I was wondering if anyone here believes in traditional Marxist value. Its simple. Marxists believed that the amount of work and time that went into something gave it value. That would be true, if say, all work was done by the same kind of man or machine, but it isn't.

Here is the Fascist conception of value. No matter how long or hard you work, you won't give mud great value. Or better, mud can have value, but time and amount of work don't garuntee anything, it still might not have value, or might have great value. Perhaps one genius idea with almost no work could give it value. What value truly is what we place it to be. Someone who realy likes mud values it more than someone who does not. Ideas and ideology are an exeption to this rule because it is not neccesary for anyone to like an idea for it to be true, because truth is not something that happens to things that are true, or falsehood to things that are false, but are essential parts of ideas that true or false. For trade there is an also an exeption because no kind of capital system would ever work if value was totaly relative. So its good to allow market value which is absoloute to exist for business purposes.

What is the modern communist conception of value?

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Fairy Tales are important, not because they teach us dragons are real, but because they teach us dragons can be defeated.

I had an argument with a guy on this forum about value several months ago. The argument of many anti-socialists goes that the workers contribution does not add value to the product therefore they are entitled to little in return. But here there is an obvious contradiction, if actually doing the work of putting something together does not add value, how does being a capitalist add value? The capitalist, whether they choose to contribute voluntarily to the buisiness or not, basically still gets all the profits simply by owning the factory, basically for doing nothing. So what I'm trying to say is, if putting an item together does not add value, how does it follow that someone who has nothing to do with the process at all is entitled to all the profits?
Anyway, I don't see how someone can come to the conclusion that labour does not add value. Suppose you are given a choice between a car or just the parts of a car, a big pile of car parts. Which are you going to choose? Maybe the argument just hasn't been explained to me properly, but I really can't see how labour doesn't add value to a product.

Very good point, and I agree. It's not traditional Marx, because he believed work garunteed value, which it does not. In the end though it still isn't realy the worker giving real value. All he is giving it is market value, and in that Fascism accepts your defenition all ready. Alone, parts are basicly worthless but when combined into a product, they have market sale, which is in part determined by the effort but mostly the opinion of the syndicate appraisor. Real value however is relative to the opinion of each indivdiual asscociated with the product. His opinion of it gives it real value in physical sense, and helps determines his whole outlook on it, which includes if he will purchase it or not, and how he will treat those involed with its production.

Your basicly saying that the worker should be paid in relation to the value of each thing he produces? If so, how, seeing as most work is done on an assembly line, and most workers don't realy build or assemble the whole product, but only parts of it. How does one determine the value of labor then for each individual step in a process? I ask you because I think this could help refine my own views as I like the idea.

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Fairy Tales are important, not because they teach us dragons are real, but because they teach us dragons can be defeated.

Very good point, and I agree. It's not traditional Marx, because he believed work garunteed value, which it does not. In the end though it still isn't realy the worker giving real value. All he is giving it is market value, and in that Fascism accepts your defenition all ready. Alone, parts are basicly worthless but when combined into a product, they have market sale, which is in part determined by the effort but mostly the opinion of the syndicate appraisor. Real value however is relative to the opinion of each indivdiual asscociated with the product. His opinion of it gives it real value in physical sense, and helps determines his whole outlook on it, which includes if he will purchase it or not, and how he will treat those involed with its production.

Your basicly saying that the worker should be paid in relation to the value of each thing he produces? If so, how, seeing as most work is done on an assembly line, and most workers don't realy build or assemble the whole product, but only parts of it. How does one determine the value of labor then for each individual step in a process? I ask you because I think this could help refine my own views as I like the idea.

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Fairy Tales are important, not because they teach us dragons are real, but because they teach us dragons can be defeated.

H&S constrution workers add value and get F U C K E D.If you look at the construction industry here in america workers are screwed out of their just amount of pay for the value they put into a job.The construction workers put in many hours of hard work to build a structure,the real estate sellers/developers sell that product and make alot of money of that structure for only a few hours of not so hard work,then,the same structure gets sold again and again and again and everyone makes money off that struture for the life of the structure.Everyone makes a lot of money off that structure for the little work they do selling it,except for the construction workers whom are payed crap for their skills and many hours building it and,they only get payed once.How fair is that?I have worked in the construction trades for years and see this going on,everybody makes money off the work and skills of the construction workers,to make matters worce here in america the job of working in a construction trade is 90% non-union with no benefits what so ever and very low pay.A building structure and the life of that building is a great example of how workers are F U C K E D in any capitalist system.In fact, if you study the amount of money generated from that strucure over the lifetime of it you'll see that construction in general generates more wealth from the product and the workers hours than any other product made by workers in the world today and historically.This is why I'm so anti-capitalist, because I have worked in this system of exploitation for years.

That sucks on rice. How would you fix that?

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Fairy Tales are important, not because they teach us dragons are real, but because they teach us dragons can be defeated.

The USA had construction companys run buy the goverment in a WPA program,I think that was a good idea they should have continued but didn't.These goverment run constuction companys built bridges,interstate highways,state and federal buildings,univercities/colleges thruout the country.A communist goverment should have a very large state run constuction organization that totally designs and builds projects thruout the country.The organization would hire architects,civil and structural engineers,carpenters,plumbers,electritions,
masons,laboreers and all other construction trades to design and build projects across the nation.The goverment would save construction costs and supply jobs creating a vast army of civilian construction battalions,all these people would have good pay and benifits.They would rebuild and continually modernize the nations cities and infastructure,infact,I believe this workforce could totally eliminate the private sector constrution capitalists all together.A modern country with no ghettos and modern housing for everyone is possible with a state run construction organization and I believe all true communist goverments should institute a very large state run construction organization.

What you want I can understand, but the state could never deliver it. You would be asking far to much of the state and governemnt, which has more important things to do. It would unwise to give government responcablity in places it usualy does poorly in, which is the majority of civilian industries. Surley privatiztion could accomplish that as well, and it would make the governments job so much easier. Companies are allready proficient in many forms just about everything, while government have allways failed in attempts to mimick them. So I think the majority of industry, exept perhaps raw resources, should be privatized. This means that the companies can still make a profit, and all the government has to do is make sure the company pays fairly to the extent of current value. The Government can order specific companies to take up specifc jobs, and this will provide funds for the workers. Nationalizing should be left to bankrupt companies and old buildings ect. The government can turn a few of these into government companies and reduce taxes.

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Fairy Tales are important, not because they teach us dragons are real, but because they teach us dragons can be defeated.

The U.S. already proved that that type of state run construction organization can and does perform effectively and efficently,it was the WPA program enacted during the depression,the only reson it was discontinued is because capitalists wanted that work so they could make the money off labor and the project(20-35% extra costs).I think you believe the myth that man is lazy and inefficent in goverment funded projects,do you think that NASA is an inefficient goverment run space program manned by lazy people? Not only would a organization like this work but,it would/could eliminate capitalists all together in this industry,as a communist I see that as a good thing.I know and understand how you feel about capitalists but,on this industry I think you are wrong.

Actualy I'm a bitter opponent of that myth. I don't think man is essentialy up and go-go either, but it depends on how he grows up. Personaly I think its a darn shame our national space craft are out done by privatly owned ones, but currently they are. That can change however. There two ways of looking at. If your a Fascist like me, and think the purpose of government is to lead the people, then you can see how it needs as much freedom to do this well, as possible. If it were to be tied down with buerocracy, its ability to lead justly and well would be inhibited. A Fascist government cannot be teid to mechanics, so the syndicates, are basicly super labour unions and primarily civilian operations, unless they deal in an feild that is not involved in commerce, such as the enviroment, or space, which the government would take care of it self and prohibit private interests. The syndicate meats with government on the half-way point, where the only state responcilibty for them, is to make sure all state laws are enforced in said feild, includings wages, ect. Fascism embraces a system with capital involved for this purpose, which is convience.

A Communist however, who thinks the state has no bussiness leading the people,
will obviosuly give the government plenty of time for subsidization. When the only purpose of government is to provide set amount of something, it will be totaly mechanicle and thus able to take on those tasks. So, its either privatization and leadership, or nationalization and no leadership, you can't have both, which is why I am against nationalization for the most part. I also believed thats why Bolshevism failed, because it tried to have both.

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Fairy Tales are important, not because they teach us dragons are real, but because they teach us dragons can be defeated.