Forums of the Libertarian Left

But the way to battle non sequitors is to identify them as such. The way to deal with false dichotomies is to show how they are false.

The strangest and most frustrating thing about this latest round of argument is that it is absolutely clear that even the people on the same "side" of this question do not believe the same things. Some of Francois' defenders directly contradict Francois' own word, in his "defense." At that point, whatever else is going on, it's hard to believe that there is a serious debate in progress.

shawnpwilbur wrote:But the way to battle non sequitors is to identify them as such. The way to deal with false dichotomies is to show how they are false.

The strangest and most frustrating thing about this latest round of argument is that it is absolutely clear that even the people on the same "side" of this question do not believe the same things. Some of Francois' defenders directly contradict Francois' own word, in his "defense." At that point, whatever else is going on, it's hard to believe that there is a serious debate in progress.

Well, insofar as my own input on the particular thread on economic value at fr33agents is concerned, that's pretty much what I did. I identified what I think the non-sequitors are, stressed the factor of bargaining power, and objected to psychologism. Unless this is an entirely new thread on the matter that's in question here, in which case I had no input and don't know about it.

I personally don't think Franc's over-arching argument against the STV makes sense. My own objections are of a different nature and more specific, rather than an attempt to "refute" the STV altogether. And I think that Carson's position on the matter makes sense, while Franc appears to be taking an absolutist LTV position that is actually not held by most contemporary mutualists.

I didn't say I wanted to adhere to baseline mutualism. I call myself a mutualism but I form my own ideas based on what I read and think about. You guys keep accusing me of not being kosher, as if I cared in the first place! You don't know me very well!

I am not here to make friends or impress others with my adherence to the mutualist baseline. I am here to discuss arguments. They either stand or fall on the basis of logic. If you can argue with the logic, then do so. Otherwise I'm not interested.

[3:26:27 AM] Noor: so what precisely do you mean by "innate worth'?
[3:26:58 AM] Francois Tremblay: I didn't say that
[3:27:02 AM] Francois Tremblay: I said innate value
[3:27:19 AM] Noor: yes but I said you should avoid the word value
[3:27:46 AM] Francois Tremblay: fine then
[3:27:48 AM] Francois Tremblay: let's say price
[3:28:06 AM] Noor: price is associated with the market price
[3:28:14 AM] Francois Tremblay: sigh
[3:28:17 AM] Noor: as in what the buyer and seller agree on
[3:28:18 AM] Francois Tremblay: fine, let's say correct price
[3:28:25 AM] Francois Tremblay: that's not a valid pric3e
[3:28:36 AM] Francois Tremblay: you're assuming STV
[3:29:17 AM] Noor: okay, so what is the "innate correct price" or whatever?
[3:29:39 AM] Francois Tremblay: cost is its limit
[3:30:37 AM] Noor: oh okay
[3:30:45 AM] Francois Tremblay: the limit of price is cost
[3:30:48 AM] Noor: Well maybe you should use the term 'cost the limit of price"
[3:30:50 AM] Francois Tremblay: and cost is measured in hours
[3:30:54 AM] Francois Tremblay: work hours
[3:31:01 AM] Francois Tremblay: therefore the limit of price is work hours
[3:31:09 AM] Noor: Do you count in other factors like difficulty?
[3:31:09 AM] Francois Tremblay: this follows logically
[3:31:19 AM] Francois Tremblay: I count other costs, but those costs are also reducible to work hours
[3:31:21 AM] Francois Tremblay: for instance
[3:31:31 AM] Francois Tremblay: a physically demanding work will entail health care costs
[3:31:36 AM] Francois Tremblay: these costs are reducible to work hours also
[3:31:51 AM] Francois Tremblay: an intellectually demanding work will entail education
[3:31:56 AM] Noor: yea, but that is kind of much harder to calculate?
[3:31:57 AM] Francois Tremblay: education is reducible to work hours
[3:32:00 AM] Francois Tremblay: yes
[3:32:03 AM] Francois Tremblay: it is
[3:32:08 AM] Francois Tremblay: which is why a schedule of wages would develop
[3:32:23 AM] Francois Tremblay: with certain kinds of work being given a certain factor
[3:32:40 AM] Francois Tremblay: the baseline being 1 hour = 1 hour
[3:33:21 AM] Francois Tremblay: 1 hour x cost factors
[3:33:43 AM] Noor: But how would you calculate those cost factors?
[3:34:00 AM] Francois Tremblay: for example, let's say college education would be 1.5, physically demanding work would be 1.5 also
[3:34:05 AM] Francois Tremblay: so a job demanding both would now command
[3:34:21 AM] Francois Tremblay: 2.25 hours/hour
[3:34:29 AM] Francois Tremblay: 1 hour for the labour, and 1.25 hours for the costs
[3:34:58 AM] Francois Tremblay: we are saying, you are owed 1 hour for each hour of work you perform, but we also compensate you for your extra costs for the tune of 1.25 hours per hour


[3:47:42 AM] Noor: Okay, so in regards to the LTV, are you basically saying that what cost one 1 hour of labor to make, deserves in return a product that also cost 1 hour of labor to make?
[3:48:00 AM] Francois Tremblay: right
[3:48:01 AM] Francois Tremblay: exactly
[3:48:17 AM] Francois Tremblay: an egalitarian process, not an egalitarian outcome
[3:48:29 AM] Francois Tremblay: As an Anarchists, we couldn't care less about outcomes
[3:48:36 AM] Francois Tremblay: in fact, to dictate outcomes is counter-Anarchist
[3:48:58 AM] Francois Tremblay: we need to develop egalitarian processes by which we can build a society, and the outcomes will take care of themselves
[3:50:52 AM] Noor: So like, if I spend one hour on a product, someone wants it (not again the mudpie strawman), their payment to me ought to be something that also took the same amount of labor for them?
[3:51:05 AM] Francois Tremblay: or to someone else

Francois should probably also avoid the phrase "cost the limit of price," because "cost" has traditionally been measured in "pain" and "intensity," with units like "one standard hour of corn production" being simply rough standards for evaluating quantities of labor-pain. These are measures which were thoroughly individualized, with supply and demand there to provide limits on individual valuations that were out-of-scale with those of the valuers fellows.

The reason Francois is getting asked about the relation of his "left-mutualism" to mutualism in general, is that he has made pronouncements which would exclude virtually every major historical and contemporary mutualist figure, and a whole lot of the minor ones. This is inevitable, since mutualism has been based on intersubjective balance -- the ability of individuals to work things out between themselves, not on the basis of a uniform natural law, but striking a balance between the individual interests arising from their individual laws of development. The "approximate" nature of mutualism isn't just something I cooked up a couple of years ago; it's basic to the tradition, excluding the Tremblayite variation. Francois described himself as an "absolutist mutualist." Proudhon described mutualism as the outcome of the interaction between "free absolutes." There seems to be a significant difference between the two, as the first lacks the pluralistic element that is central to the work of folks like Warren and Proudhon.

What really baffles me is why Francois wants "cost" to inhere in the object alone. The concern is that individuals will not carry their own costs, that some will impose their costs on others and some will not have the costs of their labor covered by their remuneration. These costs are experienced by individuals as individual, and any attempt to standardize their measurement and compensation is likely to introduce an experience of injustice -- an experience not likely to be lessened by the sort of ad hoc calculation we've seen so far. Subjective valuation and intersubjective negotiation within a market freed of privilege really are the elegant solutions here.

My view of value is closer to Carson's than Tremblay's.

With my understanding of the LTV, an attack on the STV is an attack on our own starting point. If the LTV is the fruit of the interaction of individual valuation, trade, greater effort where there are shortages, and lesser effort where there are surpluses, the STV is the root. I think the LTV is a useful, but not universally useful, response to attempts to attribute production to capital, and to attempts to deny the fact of exploitation.

I know what you're doing Wilbur. You're trying to get me to reject mutualism so I stop bothering you with my ideas. You want to throw up anyone who does not follow baseline mutualism. You want this board to be your fiefdom. WELL SCREW YOU WILBUR! SCREW YOUR BASELINE MUTUALISM! I'm rebelling against you, old man! Down with your authority!

Francois Tremblay wrote:I know what you're doing Wilbur. You're trying to get me to reject mutualism so I stop bothering you with my ideas. You want to throw up anyone who does not follow baseline mutualism. You want this board to be your fiefdom. WELL SCREW YOU WILBUR! SCREW YOUR BASELINE MUTUALISM! I'm rebelling against you, old man! Down with your authority!

Yawn. You're a very stupid little troll sometimes, Francois, but so obvious that you're not much bother...

The most interesting "rebellion," of course, would be to actually clarify this "inherent cost" (or whatever the term is going to be), since, so far, it's not even an idea...

In my opinion of value theory, everyone tries to get as much remoneration for their efforts so looks for the cheapest stuff to buy which is the mechanism by which competition reduces price ever closer to material costs and the subjective disutility of labour. I dont care if thats LTV, STV or SLTV all i know is it makes sense as an explanation of prices.

Francois reminds me a little of Bookchin. They're both pretty arrogant and they both spend ages debunking ridiculous arguments while brushing aside more well thought out arguments (I'm referring to Bookchin's dismissal of Benjamin tucker in 'Social anarchism and lifestyle anarchism' as 'an adherent of a quaint version of free competition' whilst spending a whole section attacking Hakim Beys 'Anarcho'-mysticism just FYI)

I dunno much about Bookchin, but this part of Proudhon's biography...

"[T]there was more malice in Victor Considerant's description of [Proudhon] as "that strange man who was determined that none should share his views." He enjoyed shocking not only the bourgeousie but other socialists as well, and in the stormier days of the revolution of 1848 he revelled in the title of "l'homme terreur."

The issue isn't what "baseline mutualism" is. The issue is what's right. And so far, Franc's argument rests on something that most clearly does not exist - "value" as a property of the object itself. He makes this stupid fallacy abundantly clear when he compares "value" to "color" and "volume." And in an even more ridiculous stroke, he goes on to accuse STVers of "equivocating" between "value as a human judgement" and this nonexistent voodoo. Next time someone tells me that ghosts don't power computers, I'll accuse them of equivocating between the actual computer and the ghost that lives inside the computer.

Ceapmann wrote:The issue isn't what "baseline mutualism" is. The issue is what's right. And so far, Franc's argument rests on something that most clearly does not exist - "value" as a property of the object itself. He makes this stupid fallacy abundantly clear when he compares "value" to "color" and "volume." And in an even more ridiculous stroke, he goes on to accuse STVers of "equivocating" between "value as a human judgement" and this nonexistent voodoo. Next time someone tells me that ghosts don't power computers, I'll accuse them of equivocating between the actual computer and the ghost that lives inside the computer.

Yes, that's pretty much my take on the matter as well, though with less uh invective.

Reality does not bend to your desires. What sort of idiots believe in this nonsense anyway? I point out a major logical fallacy in the concept over and over, and you guys still slavishly follow it. You guys claim to be over capitalism, but you're really capitalism's True Believers.

Francois Tremblay wrote:Reality does not bend to your desires.

That's not what anyone is saying. The nature of the opposing argument does not bend to your desires.

I point out a major logical fallacy in the concept over and over, and you guys still slavishly follow it.

No, you've imagined a fallacy. Since you believe that "physical value" exists, you imagine that STVers believe in it as well, and construct a straw-man in which STV asserts that subjective value alters physical value (and makes the connection by "equivocating" between the two.) In fact, STV simply denies that "physical value" exists.

Until you provide evidence for the existence of "physical value," you're in no position to call anyone "slavish." It would be slavish to accept your assertion of its existence without demanding any evidence.

You guys claim to be over capitalism, but you're really capitalism's True Believers.

I won't even bother to explain the obvious fallacy there.

The ultimate flaw in Franc's theory is his multiplier for different inputs. There's no way to calculate it, and it's doubtless going to change as the difficulty in acquiring various inputs changes. The only way to do so would be *gasp* competitive pricing to determine the market value.

I think Franc may be unique in being the only former capitalist to make the mistake of the socialist calculation problem!

I'm talking about the term "the value of a product," meaning an attribute of the product, as opposed to the values of the individual, which are relative to the individual.

Hunh?

The value you speak of = the objects attributes? Furthermore , you hold this to be separate from user/individual evaluation?

If I understand this correctly then it sounds like you're saying that certain objects have more fitting 'attributes' to serve a particular function than another. For example , a screwdriver would be more efficient at turning screws than a spoon and a spoon would be more efficient at eating cereal than a screwdriver?

I'm gonna assume you are a rational individual and this is what you mean and hopefully you're not referring to some mystical metaphysical value imbued into an object.

Let me know if my description is what you mean by your value and we can talk further about it.