Graeber feels we should be concentrating less on purely economic theories of value than theories of values which involve more social interests, which seems like the more 'primary' value. In particular, he questions whether the CGI artist's job was creating value for society as a whole. The artist himself didn't seem to think he was, hence why the CGI artist felt his job was bullshit. Maybe the artist's internal system of social value included some aspect of labour value, but it's hard to say since our own perspectives on social value are so murky.
1. Things that create value (in the sense of producing something people want and trading it for money or other things [which can include looking at ads])
2. Things that don't add value but are necessary because markets are imperfect (advertising agencies, marketing consultants, accountants, lawyers, real estate agents, etc.)
3. Things that _exploit_ imperfect markets for profit (hedge funds, investment banks, landlords, speculators, patent trolls, etc.)
2. and 3. seems to be where the money is these days. My feeling is that a society that prioritizes 2. and 3. is not adding much value to itself, and therefore isn't in a healthy place.
Can I have a source for that please? It seems absurd.
> They are additional services that increase the cost of the product, and Marx actually used the term parasitic for these activities and argued they should all be minimised or preferably eliminated.
Today we use the term "overhead". Are you saying that the cost of distributing products should not be minimized?
> The result was actual productivity in the real economy collapsed because it turns out some of these parasitic activities are kind of important. They ruthlessly stripped out all the bullshit and produced stale, drab societies of bored hungry drones. Thanks guys.
So the Soviet economy failed because... the things it produced were not actually distributed to the people as that would have destroyed value in the eyes of the CPSU? I never heard of that theory before.
> Who actually needs plays, books of fiction, music, [...]?
As a specific example? People who like to criticise them after dinner, like Marx.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/8116796-for-as-soon-as-the-...
you can have your advertising and everything else you want, but if the bread and butter of your advertising strategy is over-exploiting dark patterns and others shady mechanism while keeping the products the same, are you creating value (for the consumer)?
I don't think they have any problem with the original theory of advertising, which is informing the potential consumer of your product, about its existence, its usefulness and the advantages it has over the competition.
a more coherence basis of what is said in the book is simply that a a non negligible part of today economy is about wealth extraction but disguised as wealth creation, and the people that are tasked to do that can tell.
Who gets to say what is an acceptable advert? We already have regulations prohibiting misleading advertising. I suppose we could beef those up, but this goes far, far further than marginal practices in advertising. It cuts to the heart of huge swathes if service jobs, hospitality, entertainment, culture and even sport. I’m not clear how you think all this should be regulated, how such prohibitions should be enforced, and what kind of society would result.
This is the most bizarre take on the Marxist labor theory of value I've ever seen.
Do you have a source for this idea that transporting a clock destroys value?
This resulted in Marxists creating uniform, identikit societies with standardised products directly distributed wherever possible. No advertising, no consumer choice because the process of accumulating the information necessary, and selecting products on an individual basis instead of collectively is wasteful.
The result was actual productivity in the real economy collapsed because it turns out some of these parasitic activities are kind of important. They ruthlessly stripped out all the bullshit and produced stale, drab societies of bored hungry drones. Thanks guys.
Who actually needs plays, books of fiction, music, nice clothes, holidays to pretty places? Who needs nice haircuts, polished nails, stylish cars, waited service? All of that is bullshit we don't need.
The only slight problem is it eliminates everything that actually makes life worth living. It eliminates all forms of aesthetic and cultural value, recognising only productive economic value, devoted to the activity of production itself. It suborns human value to material value.