Re:Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers
by claudiawerner on Tuesday January 22, 2019 @01:45PM
(#18971025)
>If someone invents a tool and sells it for a profit - who was exploited?
Nobody, and Marx doesn't say that anyone is in such a case.
>Is it not possible for everyone to be richer than they started and also create wealth??
In some way, it is possible - after all, the worker is richer than he was before (he has more money thanks to his wage) as is the capitalist (who has made money from the sale). Now what wealth is created? Arguably, social wealth in the case of new technology being developed, for example. But Marx doesn't deal with this concept of "wealth" or even immediately money, he deals with the concept of value, which works at a different level of abstraction to money. The value-form only becomes the price-form, they're not identical.
I'd suggest looking up theories of exploitation as they have been figured in Marxisms that don't rely on a labour theory of value. It's too much[0] to summarize in one HN comment, but you don't need to read Capital either (though it would be helpful).
Nobody, and Marx doesn't say that anyone is in such a case.
>Is it not possible for everyone to be richer than they started and also create wealth??
In some way, it is possible - after all, the worker is richer than he was before (he has more money thanks to his wage) as is the capitalist (who has made money from the sale). Now what wealth is created? Arguably, social wealth in the case of new technology being developed, for example. But Marx doesn't deal with this concept of "wealth" or even immediately money, he deals with the concept of value, which works at a different level of abstraction to money. The value-form only becomes the price-form, they're not identical.
I'd suggest looking up theories of exploitation as they have been figured in Marxisms that don't rely on a labour theory of value. It's too much[0] to summarize in one HN comment, but you don't need to read Capital either (though it would be helpful).
[0] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/exploitation/