The existence of surplus value implies that society as a whole is essentially incapable of buying everything it produces.

@burnoutqueen largely because its going to someone other than who did the work.

@burnoutqueen whatever instabilities it may have, a socialist market economy where there is total worker ownership and control of production, distribution, and finance would't be a society with surplus value problems.

@FinalOverdrive the only way I could see the elimination of crises in a market-like economy is the elimination of profit and the selling things at the exact cost it took to make it, Lange-Style.

@burnoutqueen I think prices would hover around cost in a worker owned market economy. Give or take. Would never be exact but close.

@burnoutqueen profit is eliminated when you no longer haveva capitalist class and worker gets full value.

@FinalOverdrive @burnoutqueen i'm sorry to butt in here, and feel free to tell me to leave y'all alone but - there's no such thing as "full value"

i highly recommend marx's critique of the gotha program to see why marxists don't talk about workers receiving the "full value of their labor"

in short: value arises through the equivocation of products. that's what a commodity is. a commodity is something "exchangeable" that serves some purpose, some use.

if you no longer have a capitalist class, i.e. if there is no one "taking" the surplus value above the workers you *still* have a society based on the exchangeability of both products *and* the labor to produce those products. in other words: you still have workers as commodities, just as in capitalist society.

let alone all of the different upkeep necessary for the production of commodities. the machines in a factory still need to be fixed, the disabled and elderly and children all still need care. you cannot get "the full value" while these things remain true.

@exiliaex @burnoutqueen I'm not a marxist.

@exiliaex @burnoutqueen And I treat all those things as "I guess? But it would be workers taking care of things together so I don't see the implication. If people are working for themselves or with others, how are they a commodity? There is no wage labor or class of people who have nothing but their own labor."

@FinalOverdrive @burnoutqueen workers taking care of each other under a system in which they still need to buy and sell things - in which their labor has a "value" that's how they are a commodity. there is no such thing as "full value of my labor" without making labor a commodity. or rather, i, personally, don't see how that could be the case, i'm willing to hear other thoughts on it. it sounds to me like it *is* wage labor, otherwise there's no "value"