RE: Submission for writing contest about Marxism
Ya I was going to mention this. I think it's cause @chamberpunk wanted to start with a simple example of a change in value without having to go into the complexities of what value actually is (because that's a huge fucking rabbit hole).
I thought this was a pretty succinct summary of marxist economics.
Value is baptismal = it has a non-existence and then an existence. It's produced by labor power, the commodity that has the peculiar quality of being able to produce more value than itself is worth.
All commodities gain value by labor imbued in them. Labor imbues them with:
a) use-value
b) exchange value
The Iron Ingot has use-value and exchange value. But it's inherent value quantity is determined by the socially necessary labor time required to produce the [Iron Ingot]
Yes I just wanted to be fairly brief in this. Just to give a glimpse into his critique of political economy.
I wouldn't consider myself an expert in marxism at all. I've only read the manifesto, the first volume of capital, critique of the gotha program, and a bunch of shorter works online.
So, I'm not the most qualified to speak on Marx or his ideas.
The rabbit hole goes deep, probably deeper then I'll ever have time to explore.
I didn't dive into Marx and Engels dialetics at all, which if I did I probably would not have finished this today.
So I settled for this.
Marx is a master mind in his own right and I don't pretend to be anywhere on that guys level.
@chamberpunk, please don't think I was being critical. I was just adding to the conversation. Nice post.
I thought this was also succinct as well, but that probably could've been avoided altogether. But eh, we both know how deep the rabbit hole goes.