/edu/ - Education

What is relative surplus value? Idk, it sounds like something to do with prices but I can't really wrap my head around how it is different from normal surplus value.

Reposting an effortpost from a while back about Super-Profit

Let’s say that the average television takes 1 hour to make. 1 hour is the SNLT for televisions. But the owner of the ACME TV factory invests in some fancy new machines that make his workers twice as productive. They can now make a television in 30 minutes. They are producing way below the SNLT. This allows ACME to produce twice as many televisions in the same amount of time.

Now if ACME sold their new TV at half the old price they wouldn’t make any more money than before and there would have been no point in investing in all that new stuff. Rather than sell them at their individual value (30 minutes) they continue to sell them at the SNLT (1 hour), or perhaps just under the SNLT in order to out-sell their rivals. Because the price of TVs hasn’t changed significantly there is still the same demand from consumers for TVs, but now there is a giant surplus of TVs on the market because ACME has been making twice as many TVs. ACME’s rivals won’t be able to sell all of their TVs. Part of their product will go unsold. Meanwhile ACME will sell most of their TVs at the SNLT, making not just their normal profit, but an additional “super-profit” because they sold their TVs above their individual values by selling at or near the SNLT.

Profit vs. super-profit

Profit comes from exploiting workers. The only way to turn money into more money is to invest it in workers, or to be precise, in labor power, the only commodity which can produce more value than it costs. (This is all covered in the video “Law of Value 5: Contradictions”.) When ACME sells TVs at under the SNLT they don’t just reap their normal profits from exploiting workers. They also get super-profits: profit appropriated in exchange because their TVs are made at under the SNLT.

It is this race for super-profits that drives much of the technological dynamism of a capitalist society as capitalists compete to constantly lower SNLT. By doing so capitalists don’t just exploit value from workers. They also appropriate value in exchange.

https://kapitalism101.wordpress.com/2010/09/21/law-of-value-6-socially-necessary-labor-time/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb6dPost too long. Click here to view the full text.

Can anyone recommend me books or chapters or writings talking about the overproduction and ineffective production of capitalism? And how is the communist is different

Techno-Capitalism reading list:
Shoshana Zuboff - The age of surveillance capitalism http://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=88F4E36A731B1594144F40497AF25C34
Brett Scott - Cloudmoney http://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=D8D28B8D622C939973A87B16A5C4EAE6
Yanis Varoufakis - Techno-Feudalism http://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=0BA99CA5241D520DCF86C93DF0FFB7C9
Edward Snowden - Permanent Record http://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=A5BDA164BB2B8419C57E57012A2F7F82

>>20178
What is "Mythologies" by Toland Barthes?

>>21582
Roland Barthes is one of several theorists associated with structuralism and post-structuralism. Start with these books then read Saussure, Levi-Strauss, Jakobson, Barthes, Lacan, Althusser, Deleuze, Guattari, Foucault, Baudrillard, Derrida, and Kristeva

>>21856
for a few seconds i had hope the prols werent bitchasses for a moment smh

>>21857
lumpens are the only vanguard; ie marx was a faggot

>>21862
>>21862
> ie marx was a faggot
marx was kinda gay though

Battle of the Eclipse

why

Our enemies in blue

>>21934
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/kristian-williams-our-enemies-in-blue
It's from 2015, so it's still in the last 10 years.

Oh that's the third edition, originally from 2007, so maybe OP won't like it.

>>21933

I'm in a marxist org that I think has shied away from attacking the police and I want to correct our line. I believe Farell Dobbs was in the right when he said the following in Teamster's Rebellion:

"Under capitalism the main police function is to break strikes and to repress other forms of protest against the policies of the ruling class. Any civic usefulness other forms of police activity may have， like controlling traffic and summoning ambulances， is strictly incidental to the primary repressive function. Personal inclinations of individual cops do not alter this basic role of the police. All must comply with ruling-class dictates.

As a result， police repression becomes one of the most naked forms through which capitalism subordinates human rights to the demands of private property. If the cops sometimes falter in their antisocial tasks， it is simply because they-like the guns they use-are subject to rust when not engaged in the deadly function for which they are primarily trained. No police organization is exactly the same day in and day out. Two essential factors determine its character at a given moment: the social climate in which the cops have been operating and the turnover of personnel within the force. An unseasoned cop may tend to be somewhat considerate of others in the performance of duty， especially while class relations are relatively peaceful. Even in such calm times， however， the necessary accommodation must be made to capitalist demands， including readiness to shoot anyone who tampers with private property. Otherwise the aspiring cop， if he is not kicked out of the force， will have little chance of rising beyond a beat in the sticks. By gradually weeding out misfìts along these general lines， a police department can keep itself abreast of requirements during a more or less stable period in class relations."

The issue is these are powerful words but I want to prove that they have been borne out by reality. Particularly I think since the financial crisis/anti police movements police have shifted more and more right wing as relative class peace falls apart. Similarly I'd also be interested in works that look into the nature of police unions.

Also here's a detailed explanation of the history of Sri Lanka from a Marxist perspective by Comrade Shanmugathasan

A very detailed explanation of the history of the Indian state of Karnataka from a Marxist Perspective by Comrade Saki

>>10105
Funny thing is that the Zelda CDi was animated in 90s Russia for cheap, that's why its so strangely animated and voiced.

>>10133
He means England should make capitalism (the material base of Western society) the dominant form of production in India through their colonial policy and commerce

>>8653
In case Embed dies
>The C-Word – Episode 1 – 1991: The Silent Coup
By BlackFlag India
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T35PuzmTiYo

>>21559
Oh, interesting suggestion. Yeah I was about to ask for a pdf but report back when you come up with a solution

>>21561
aye aye comrade

A fundamental issue with all Post-Colonialists fields, is that they are written by dipshits who would be considered the top 1% of their own nation, and whose defining moment of racism is being called a slur once at Oxford. Most of their theories were simply imitating Marxism, but with elaborate theatrics to an extent

>>21561
yo sorry, been a while. so for personal reasons (logistical, not emotional) i havent made any progress on online ordering/online ebook question of whether the book i posted is available as either. There is another (i think) good book about somalia which is this
https://archive.org/details/socialistsomalia00sama i havent read it myself but its sighted by most indepth modern (recent) histories of somalia that ive read that are in english. the general problem with indepth somali social and economic history is that theres mostly jack and shit about it in english and theres somehow even less online in somali too. theres only *1* book i could find about the economy of somalia before Barre's "socialist" coup and its was made like 2021. ill send a link to it tommorow but ive gotta buy since its nearly out of stock

>>21940
Hey, nice and thanks for getting back to me. I will def give it a read when I'm done with some other books

Could we add Roots of Rebellion to the list for being a mainstream source that shows that the political dominance of the Bolsheviks was overall reflective of the Russian proletariat's will rather than due to their "disagreeableness" or totalitarian will?

>if you do a communism your children will live in splendor long after the costs have been paid
>if you do capitalism you live in shit and so will your children but at least you didnt pay much
>Russia has better metro system because Joseph Stalin hated freedom and built it without regards to the cost, while New York metro is a product of capitalism and is the result of private-public partnerships built at an acceptable cost
<Democracy makes you rich!
This was vid rel's response to Tucker Carlson's visit and commentary of the Moscow Metro system. Pic 1 is that station and the irony of it all is that this was one of the Metro stations NOT built in Stalin's time, but built a year after his death.

The funny part about this for me is that only a few years ago the narrative was
>Communists are too cheap and always don't have money so that's why all their technology is bad and unsafe and uhhh broken!
To the point where they even had almost that specific line in Stranger Things Season 3, with the obnoxious, snarky black girl that kept repeating Ben Shapiro lines about Capitalism and Freedom.

Which is it? Were the commies spending too much and producing things that will last for centuries and can be considered works of art… or are they cheap retards who never built anything to last and were all soul-less and repressed art?

These are actually two separate prongs of ideological attacks. The first one attack the regulatory-bureaucratic state of the Soviets who are seen as excessive and decadent since they deviated from the social darwinic norms of the Free Market that let people die homeless if it's profitable. The second attack is just general contempt rich countries have against people they perceive to be poorer than them

>>21793
Common fashoid dualities that they switch depending on their attack angle.

>"Stalin was a JudeoBolshevik!"
>"Stalin was an antisemite who wanted to kill Jews!"

>"Lenin was a German agent!"
>"Lenin established a Red Russian Empire and invaded Ukraine!"

>"The USSR invaded Poland with nazi Germany!"
>"The USSR wanted to invade Europe, nazi Germany saved Europe from Bolshevism!"

>"Hierarchy is natural and based!"
>"Kill the Jews on top my fellow Aryans!"

Post too long. Click here to view the full text.

>>21888
>Shitty /pol/ infograph placing real and myths on various and often incorrect tiers
What a waste of trip 8s.

Found this youtube short recently where a 'former' US Special Forces soldier talks about how the US populatio isn't ready for a war today. That's true, the US military today is not ready for a large-scale conventional conflict, which is why they aren't ready or willing to engage in all out war with Iran. However the rest of his statements are either ignorance or intentional revisionism.

The phrase "rifle behind every blade of grass" comes from a quote attributed to Admiral Yamamoto about the USA, not Japan (although to be fair this statement applied to Japan too). The more blatant revisionism is that "(the USA) won the war in Europe" and that the USA pushed into Berlin… It's one thing for ordinary US citizens to be utterly ignorant of the Soviet role in WW2 (see the RT interview from years back asking ordinary Americans about WW2) but a professional special ops soldier? He's not some jarhead grunt, military courses in the USA do (or did) teach about Soviet battle tactics including during WW2 and most certainly know that the USSR was the one that took Berlin and that the USA didn't enter the land war in Europe until 1944, when the back of Nazi Germany was broken already and they were a dying fascist animal.

Him being visibly proud of the indiscriminate bombing of German civilians by the USAF (and British RAF, though he doesn't mention the Brits over that) which were not only ineffective at stopping Germany but killed more innocent civilians than Nazis is just ghoulish.

His attempt to dismiss moral justification for starting a war is also nonsense. Yes war isn't without brutality, but there's a difference between the inevitable violence, and pointless slaughter.

The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature

>>21019
Not on libgen.is?

Reference bible. You never know when you might need it.

>>21912
>Human societies do not go through fixed stages of history
I mean you can do some materialist analysis of the evolution of societies through history based on the material economic conditions and technical/technological progress, cockshott how the world works is pretty good for that, but yeah its not a simplistic fixed series of stages

>>21917
I think feudalism is still a useful concept, although it doesnt tell much about the specifics and can cover many different variations, but Im no medieval expert either

>>21918
>I mean you can do some materialist analysis of the evolution of societies through history based on the material economic conditions and technical/technological progress,
That still assumes there's a fixed objective trajectory for human development which there isn't. Even technological changes are simply choices shaped by power not objective improvements. e.g. why did steam power prevail over hydro? We assume steam is inherently better but better for whom? Steam gave more control and power to bourgeois factory owners and turned out to be more profitable so the vast water works the English parliament wanted to build were cancelled. Steam emerged in countries that burned coal in place of wood during shortages, unlike the Middle East where olive oil and crude were used. This tech may never have developed in another geographic environment. Technological change isn't like a tech tree and what counts as an improvement really depends on your perspective. A steel mill is good for us if we're Qing bureaucrats trying to strengthen our empire against the West, but if we're the peasants who have to live with the smoke, noise, and horrible working environment then technology hasn't improved at all.

>I think feudalism is still a useful concept
If historians and experts in that time period have ditched it and have been saying its unhelpful since the 70s, then I'm not going to challenge them. What might make feudalism useful otherwise? Its politically useful? I'm not sure. If you look at the damage done during the Cultural Revolution you can see how an idea like "feudalism" has had disastrous consequences. Ordinary activists during GPCR tore down archeological sites, raided temples, burned classical literature, beat up Buddhist monks etc. all in the name of combating "feudalism" this mythical reactionary ideology that supposedly had its tentacles everywhere and had to be rooted out. Another example is Turkey's infamous hat law which banned traditional clothing. All they succeeded in doing was bankrupting fez manufacturers and weakening the local economy just because Ataturk thought fezzes and turbans are backward and feudal. In Japan, virtually anything bad is blamed on "feudalism" which never existed.

>>21919
What do you think about the dichotomy between loyalty to individuals and loyalty to institutions? Pre-modern political systems had more of the former while modern political systems attempt to impose the latter with varying degrees of success. Progress occurs when the state functions as a machine, imposing a collective order over government officials. Degeneration happens when institution loyalty collapses and people revert to patronage and personal loyalty.

>>21920
Coorperate personality (the idea that a cooperate body is a legal person) is a feature of Western law and you can't find a similar concept in Islamic or Chinese law. Hence, people in say the Ottoman empire or Tokugawa Japan weren't loyal to institutions or abstractions but to social networks, dynasties, personal relationships. A modern state demands absolute loyalty from all of its subjects in a totalitarian manner. A good example is the headscarf affair in France where women who wear dress perceived as Islamic are portrayed as disloyal to the republic. Homosexuals were once seen to be undermining national values and causing decline with their sex habits. Modern states and work environments demand absolute mind-body obedience while a so-called oriental despot like the Shoguns only wanted tax money and occasional support against their political rivals.

>Progress occurs when the state functions as a machine, imposing a collective order over government officials.
There is no such thing as progress. There is social and material change but if this is an improvement or not depends on your relation to it. The cotton gin was "progress" if you were a slave plantation owner but if you were a slave it made your life worse. Capitalism and militarism need the totalitarian mass surveillance and technologies of social control of the modern state in order to dominate society. But is this kind of totalitarian loyalty necessary to make life better? No. If anything it has made life worse for the vast majority of people.

>Degeneration happens when institution loyalty collapses and people revert to patronage and personal loyalty.
Or maybe that's just our own culturally conditioned brainwashed assumption? We think personal loyalties lead to corruption but not fanatic loyalties to institutions or nations and we think we need rational bureaucracies to manage life for us but there are plenty of human societies that have functioned fine without either.

I need to reread what Banaji said about ""asiatic"" ie tributary modes of production in Theory as History before I will post about this.