah, so economic activity just happens, without any human actor behind it?
Purpose is not cause and effect. And most economic activity is actually the confluence of the decisions of multiple parties with multiple, frequently conflicting purposes and interests, and often occurring with some degree of happenstance.
For example, a typical economic activity is a two party trade. Right there you have two parties which usually have different and often conflicting purposes furthered by this trade. Third parties may or may not have interests as well. One may be completely unaffected and see no purpose in the trade at all. Another might be a government or private organization which for its own purposes has been attempting to either further or hinder such trades. And if the trade happened on a large electronic market, then it can be nearly pure chance that these two particular traders happened to interact (which strongly contributes IMHO to the "it just happens" point of view).
So which purpose of the four cases I mentioned above is the purpose of the trade? Every purpose has as part of its context a point of view of an actor. You can't separate the two. Even to attempt to rationalize some objective purpose means that an actor is inserting their viewpoint in.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday December 25 2016, @04:03AM
Quit dodging, damn it. You know very well what I'm getting at here: economic activity is subordinate to human flourishing. Your worldview glorifies objects and commodifies people; it sacrifices untold numbers of lives, whether slowly or quickly, in the red-hot hands of your Moloch idol, "The Free Market." Agnostic or not, you are an idolator in deed and word.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday December 25 2016, @05:33AM
You know very well what I'm getting at here: economic activity is subordinate to human flourishing.
Do you mean here "should be subordinate"? Because we already know of cases, like economic activity which produces particularly harmful pollution where there is a distinct move in a direction counter to many humans flourishing.
Your worldview glorifies objects and commodifies people; it sacrifices untold numbers of lives, whether slowly or quickly, in the red-hot hands of your Moloch idol, "The Free Market."
As I've noted before, asserting something doesn't make it true. Markets have their limits. The most fundamental flaw is that they can't trade what doesn't appear on the market. Externalities are the most common example, but there are also maxims such as "You can't buy happiness" which imply intangible things of value that can't be purchased on a market.
The well-known flaw comes with well-known solutions, such as regulation or pricing the externality into the transaction or for the intangibles, don't bother with the market at all and just find a better way. But in the case of the former we don't magically know what should be appropriate regulation or externality pricing. That's the problem that shows up when you speak of purpose of economic activities. For a transaction with an externality, everyone has a different viewpoint on the proper cost of the externality and they most certainly will not agree on that.
Further, it is common for those who are the subject of externalities to have chosen to increase their vulnerability to the externality. For example, "chasing the nuisance" is a traditional mitigating circumstance where say someone moves into a home by an asphalt plant (the traditional US example) and then sues for externalities (odor, noise pollution) that wouldn't have been incurred, if they hadn't moved.
Or someone chooses to live or act in a way that increases the cost of the externality to themselves. Why should we curb green house gases emissions now for people who a century or two in the future choose to live in dangerous places? (obviously, there are more costs than that, but it remains a very significant alleged cost of global warming and sea level rise). Especially given that they would make that choice no matter what the actual sea level was. Where is my right to live a meter above sea level or the right that my home remain at that elevation a century hence? Where is some future dude's right to live a meter above sea level and why is that relevant to us today?
So when we speak of the "purpose" of economic activity, we immediately run into a morass of conflicting interests and behaviors. There is no obvious common purpose to this and I think it is foolish to try.
Moving on, a previous example (more accurately, the only previous example) you gave was Flint, Michigan [soylentnews.org] where water sources were changed without consideration of the consequence of releasing lead into the water supply (aside from covering the problem up illegally, that is). This was not part of a market, but rather a strictly government action. Nor was it due to an absence of regulation. The actions taken were against regulations and were illegal even to the extent of tests being falsified. And finally, the perpetrators were caught [soylentnews.org]. What could be done to make that better? And who's going to pay for it?
It's worth noting, for example, that the state agency in charge of environmental protection, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality already run their own tests. Two of the people charged above, were with that organization. So we see right away that there was a considerable bypass of regulation that reached into one of the oversight agencies (actually two since the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services was similarly duped). Nor was the matter obscure. The change in pH was obvious as were the consequences (the effects on lead plumbing were well known). So proposing that say, we increase the rate or extent of testing wouldn't have helped in this case since the testers were corrupted in the first place.
They could have also ripped out the lead pipes. That apparently is well outside the budget of not just Flint, but a huge portion of the Midwest which has similar plumbing issues. So they came up with this alternate approach of testing and pH control. And as long as the water provider keeps the pH of the water appropriately alkaline, it is a non-problem as well.
Finally, how could the response be better? The crime was found and dealt with in about two years, which is pretty good considering the circumstances and done by someone who decided to test their own water supply.
So let's summarize, the Flint lead in water supply situation was not market-related, was already adequately regulated, the culprits got caught, and got caught due to a private citizen acting independently of the regulatory apparatus. This not a case for your original assertion that "Unregulated or improperly-regulated capitalism does dehumanize people" or the original poster's assertion that "capitalism dehumanize human work, it requires the same everywhere". Nor is it a case for your later assertion that regulation is necessary since the regulation was already present.
Moving on, my view on current regulation is that we're well beyond diminishing returns and solidly in negative returns from additional regulation. There is an enormous amount of regulation piled on every year in the US, more than can be read by a single person. We're not making US-flavored capitalism more humane or humanized, we're making it more scoliotic and crippling its ability to help us.
So my view is that just continuing to pile on regulation isn't helping humanity flourish, but rather the opposite effect. And the antagonistic models that have cropped up in this thread, such as aristarchus's Marxist bunk or merely asserting without a reason for caring that "capitalism dehumanizes human work" don't help us understand how capitalism actually works, much less improve capitalism to be a better tool for humans flourishing.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday December 25 2016, @06:51AM
I actually do agree we should, as i'm sure some corporate hack who will fry in the abyss would put it, "regulate smarter, not harder."
That said, you spend a dozen or so paragraphs to say very nearly nothing, though. Except "well fuck everyone else, especially those future-living fucks, fuck 'em all to hell, I don't give a fuck, where's MY right to be as stupid as them, derk-a-duhhhr?!" (Yes I am going to keep comparing you to the "they terk erh jehrbz!" guys every time you say something stupid and evil).
Do you ever stop and preview your own posts before you send them? Not for grammar or spelling issues, but moral content? All you got out of this was "chasing the nuisance?" Jesus, every time you post I lose more and more respect for you.
Here's your main moral failure: "For a transaction with an externality, everyone has a different viewpoint on the proper cost of the externality and they most certainly will not agree on that." Yes, this is tautologically true, because every individual necessarily has a different set of viewpoints, experience, etc.
What you're deliberately glossing over, though, is that these "externalities" as you so glibly refer to them can consist of ruining entire cities or segments of the economy, and different actors have vastly different capabilities to mitigate the damage said externalities do to them...not to mention, these externalities very often affect third parties who had little or nothing to do with whichever hypothetical trade you're thinking of in the first place.
This isn't, when you get right down to it, really about any specific system of economics. In theory, *any* economic system from utter hive-minded collectivism to absolute anarchy could work, and work equally well. In practice, we know certain things about human behavior, and we know those things are awful matches for specific systems of economic organization in the real world no matter what theory would have us believe. You want to elide this for some benefit to yourself, whether monetary or some twisted kind of ideological purity.
And I. Won't. Let. You.
You're not as clever as you think, and you can't gaslight me...or anyone else who reads your posts with a critical eye. Everything you say here condenses down to "fuck you, I got mine, might makes right," and I will continue to point this out in excruciating anatomical detail for all and sundry to see so everyone knows exactly what you and yours are trying to do.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday December 25 2016, @12:09PM
Here's your main moral failure: "For a transaction with an externality, everyone has a different viewpoint on the proper cost of the externality and they most certainly will not agree on that." Yes, this is tautologically true, because every individual necessarily has a different set of viewpoints, experience, etc.
It's a truism not a tautology. And I shouldn't have had to remind you of it.
What you're deliberately glossing over, though, is that these "externalities" as you so glibly refer to them can consist of ruining entire cities or segments of the economy, and different actors have vastly different capabilities to mitigate the damage said externalities do to them...not to mention, these externalities very often affect third parties who had little or nothing to do with whichever hypothetical trade you're thinking of in the first place.
Well, yes, affecting third parties is the definition of externality. And seriously, what externalities of that scale are still left in the developed world? Regulation is one of the few areas left that can still create and grow externalities to the appropriate scale. Government corruption undermining that regulation is another. Capitalism was tamed decades ago. It's the controlling apparatus that generates the problems today.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday December 25 2016, @04:26PM
Okay, we're done. You've made it quite clear you don't give a damn about anyone and anything but yourself, and you'll bend the entire world around your delusions if allowed. This is willful ignorance. There's no saving you.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by aristarchus on Thursday December 22 2016, @12:52AM
There's another word that is much more appropriate than "dehumanize". "Abstract".
Still not reading your Marx, khallow? The terms is "alienation", as in "the alienation of labor". You may remember they made a whole TV Show about it: "Alien Nation".
(Score: 2, Funny) by khallow on Thursday December 22 2016, @01:28AM
"the alienation of labor"
Yet another broken phrase from Marx. I'm not interested in a pile of confirmation bias where the philosopher decides ahead of time who are the bad guys; what are the bad actions; and labels/argues everything with an excessive amount, even by philosophical standards, of straw man theater and insult.
And once again, we see the usual failure of Marxism to improve on the situation. The "alienation" of labor under capitalism hasn't held a candle to the alienation of labor and everything else under Marxism-based governments of the 20th Century. Implementation has fallen a bit shy of the rhetoric!
Of course, as an outspoken owner of capital, I have bragged endlessly about my dehumanizing of labor in the past. Alas, kuro5hin.org archives no longer exist, so I can't narcissistically link to the boast where I dehumanize some poor dude in a 7-11 for a bottle of orange juice and change (orange juice tastes so much better when it's delivered on the servile backs of the working class, duh). It's pretty brutal and confirms all the over-the-top, paranoid, fucked-up delusions Marxists have had about capitalists. I didn't even think about the man or his family as I quenched my savage thirst which was, no doubt, inflamed by the severe global warming that I caused with my wicked schemes of not caring enough about the environment.
This dark, terrible day is lost to history. Else we could, like, turn it into an anti-holiday where we refuse to celebrate the dehumanization of capitalism which has done more, than any other system of economics in the history of the world, to make us better humans - and deliver orange juice on demand for hot summer days.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 22 2016, @01:56AM
You are just so blind.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 22 2016, @02:17AM
You are just so blind.
I've seen flat Earthers on SoylentNews with better arguments than that. I could link to some? You need the help.
Throwaway lines that mean nothing are unworthy of you.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aristarchus on Thursday December 22 2016, @06:46AM
None are so blind as those that will not see! Where did I here this before? Alright, Lefty Soylentils, here begins chapter two of the education of khallow. He has time, probably snowed in without a lot of work to do, or any? So our dear khallow is something like Descartes in winter camp, when he wrote the "Meditations on First Philosophy", except that khallow is no philosopher, and evidently has internet access. So it begins:
. .
.
Alienation of labor refers to the relation of a worker to the product of his efforts. Craftsmen throughout time have had this relation.
What they produced was theirs, even if they sold it to someone else. You probably still feel this, if you write code, it is your code, even if your employer claims that it was work-for-hire and you have no property rights at all. Oh, wait, maybe that is a pertinent illustration of alienation. Part of it, according to Karl, is that a person's labor confronts him as a thing, independent or alienated from his being, unlike the relations of production (sorry, Marxist jargon, again?) the way he related to the products he produced under earlier economic systems. What you produce is not yours, you have been paid, so just, well, you know, so do it!
As for the benefits of Capitalism, Marx agrees with khallow! But here a short introduction to dialectics is in order. Or, maybe not, khallow would never understand. Let's just say, that in order for humans to truly connect with their true nature, they first have to be separated from it, so that they might come back to it and see it in a post-alienated fashion. Read some Hegel for this. Although, if you can't read Marx, Hegel is well beyond your ken. Keep this in mind, however: Marx is not saying that Capitalism is an immoral mistake, he says it is a necessary step in the development of human existence. The only wrong thing to do is to maintain that it is an eternal natural order, which it is not. This, too, shall pass, khallow! Spring break-up is just months away.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 22 2016, @10:42AM
What you produce is not yours, you have been paid, so just, well, you know, so do it!
It's this sort of confusion that is typical of Marxism. In my view, I don't own something that I can't trade. So either I own the output of my labor and can, via contract, exchange ownership of the output of my labor to an employer. Or I can't which implies I don't own the output of my labor. Which is it, aristarchus?
Keep this in mind, however: Marx is not saying that Capitalism is an immoral mistake, he says it is a necessary step in the development of human existence.
This is part of Marx's convenient asymptotic process that never has to go anywhere because we can merely assert that it will do so at some point in the future beyond when I've exhausted my patience. In other words, it's not falsifiable because you can never show that you didn't wait long enough to let the process work. This is the political version of the halting problem [wikipedia.org].
But I don't have to take seriously that which can't be shown. Capitalism has been shown both to work and to be improvable. Marxism hasn't.
The only wrong thing to do is to maintain that it is an eternal natural order, which it is not.
Which has never been a problem here. You still haven't shown that Marx is at all relevant. As I have noted before, show something better and you'll have my full attention.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tathra on Thursday December 22 2016, @03:56PM
you agree to exchange the output of your labor as a requirement of employment. you dont own it, anything you produce is automatically your employers. i'm not sure how you're confused on this.
i dont actually know anything about Marxism, but i do know that most examples of "communism" aren't communism, just extremely authoritarian state capitalism (that is, the state owns the corporations, not the people; i believe its better known as "nationalization"). i'm not sure communism is even actually possible, but libertarian socialism certainly is - there are many examples of it in the US, they're typically called "co-ops". the issue with capitalism though is that its only a useful economic method so long as there are markets to expand into and there is still room for growth and expansion. in today's world, both of those are no longer possible or extremely limited. now, personally i think libertarian socialism is the way to go (that is, voluntary collectivism, encouraged by regulations via tax breaks to co-ops or something like that, maybe there's an even better way to go about it that i dont know yet), but even more important than my personal views is the idea that we should use methods that work. there is no one-size fits all solution, and focusing on only a single concept or method, and pushing harder and harder when it starts failing, and then even harder and harder when pushing it harder makes it fail more - is recipe for disaster. we must absolutely be open to trying new methods and going with whichever ones work best for a given situation. sometimes that would mean capitalism is the best solution, and sometimes that would mean socialism (imo authoritarianism should never be used, which shouldnt be relevant here but it always gets confused and seen as a requirement of non-capitalistic economic systems and thats just not the case), but above all people must be open to new ideas instead of being mindless ideologues stuck on a single, failing concept.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Thursday December 22 2016, @06:28PM
It's this sort of confusion that is typical of Marxism. In my view, I don't own something that I can't trade. So either I own the output of my labor and can, via contract, exchange ownership of the output of my labor to an employer. Or I can't which implies I don't own the output of my labor. Which is it, aristarchus?
Once again, my dear and fluffy khallow, the confusion is on your part! But you already knew that. Exchange value is only one aspect of value, and it is capitalism's reduction of all value to this single one is what Marx refers to as "commodity fetishism" in the opening pages of Das Kapital. Here possession is the law, not labor. John Locke, who you may have heard of, tried to hold that it was the mixture of one's labor with some natural material that introduced property rights, but this soon becomes only a fiction.
The other form of ownership is what we might call inalienable: Copyright law focuses on the right to make copies, production of commodities, and restriction of the right to trade. But there is the other aspect of copyright, the more important, I think, what the Berne convention refers to as the "moral right" of an author. This is what Marx is talking about, that the product of your labor be yours, even if it be sold and "owned" by another. So it still exists under copyright, and in most craft and arts, where the producer is part of the product, or in other words, is not alienated.
Stealing authorship is the crime we are talking about here. There is a vast difference between "unauthorized copying" of an artist's work, and trying to claim that you are the author of the work, plagiarism. Of course, authorship can be just as extinguished in industrial production: a worker will more often than not be unable to tell which particular widget he actually produced a part of. (And it is worse, as Henry Ford knew, when the worker is unable to afford to own what he produces, but that is another issue.) Work-for-hire does the same thing, only the producer does know, and the reduction of ownership to possession and right to alienation (exchange, or gift, or destruction) is something of a legal fiction.
The really twisted version, though, is the essence of Trumpism: Branding and ghostwriting. Someone hires an artisan to produce a work specifically for the purpose of the employer claiming authorship? We usually call this "fraud", or market plagiarism, or intellectual slavery. Is your confusion relieved, khallow? I trust you are not being intentionally obtuse.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 23 2016, @01:08AM
and it is capitalism's reduction of all value to this single one is what Marx refers to as "commodity fetishism" in the opening pages of Das Kapital.
And there's another slanted term that no one else respects. If only we could get rid of the many brutally boring parts in between, it'd be a proper parody of human thought.
Exchange value is only one aspect of value
There are two things to note here. First, value is not ownership. You are conflating two very different ideas. Second, there are an uncountably infinite number of valuations possible at any given time and the Marxism-flavored one is just one of many such.
But the only valuations that matter are the preferences we express by making choices. It's decisions that make valuation real. Since we're speaking of choices made in the course of trade (capitalism otherwise not being relevant aside from the context of the trade), then of course, it's exchange value by default.
This is what Marx is talking about, that the product of your labor be yours, even if it be sold and "owned" by another.
And we now get to the supernatural aspect of Marxism, labor cooties. So how do I deal with the world being awash in labor cooties? I don't care about it one fucking bit. You would do well to do the same.
I think also you haven't thought through the implications. This sort of ownership rationalization is also why companies are converting ownership to subscriptions. When you no longer own the things that you buy, that causes Marxism-like problems.
I will say this, you do make a good case that Marxism is some sort of moderately communicable mental illness. But I'm not feeling it past that observation.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday December 23 2016, @01:58AM
So, Azuma got to you, eh? Alright, I can wait until you are capable of rational discussions of the issues again. However long it takes.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 23 2016, @05:14AM
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday December 23 2016, @06:40AM
Sincerity is important but so is being correct. You, Mr. Hallow, are very often incorrect, and dangerously so. You may not have a problem with me, but I sure as shit have a problem with you, and am thanking my lucky stars your hands are nowhere near the metaphorical levers of power.
Your biggest problem, ironically, is a cancerous case of the aforementioned "feelz over realz hurr hurr hurr." Specifically, you are an ideologue: you have an abstract notion of what "capitalism" and "free market" and "regulation" are, and attempt to bend reality around these frankly solipsistic, self-serving definitions. You are placing ideas above the people they were created to serve. This is a kind of secular idolatry, a sort of moral priority-inversion bug, and we've seen the results time and time again when this is tried with everything from hard collectivism to utter laissez-faire.
It's always the same result. In theory any of these pure ideological systems could work, and in practice none of them do, and all for the same reason: people are complex, messy, irrational things, and in large numbers you get some truly bizarre emergent behaviors. This insistence on ideological purity at the cost of unbounded suffering and death is the mark of a sociopath.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday December 23 2016, @12:38PM
My only interest is in your education, khallow. You seem to be intelligent enough. But perhaps you have been mislead by some unwarranted assumptions. It is alright. Happens to all of us, at some point in our lives. But I can see that right now you have doubled down and shut down and cannot even read, let alone consider, what I have written. The tarbaby is the assumptions you have attached yourself to, much like your default position on global warming. Not much I can do to convince you otherwise, if you refuse to engage in rational discussion.
So: labour (best to use the English spelling, more dignified?): My point is that if I make something, it is mine, my product. This may be touchy-feely to you, but perhaps you have never actual engage in physical labor before. I find that this is a common short-coming amoungst the neo-conservative, alt-right, libertarian, and even neo-liberals. Truly, the everyman connection with actual production is lost, ergo, more alienation. But even in fast-food emporiums, the old dictum of "put a little of yourself into everything you serve!" is being upheld. Except, since they are given no creative options, the only thing they can do is spit on your burger, or lick all your taco shells. Not that I would condone such action, but also that I never eat at such places, at least not since that one video.
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Friday December 23 2016, @02:10PM
Then there's the cognitive dissonance such as insisting that labor continues to "own" the products of its labor long after labor has sold them away. Even if we ignore the raw terribleness of the idea of permanent, irrevocable ownership (which has let us note been used, sometimes successfully, by both businesses and government to claim ownership over a lot of things), it still means that by that idea, I don't own my labor well enough that I can sell the output of it to someone else without creating permanent entanglements. Thus, the Marxist version of labor ownership is actually a weakening of the ownership of labor while the opposite is claimed.
Another spectacular example of this happened in Das Kapital where Marx backs up his claim that the "capitalist" doesn't add value via his labor by proof via heavy sarcasm and nonsense story where the capital's stooges are smirking as the capitalist makes these claims.
Another such happened when you equated value with ownership. Just because someone thinks something is valuable doesn't mean that they own it.
There's the broken ways of looking at the world such as obsessing over the conflict of interest between workers and everyone else, or using dialectic materialism as a starting point for any sort of reasoning - when you can get the same results, even the same broken fallacies, for less effort, by not doing that.
Then there's the parts of Marxism that just have no connection to reality at all, like claiming that there's some unalienable ownership of the products of labor, asserting stuff which doesn't work that way in the real world (like insisting the added value of capital is zero, even though it painfully is not), or asserting an asymptotic march of human society to a particular flavor of utopia by a process that never has to work in reality, much less do that particular march.
When confronted with these sorts of problems, I notice the rebuttal always ends up that the flaw is with me not with this incredibly broken reasoning. This is typical religious evangelism. You disagree merely because you're not listening to God. The fault is always with the skeptic not the kool aid drinker.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by aristarchus on Friday December 23 2016, @10:02PM
When confronted with these sorts of problems, I notice the rebuttal always ends up that the flaw is with me not with this incredibly broken reasoning.
This must happen to you quite a lot! You know, if something like this happens consistently, it just might be that the common factor is the cause. Not saying that correlation is causation or anything, but there is an obvious rebuttal, you know. And like I said, I can wait.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:02AM
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:06AM
Still waiting. . .
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:45AM
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Saturday December 24 2016, @08:23AM
But I have hope for you, khallow! Faith in your fellow thinking creatures is not insanity. So, I'll keep waiting. After the holidays is fine. But just keep this in mind: pride in craftsmanship, a signed original, "I built that". Non-transferable property rights.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 24 2016, @09:13AM
But just keep this in mind: pride in craftsmanship, a signed original, "I built that". Non-transferable property rights.
A "property right" that only exists in the imagination of some crafters, can't be exercised, and has no relevance to the real world. Quite the solid foundation for Marxism, isn't it? Maybe I'll invent my own imaginary sky god to watch over you. He'll be patient too.
You're shooting blanks. Your naked emperor has truly gone fishing.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday December 26 2016, @03:49AM
Oh, you silly libertarian! Here, I want to sell you a Picasso, except that it was not painted by Picasso. Or I want a drop point hunting knife, handcrafted by Bob Loveless! What? Produced by some factory in f-+*ing China? Well, not the same thing, then, is it? The labor of the craftsman matters, unless you are going to go all generic. Generic Bespoke Custom KHallow, that is what I got for Christmas.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 26 2016, @09:22AM
Look, I don't know what your actual opinion on these matters is. But if this is your real opinion, then you need to get a better one. This whole thread has been a chain of obvious rebuttals to your bizarre and unfounded claims and meanderings. But since you've relied on Karl Marx, how could it be different? Sorry, the dude had some interesting ideas, but wish fulfillment had higher priority than rational argument or things that actually work, and his whole edifice is a dull, wandering morality play which makes for lousy philosophy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 16 2017, @10:58AM
No. Since humanity is finite, the number of possible valuations at any given time is at most countably infinite.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 22 2016, @04:39AM
dude you are so full of your own ignorance you should stop lecturing people around NOW, btw capitailsm is what make you this ignorant
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 22 2016, @10:48AM
dude you are so full of your own ignorance you should stop lecturing people around NOW, btw capitailsm is what make you this ignorant
Do you even understand that just asserting stuff is useless? Assertions aren't any more right or wrong because you asserted. It's not worth my time considering these things because there is nothing to consider.