[careinke]

Good point Careinke----You got me there. I just assumed Muhammad wrote it.

If you are right that Allah gave it to Muhammad over the course of month, then did Allah take 5 years to pass on Das Kapital to Karl Marx?

Well, he had to use much larger, and more esoteric words with Marx ......

[SeaGypsy]

Actually the Koran is a collection of books composed in 3 stages, which often repeat themselves, based on purported actions & sayings of Mohammed. It does not purport to be the voice of God, in the way the modern Bible is designed, is tiny by comparison & covers about 30-40 years in varying detail of the life of 'The Last Prophet'. Who predicted a final forced conversion of the entire world to Islam as the only way to save the world.

[vtsnowedin]

Capitalism seemed to work much better before corporations became people. When an actual human being ran a company, it was slightly self-limited, to what the human thought was acceptable.
Now, a corporation acts like a robot, with a fixed devotion only to stock prices and "shareholder value". Kind of like runaway AI.
That left the law and regulations as the only limits, which were done away with as corporations gained enough power to buy the political and legal systems.
Maybe we should insist that real people be the only entities allowed to wade in the capitalist pool. They seem to have some limits.

Your understanding of history is flawed. Corporations have always been treated as people. Or as a separate person. It was essential from the moment they invented selling stock shares with the shares being a small piece of the ownership of the business. You can sue a person in court and if you win all his assets are at risk and you can sue a corporation and all corporate assets are at risks but not all the assets of all the share holders. That dividing line or limit to risk is what makes investing in corporate stock so attractive. You can buy any stock you want without worrying that they will come back on you and take your house. The most you can lose is the money you spent on the stock.
What has changed is the recent Supreme court decision that extended the first amendment free speech rights to the corporations which they should have had all along but had been denied them by several campaign finance and election laws. But not to worry, they have the right to speak but you are not required to listen or agree with what they say. Seeing that 150 million of corporate money was spent on promoting Jebb Bush's candidacy for Zero delegates it is clear that the populous is exercising it's right not to listen.

[SeaGypsy]

That was my understanding too VT, the recognition was a formality, the defacto corporate person goes right back to the Dutch East India company in the 17th century.

[onlooker]

Well you forgot the big nexus Vts of free speech being equated with money or as this quote expresses " the doctrine that money is a form of speech was not passed in any American legislature. Only seven people, Supreme Court justices, voted to create that inequitable equivalency. That vote took place in 1976 in the ruling on Buckley v. Valeo". http://www.amendmentgazette.com/how-spe ... of-speech/
So from then on the buying of the political establishment and politicians became so much more simple as Corporations could give as much money as they wanted to campaigns as it was their "right". So your dissertation is patently false in so much as it matters not what the populace listens to but what and who politicians who make the laws of the land listen to and to whom. From all the tremendous concessions and the policies that have eroded worker and citizen rights, we know quite well whom the politicians have listened too namely the entities with all the money --- The Corporations.

[vtsnowedin]

Well you forgot the big nexus Vts of free speech being equated with money or as this quote expresses " the doctrine that money is a form of speech was not passed in any American legislature. Only seven people, Supreme Court justices, voted to create that inequitable equivalency. That vote took place in 1976 in the ruling on Buckley v. Valeo". http://www.amendmentgazette.com/how-spe ... of-speech/
So from then on the buying of the political establishment and politicians became so much more simple as Corporations could give as much money as they wanted to campaigns as it was their "right". So your dissertation is patently false in so much as it matters not what the populace listens to but what and who politicians who make the laws of the land listen to and to whom. From all the tremendous concessions and the policies that have eroded worker and citizen rights, we know quite well whom the politicians have listened too namely the entities with all the money --- The Corporations.

Your argument would carry a lot more weight if two of the leading presidential candidates were not refusing corporate money.
As long as it is done openly in the public eye so the voters know where politicians owe their allegiance too the voters can and will sort them out. It is the behind the scenes winks and nods where the subterfuge and bribery take place.

[onlooker]

I think your being a tad bit naive V. First we have a pick of bad and worse. Not what I would call very democratic. Second, the compensation for politicians is very clever and disguises who exactly is giving what. Witness PACs. As for behind the scenes, well who says that is still not occurring. Remember they're is other forms of compensation besides direct money. What about comfy and lucrative positions in the Corporate world. The revolving door of politics and business is well known and documented. Witness a very high up person like Dick Cheney coming from Haliburton into a high position within the Bush administration and so forth.

[evilgenius]

I get how Marxism is like religion. All you have to do with AD is refute the Labor Theory of Value as patently false on its face and you will hear from him in his role as high priest. I do, however, like Marx as a thinker. He doesn't have to be right about everything he said. For instance, what I think AD is getting at is the Hegelian dialectic, where the synthesis is born out of the unity of opposites contained within the old paradigm. Is there a Thesis at work in Capitalism that contains the seeds of its own destruction?

I think there is a polarity working through the system. I think it has to do with the philosophical approach toward running companies. It's simply this, ought they to be run toward the statement of their purpose or toward returning value to shareholders. Jesus said, "You cannot serve two masters. You cannot serve both God and Mammon. Either you will love the one and hate the other or you will hate the one and love the other." If you replace "God" with purpose maybe you can begin to understand what I am saying?

Why do people own companies? We like to pretend that there are no classes per se in America, but aren't there some truly Capitalist class distinctions that come into play when we investigate why people own stock? Yeah, you can take the very simple approach and say that people own stock as an investment, in order to make money. If you say that, though, you are only right for some of the people, even if you are right for the majority.

Look at someone like Elon Musk. He, seemingly, doesn't own in order solely to make money. In fact, he seems quite willing to lose up to an acceptable limit to see the vision behind what his companies are trying to do succeed. He's not alone in the world. He is in a minority. And within that minority not everyone is nearly as altruistic as Musk.

For every one like Musk there are a bunch of other privately help corporations that exist. They deal with the concept of return to shareholders on a much more intimate basis. They have these businesses, like auto repair of some kind, that do very well, but are privately held. They know that if they look upon them only as money spinners and seek to maximize the return over a short-term they will kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. They can enjoy that position relative to the philosophy of management(addressing all kinds of things from employee pay to prices) because of the intimacy that the privately held situation provides them. Similarly, Musk can achieve a partial repeal of the demand for return to shareholders because his motive force is what drives his companies, and he has placed a lot of his own money at stake. Most corporations aren't like that, though.

When you introduce the mass of investors who all want return, the quicker the better, there is no accounting for purpose. In order for minority, Capitalist, thinking to prevail the Capitalist has to engage the rest of the owners in a dance. When they are at a boil over a company, and thus far less interested in the machinations of purpose, they can own fewer shares in order to impress their vision upon a corporation. When there is disinterest, or more properly fear, among the masses it is time to buy. They have to or someone else who thinks like they do about companies could come in and compete with them. Usually it's no big deal to share power on the board with others, but it can be if the wrong type of person buys up a position. Those people's lives are different from most of ours. It doesn't make them evil. They are just members of a different class.

Management sits in the middle. Capitalists own. Management manages. The board selects who manages. With the advent of return of value to shareholders as the dominant paradigm, however, this situation has changed somewhat. It has especially changed with the wide adoption of stock options as payment for services rendered.

[vtsnowedin]

I think your being a tad bit naive V. First we have a pick of bad and worse. Not what I would call very democratic. Second, the compensation for politicians is very clever and disguises who exactly is giving what. Witness PACs. As for behind the scenes, well who says that is still not occurring. Remember they're is other forms of compensation besides direct money. What about comfy and lucrative positions in the Corporate world. The revolving door of politics and business is well known and documented. Witness a very high up person like Dick Cheney coming from Haliburton into a high position within the Bush administration and so forth.

You forgot Hillary and Bill's speaking fees and foundation. But if you and I are talking about them and the revolving door to K street then they are not all that cleverly disguised now are they?

[vtsnowedin]

I get how Marxism is like religion. All you have to do with AD is refute the Labor Theory of Value as patently false on its face and you will hear from him in his role as high priest. I do, however, like Marx as a thinker. He doesn't have to be right about everything he said. For instance, what I think AD is getting at is the Hegelian dialectic, where the synthesis is born out of the unity of opposites contained within the old paradigm. Is there a Thesis at work in Capitalism that contains the seeds of its own destruction?

I think there is a polarity working through the system. I think it has to do with the philosophical approach toward running companies. It's simply this, ought they to be run toward the statement of their purpose or toward returning value to shareholders. Jesus said, "You cannot serve two masters. You cannot serve both God and Mammon. Either you will love the one and hate the other or you will hate the one and love the other." If you replace "God" with purpose maybe you can begin to understand what I am saying?

Why do people own companies? We like to pretend that there are no classes per se in America, but aren't there some truly Capitalist class distinctions that come into play when we investigate why people own stock? Yeah, you can take the very simple approach and say that people own stock as an investment, in order to make money. If you say that, though, you are only right for some of the people, even if you are right for the majority.

Look at someone like Elon Musk. He, seemingly, doesn't own in order solely to make money. In fact, he seems quite willing to lose up to an acceptable limit to see the vision behind what his companies are trying to do succeed. He's not alone in the world. He is in a minority. And within that minority not everyone is nearly as altruistic as Musk.

For every one like Musk there are a bunch of other privately help corporations that exist. They deal with the concept of return to shareholders on a much more intimate basis. They have these businesses, like auto repair of some kind, that do very well, but are privately held. They know that if they look upon them only as money spinners and seek to maximize the return over a short-term they will kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. They can enjoy that position relative to the philosophy of management(addressing all kinds of things from employee pay to prices) because of the intimacy that the privately held situation provides them. Similarly, Musk can achieve a partial repeal of the demand for return to shareholders because his motive force is what drives his companies, and he has placed a lot of his own money at stake. Most corporations aren't like that, though.

When you introduce the mass of investors who all want return, the quicker the better, there is no accounting for purpose. In order for minority, Capitalist, thinking to prevail the Capitalist has to engage the rest of the owners in a dance. When they are at a boil over a company, and thus far less interested in the machinations of purpose, they can own fewer shares in order to impress their vision upon a corporation. When there is disinterest, or more properly fear, among the masses it is time to buy. They have to or someone else who thinks like they do about companies could come in and compete with them. Usually it's no big deal to share power on the board with others, but it can be if the wrong type of person buys up a position. Those people's lives are different from most of ours. It doesn't make them evil. They are just members of a different class.

Management sits in the middle. Capitalists own. Management manages. The board selects who manages. With the advent of return of value to shareholders as the dominant paradigm, however, this situation has changed somewhat. It has especially changed with the wide adoption of stock options as payment for services rendered.

MEGO

[Plantagenet]

Actually the Koran is a collection of books composed in 3 stages, which often repeat themselves, based on purported actions & sayings of Mohammed. It does not purport to be the voice of God, in the way the modern Bible is designed, is tiny by comparison & covers about 30-40 years in varying detail of the life of 'The Last Prophet'. Who predicted a final forced conversion of the entire world to Islam as the only way to save the world.

Moslems believe that everyone should follow the ideas set in the Koran and there will be a final forced conversion of every country to Islam to save the world.

Communists believe that everyone should follow the ideas set down in Das Kapital and there will be a final forced conversion of every country to socialism to save the world.

Christians believe that everyone should follow the idea set down in the New Testament and there will be a final conversion of every country to Christianity to save the world.

I just don't see much difference in the thinking there. Yes, there are some minor differences, but the bottom line is that all these true believers are completely convinced that their particular belief is the absolute truth and that gives them right to tell other people what to do and even to kill them if they don't comply.

[onlooker]

Evil some interesting views which you have expressed before. The only thing I would mention is this "purpose" you speak of. I am not so apt to differentiate the purpose from the return of profit. Or better yet to differentiate the true owners from the stake/share holders. In Capitalism we see that the overriding motive is financial gain. That is the paradigm that is inherent in Capitalism and applies to owners, management and all others. Capitalism is simply in a nuanced manner of speaking a system devised to attain profit or simply earned income in a free market context. Altruistic motives and intentions while they may exist always take a back seat as making money is the mandate both to survive and to thrive. So the motivations of the bourgeoisie class or upper class can be seen in its most fundamental sense as seeking to maintain or increase wealth. I see no other underlying prime motivation. Marx speaks of class warfare. Class warfare is nothing more than the manifestation of the perceived injustice of their being any classes at all from the perspective of the lower class or of not being part of the upper class.

[radon1]

refute the Labor Theory of Value as patently false on its face

How?

[Plantagenet]

refute the Labor Theory of Value as patently false on its face

How?

Easy. Just look at the world around you. The Labor Theory of Value doesn't take into account the power of advertising and branding.

There are literally millions of luxury products---from iPhones to Gucci to BMWs----that are priced far above the value of the labor and materials that went into producing them. The value of these luxury products is clearly based on their reputation for quality and their branding and image created by advertising more than on the cost of the labour that produced them. And luxury products are highly successful in the market---often more profitable and more successful than similar items that cost less and might be just as good but aren't marketed the same way and that don't have the same brand power and prestige.

Cheers!

[ralfy]

Capitalism seemed to work much better before corporations became people. When an actual human being ran a company, it was slightly self-limited, to what the human thought was acceptable.
Now, a corporation acts like a robot, with a fixed devotion only to stock prices and "shareholder value". Kind of like runaway AI.
That left the law and regulations as the only limits, which were done away with as corporations gained enough power to buy the political and legal systems.
Maybe we should insist that real people be the only entities allowed to wade in the capitalist pool. They seem to have some limits.

Your understanding of history is flawed. Corporations have always been treated as people. Or as a separate person. It was essential from the moment they invented selling stock shares with the shares being a small piece of the ownership of the business. You can sue a person in court and if you win all his assets are at risk and you can sue a corporation and all corporate assets are at risks but not all the assets of all the share holders. That dividing line or limit to risk is what makes investing in corporate stock so attractive. You can buy any stock you want without worrying that they will come back on you and take your house. The most you can lose is the money you spent on the stock.
What has changed is the recent Supreme court decision that extended the first amendment free speech rights to the corporations which they should have had all along but had been denied them by several campaign finance and election laws. But not to worry, they have the right to speak but you are not required to listen or agree with what they say. Seeing that 150 million of corporate money was spent on promoting Jebb Bush's candidacy for Zero delegates it is clear that the populous is exercising it's right not to listen.

Are you referring to limited liability?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporati ... _liability

[Hawkcreek]

refute the Labor Theory of Value as patently false on its face

How?

Easy. Just look at the world around you. The Labor Theory of Value doesn't take into account the power of advertising and branding.

There are literally millions of luxury products---from iPhones to Gucci to BMWs----that are priced far above the value of the labor and materials that went into producing them. The value of these luxury products is clearly based on their reputation for quality and their branding and image created by advertising more than on the cost of the labour that produced them. And luxury products are highly successful in the market---often more profitable and more successful than similar items that cost less and might be just as good but aren't marketed the same way and that don't have the same brand power and prestige.

Cheers!

True - and corporate propaganda doesn't stop at advertising and branding. Many bucks are spent on molding public opinion to lean more towards political decisions that favor corporations. A lot of these bucks come from excess profits due to advertising and branding propaganda.
And in a world with no corporate limits, much excess profit is generated simply by monopolistic policies.
The cost of labor and materials are often the smallest part of the price of something.
I realize some here think there is no such thing as "excess" profits.

[evilgenius]

refute the Labor Theory of Value as patently false on its face

How?

It's pretty simple. Markets decide value, not the transmorgrification of a product into something of value because somebody sweated over it. There isn't anything magical about human labor that can establish value. The magical thing is what people think something is worth.

[evilgenius]

Evil some interesting views which you have expressed before. The only thing I would mention is this "purpose" you speak of. I am not so apt to differentiate the purpose from the return of profit. Or better yet to differentiate the true owners from the stake/share holders. In Capitalism we see that the overriding motive is financial gain. That is the paradigm that is inherent in Capitalism and applies to owners, management and all others. Capitalism is simply in a nuanced manner of speaking a system devised to attain profit or simply earned income in a free market context. Altruistic motives and intentions while they may exist always take a back seat as making money is the mandate both to survive and to thrive. So the motivations of the bourgeoisie class or upper class can be seen in its most fundamental sense as seeking to maintain or increase wealth. I see no other underlying prime motivation. Marx speaks of class warfare. Class warfare is nothing more than the manifestation of the perceived injustice of their being any classes at all from the perspective of the lower class or of not being part of the upper class.

Yeah, but that's only if you discount meaning. People try to escape meaning a lot. They do it to their detriment. Power and meaning are very closely correlated. What use is power, after all, if it doesn't have a direction in which it can be wielded? A person can obtain power and consider it an end in itself, but then that is devoid of meaning because, except defensively, it hasn't got any coherent direction to it. Piles of money alone, therefore, don't fill purpose. Having piles of money won't give you meaning, but having control enough to dictate corporate philosophy will. As far as altruism goes, I never said that people have to derive meaning from being good. I'd like to see that, but I don't expect it.

I think a good example of what I am trying to say is Dell Computer. They were going very strong with their model of selling people custom computers over the internet until they decided to cheap out and outsource most of their customer service to India. They also fired that commercial spokesperson, Stewey(or whatever his character was called) because the actor portraying him smoked weed, but that was not as important as the customer service gaff in what happened to them. It turns out that selling computers the way they were doing it was a good way to make money, but they lost site of the purpose as the theme and tried to maximize profit. It didn't turn out well for them. They lost their position as industry leader and champion of market share and as much as they have tried all kinds of tricks to get it back they probably never will.

[careinke]

Actually the Koran is a collection of books composed in 3 stages, which often repeat themselves, based on purported actions & sayings of Mohammed. It does not purport to be the voice of God, in the way the modern Bible is designed, is tiny by comparison & covers about 30-40 years in varying detail of the life of 'The Last Prophet'. Who predicted a final forced conversion of the entire world to Islam as the only way to save the world.

This does not negate my points. I do however like your explanation, thanks. I could never get a good answer from my Wahhabi "buddies" on exactly how the Koran was written down. They just told me others wrote it, based on what Mohamed said. Then you have to consider the whole Hadith thing, which is guidance based on the sayings and actions of Mohamed himself...

An expat I worked with had a theory that when Mohamed was in the cave, he was actually talking with a defrocked monk who was telling him a very bad version of the bible.

On a more serious note, I believe Islam (at least the Wahhabi version), is a serious threat to all other religions (and athiests), especially the ones not from Abraham or the "Book". Islam intends to take over the world, and its followers will conduct both types of Jihad to do it.

Equally scary, is most westerners somehow believe Muslims, deep down, have the same values and beliefs as them. They don't, and we underestimate that.

We need to get our military out of there. The longer we stay, the worse we make it.

Europe is also going to provide the US with valuable lessons on migration control. Hopefully we will be paying attention.

[radon1]

refute the Labor Theory of Value as patently false on its face

How?

It's pretty simple. Markets decide value, not the transmorgrification of a product into something of value because somebody sweated over it. There isn't anything magical about human labor that can establish value. The magical thing is what people think something is worth.

This does not refute anything. How do the markets decide value? How do the people think that something is worth this or that?

The basics of the labor-value theory are irrefutable, because this is not really a theory, this is simple common sense. You can argue about added value and its appropriation, "exploitation" and stuff, but this is a separate matter.