Marxism

I know I already created the Socialism page, but I thought that after our discussion of Marx today, I would create the Marxism page as well. Obviously these two philosophies are extremely related.

I posted a link to a 'Library of Economics and Liberty' article on the Socialism page that described the shortcomings of Socialism. As I was researching Marxism, I came upon an article from the same source. Although this source seems very denouncing of both Socialism and Marxism (the source's name already leads us to believe it is conservative), it provided an interesting argument that I thought was highly pertinent to our class discussion:

In class today, we talked about how with the rise of industrialism, laborers no longer owned the products of their work. Mr. Housiaux's example was the worker that produced shoes, went home with his wages, and left the shoes with the owner. This bourgeoisie owner would then make a profit from these shoes, and in so doing exploit the worker. The 'Library of Economics and Liberty' article specifically addresses this very argument:

" Marx then asked an apparently devastating question: if all goods and services in a capitalist society tend to be sold at prices (and wages) that reflect their true value (measured by labor hours), how can it be that capitalists enjoy **[|profits] ** —even if only in the short run? How do capitalists manage to squeeze out a residual between total revenue and total costs?

Capitalists, Marx answered, must enjoy a privileged and powerful position as owners of the means of production and are therefore able to ruthlessly exploit workers. Although the capitalist pays workers the correct wage, somehow—Marx was terribly vague here—the capitalist makes workers work more hours than are needed to create the worker’s labor power. If the capitalist pays each worker five dollars per day, he can require workers to work, say, twelve hours per day—a not uncommon workday during Marx’s time. Hence, if one labor hour equals one dollar, workers produce twelve dollars’ worth of products for the capitalist but are paid only five. The bottom line: capitalists extract “surplus value” from the workers and enjoy monetary profits."

The same principal applies here (blue text) as in our class (shoes example): the capitalist makes a profit on the laborer, and thus exploits him.

Interestingly, this article claims that Marx's argument is inherently faulty:

" Although Marx tried to use the labor theory of value against capitalism by stretching it to its limits, he unintentionally demonstrated the weakness of the theory’s logic and underlying assumptions. Marx was correct when he claimed that classical economists failed to adequately explain capitalist profits. But Marx failed as well. By the late nineteenth century, the economics profession rejected the labor theory of value. Mainstream economists now believe that capitalists do not earn profits by exploiting workers (see **[|profits] ** ). Instead, they believe, entrepreneurial capitalists earn profits by forgoing current consumption, by taking risks, and by organizing production."

The article continues to describe Marx's theory of alienation (which we mentioned in class, and which was prevalent in our reading; essentially workers lose their creativity through labor).

Feel free to post additional resources on Marxism (both for and against) here.