That knowledge is what enables the company to build a context within which everyone’s work has the value that it does. Outside that context, the value of effort becomes tremendously less because it is not coordinated.
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This is why the labor theory of value is wrong, because it is context and coordination that creates most of the value, not the actual labor per se.
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Replying to @Jonathan_Blow @pumbertop
And without the labour, it never happens. It is the labour that creates and sustains the company - and owning capital is what allows you to purchase that labour. Otherwise you're just another "ideas guy", one out of millions.
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Replying to @JonasKyratzes @pumbertop
Well no. The labor is part of what creates and sustains the company, but if you took away all the knowledge and constant coordination and just had workers and said “okay workers, create and sustain the company”, well, it doesn’t work. The company is gone.
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If all it took was labor to create and sustain a company, you would see a lot more successful companies, it would be much easier than it actually is. Any group of workers who got together would form a successful company. They would have no problem getting capital because
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the lender would feel secure in loaning it, because all it takes is labor and they have the labor. That sounds like a very safe investment!!!
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Replying to @Jonathan_Blow @pumbertop
And still, nothing can exist without labour. Not a shred. All of it requires people working, and a lot, to make it happen.
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Replying to @JonasKyratzes @pumbertop
Sure. I am just saying that the value of labor is contextual, and making successful contexts is very hard usually.
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Replying to @Jonathan_Blow @pumbertop
We can extol the virtues of the clever, active moderate-scale capitalist (and Marxists don't actually necessarily disagree with that) while still seeing that overall that figure barely exists at this point.
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Replying to @JonasKyratzes @pumbertop
But I am not trying to say any of that. I am just saying, objectively speaking, the value of labor depends on context, so speaking of labor as if it had value on its own will lead to incorrect conclusions.
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If you think it’s better for a company to be 100% worker-owned, etc, you can set that up and see if it creates a successful context (definitely people in the USA do this sometimes).
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Replying to @Jonathan_Blow @pumbertop
Yeah, that's misleading because it really is just one aspect of the whole thing, and it requires a much wider discussion which we can't possibly have here.
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