Keith believes that value is not wealth, but use value. Value is the amount of labor that is bought, sold and circulated, and is attached to "use value" (our subconscious default definition of value). /From China.com community club.china.com/

According to Marx's logic, socialism and communism should pursue "use value" and reduce to eliminate value and the law of value. Therefore, socialism is a society that does not pursue value or profit, but only pursues "use value" (wealth). And this so-called gross product GDP is actually the total amount of value generated in a certain period of time. Therefore, when it comes to anti-GDP, Marx is the first person in human history. Value and the realization of surplus value are not specific wealth (use value), but "the amount of labor being bought, sold and circulated". This "quantity of labor" is attached to use value, and buying and selling becomes value. In fact, it has nothing to do with the increase of use value. Use value is wealth. /From China.com Community club.china.com/

For example: for a 100-meter house, its use value exists objectively under certain conditions. As long as the house is not damaged, its use value remains unchanged. of. But an ordinary worker used to spend five years of wages to buy it, but now it takes 20 to 30 years of wages. Some people only notice the rise in prices. In fact, they are deceived by fetishism and fetishistic thinking. What the increase in value brings is that the labor of a large number of workers is swallowed up and turned into value. The labor intensity and time of workers increase. In order to obtain For the same use value as before, more work has to be done. And more labor is wasted by the rich, and the production structure points to the production of luxury goods for the rich. This is what capitalism calls economic growth. The supply and demand theory popular in capitalist economics is also vulgar economics that covers the purchase and sale of labor. The phenomenon of consumption is actually a process of labor and labor exchange. As a consumer, he must be the controller of the amount of circulating labor in the monetization of commodities. The root of all social economics is not to satisfy any needs. Human needs are infinite and unpredictable. Therefore, the root of all social economics should be the control of labor quantity and the mutual exchange between labor quantity.

With this increase in value (amount of labor) in capitalism, wealth (use value) does not necessarily increase. For example, satisfying the luxury goods of the rich requires a large amount of labor (value), while the mid- to low-end consumer goods needed by the poor may be greatly reduced. Compared with the poor, the materials they use for food, clothing, housing, and entertainment are not actually as huge as the difference in value between the rich and the poor. As far as a rich person is concerned, it is impossible for him and his family to eat the food of millions of people, wear the clothes of millions of people, and live in the houses of millions of people. However, the sumptuous meals that the rich eat, the brand-name clothes they wear, the high-end medicines they wear, the luxurious villas they live in, and the cars they live in are indeed not affordable for the poor. Luxurious villas, cars, etc. can be said to be fine. As for food, brand-name clothes, and high-end medicines, the physical and direct labor consumption is not much different from that of the poor. Except for medicines with scarce resources, most medicines are actually just some powders, and their production costs and labor consumption are extremely low. They are similar to the material and labor consumption of many goods used by the poor, but these for the rich Luxury goods do directly and indirectly consume a large amount of labor (value) that is bought, sold and circulated. The gap in labor consumption between them and workers is huge, but the gap in real material wealth is indeed not that big. Under such circumstances, if a super rich person subsidizes a large amount of money to the poor and uses a large amount of money to buy the consumer goods needed by the poor, the result will definitely lead to an increase in the prices of the materials needed by the poor, because the capitalist production structure is not Pointed at the poor. This also shows that value cannot be exchanged for specific use value. Another example: People thirty years ago never expected that such and such consumer products would appear today. But people thirty years from now can withdraw the money they saved in the first thirty years and use it to buy personal computers, TVs, etc. Therefore, what is realized in value (money) is not a specific use value (wealth) at all, but a specific use value (wealth). The amount of labor involved in monetizing a commodity.

We can also look at this issue from a monetary perspective. For banks, there must be savings to deposit and loans to lend.

If it is assumed that people's savings are maintained as bank deposits (this is true in the statistics of money supply), then can people withdraw 10% more of the bank deposits used as savings for consumption? Obviously impossible, this will inevitably cause commercial banks to fail; similarly, people cannot save 10% more as bank deposits without corresponding investment loans, which will also cause commercial banks to fail. When people try to do this, they will inevitably Allow commercial banks to change the money supply, thereby causing changes in income levels and preventing people from changing the ratio of money consumption and savings, or adjusting it through economic fluctuations. In other words, stimulating or not stimulating consumption will not affect whether there is overproduction or not. The cause of overproduction is obviously the gap in distribution. For brand-name clothes and high-priced drugs, although the material cost is very low, But it is produced for the rich, and the difference in monetary value represents the status of money dominating labor. And if the poor want to obtain these, they must use more labor in exchange for income. For capitalists in capitalist production, what they pursue is value and surplus value, rather than the creation of use value (wealth). The purpose of capitalists is to extract the surplus value from workers to the maximum extent. The surplus value is not any specific surplus wealth at all, but the amount of labor used to produce luxury goods for the capitalists and the capital that devours more workers' labor. Therefore, capitalist enterprises are the product of class struggle.

Let’s use this logic again to look at the nominal GDP pursued by capitalism or market economy. In the statistics of actual GDP, the per capita GDP of the United States was 1,600 US dollars in 1820, and the per capita GDP of China in 2000 was less than 1,300 US dollars. What is even more terrible is that China’s GDP in the Song Dynasty was equivalent to 2,200 US dollars. Is it true that the Chinese people are now Is the standard of living worse than that of the United States in 1820 or the Song Dynasty of China? This is obviously a bit ridiculous. You only need to compare the per capita output of the products that were available in the United States or China during the Song Dynasty with the per capita output in China today. Not to mention that most of the things we consume now were not available in the United States or the Song Dynasty at that time. of. As people often say, China is now the "world's factory". Its ownership of almost all consumer goods, including cars and civil aircraft, ranks among the top in the world. It also exports a large amount of consumer goods to the United States every year. How can it be possible that China can surpass the United States in 1820 and the Song Dynasty? Is the standard of living even lower? This problem is actually very well explained by the labor theory of value. "Use value" cannot be measured by money. It is understandable why the per capita GDP of the Song Dynasty is equivalent to the level of 2,200 US dollars (I want to say that GDP is actually money, currency. The labor theory of value is the basis of monetary theory). Undoubtedly, our living standards today are much higher than those in the Song Dynasty. In ancient times, there were no computers, televisions, or even radios. Computers, televisions, and the Internet all have specific use values ??(wealth). Of course, there were other use values ??in ancient times, such as riding horses, fighting crickets, watching peepshows, etc. Although the use values ??are different in each era, no matter in ancient times or Modern exchange of labor quantity is attached to these use values, but there is a problem. "Use value" cannot be measured by money. What exchange can only measure is this "circulation quantity of labor" (value).

There is an example of applying real GDP in a macroeconomics textbook. When talking about the economic growth of Japan and the Four Asian Tigers, the author wrote that through hard work and technological progress, these countries and regions have There is no problem with keeping the real GDP growth rate at around 7% for three to forty consecutive years, but then it goes on to say that this 7% growth rate has enabled the per capita GDP of these countries and regions to increase from the post-war period. By the 1990s, great changes had taken place. Japan's per capita GDP increased from US$130 after the war to US$30,000, South Korea increased from US$50 to US$12,000, Taiwan increased from US$80 to US$16,000, and so on.

It’s a joke when we put the two paragraphs together, because GDP grows at 7.2% every year and will double in 10 years. How can these countries and regions grow so much in 40 years at a growth rate of 7%? Woolen cloth? The above figures are of course nominal GDP. To explain these figures, of course, nominal GDP must also be used. For example, Japan’s nominal GDP growth rate exceeded 15% during its high-growth period. At the same time, the exchange rate of the Japanese yen against the U.S. dollar increased threefold, while South Korea’s high-growth period During the period, the growth rate of nominal GDP was close to 30%. However, it is impossible for economists to use real GDP to explain the growth of real output and separate the changes in price levels and exchange rates at the same time. It can be said with certainty here that, This will not be possible in the future, so using the statistical indicator of "real GDP" in this way is a bit strange.

However, it is indeed very easy to explain using Marx’s labor theory of value. This per capita GDP growth is much higher than the mathematically expected growth. It is actually caused by changes in socially necessary labor time. According to the labor theory of value, the exchange rate actually represents the proportion of labor exchange. As the productivity of these countries increases, the labor exchange ratio with the United States changes.

Next, we can cite more examples of the embarrassment brought to economists by using actual GDP to compare physical goods. For example, to explain how much China's GDP is in U.S. dollars, we must first solve the issue of the exchange rate of the RMB against the U.S. dollar. Economists try to calculate it using the purchasing power parity method. What is the result? From underestimation when advocating RMB devaluation during the Southeast Asian financial crisis to overestimation when advocating RMB appreciation now, economists have given more than ten calculation results ranging from 2 US dollars to 14 US dollars. This error may reach 7 times. Can it still be applied?

In 1930, Keynes raised questions about the statistical meaning of this kind of national income in his book "On Monetary Theory". The various products in GDP statistics are heterogeneous, so how can they be added together to represent physical goods? What about output? In fact, this aggregation and exponential problem has a definite conclusion in theory, that is, it can only be a single product or a steady state growth (that is, all products grow at the same proportion). For example, there are two products: apples and pears. , if their growth rates are both 10%, it can be said with certainty that the growth rate of output is 10%; but if the growth rate of apples is 15% and the growth rate of pears is 5%, it is impossible for us to get a definite Exponential. This problem is actually very easy to understand. For example, in the heterogeneous world of our real life, it is obviously not clearer to say that GDP grew by 8% than to say that last year a 21-inch TV was produced and this year a 29-inch TV was produced.

The same is true for the statistics of price index. This kind of statistics is only possible under a single product and a stable state. For example, the prices of apples and pears have increased by 10%. It can be said with certainty that prices have increased. But if the price of apples rises by 15% and the price of pears rises by 5%, or if the prices rise at the same time and the production ratio of apples and pears changes, it is impossible for us to get a definite price index. The embarrassing result of using the purchasing power parity method to calculate the RMB exchange rate cited above is an example. Mainstream economics textbooks also say that the statistics of price index may ignore the changes in product quality. We can understand this issue from another angle. If the statistics of price index consider the changes in product quality, because the changes in product quality are too If the product is fast (such as televisions), then the price index statistics will be meaningless, because as long as the quality changes, it will be regarded as a new product and cannot form a time series index with the original product. Relevant to the reality of national income accounting, the difficulty of price index statistics in reality is far beyond the previous example. Not only the quality of products is often changing, but also new products are emerging one after another. An example can be given to illustrate this problem. The current calculation of my country's price index is based on 1990. However, it is almost difficult to find products on the market that are exactly the same as those in 1990, let alone new products that account for a large proportion of consumer spending. product. Obviously, the calculation of this price index is far from the statistics of physical quantities.

The price index that people usually refer to refers to the consumer price index (CPI). This consumer price index is often used as the basis for calculating actual national income.

However, this consumer price index is obviously not a statistic of all products and services. For example, the price changes of capital goods are excluded, and the price changes of capital goods are represented by a separate index. Since capital goods are included in all statistics of my country’s GDP, Products account for about 30%, so it is obvious that GDP does not represent changes in physical quantity. As far as consumer goods are concerned, the products included in the consumer price index do not constitute all consumer expenditures. For example, in the 1990s, household appliances already accounted for a large proportion of my country’s residents’ consumption, but only in 2000. Consider adding this to the price index calculation. Obviously, using this price index method to calculate real GDP is highly questionable.

The retained amount of value will eventually form capital. According to statistics, about 65% of the total capital in the United States is real estate, and this proportion has remained stable in the long term, because the investment rate in the United States is stable in the long term. , then it means that the increase in capital or capital accumulation transformed by investment is only an increase in the value of real estate or an increase in land prices, but not an increase in machinery at all. In this way, capital is just that piece of land, and capital accumulation is just people buying that piece of land at a higher price (investment). Of course, apart from land, there is 35% of capital. Are they machines? The answer is still no. Of the remaining 35% of capital, most or more than 50% are made up of intangible assets such as patents and trademarks. The value of machines only accounts for a small proportion of the total capital. Textbooks always use statistics to show that the capital-labor ratio in the United States is 40 times that of China, but everyone knows that machines are intermediate products produced by labor. The stock of machines currently used in the United States was only produced in the past 20 years. Previously, The machines are all scrapped. There are only a few million industrial workers in the United States, but there are hundreds of millions of surplus labor in China. If capital is machines, China can use these people to produce the machines in the United States in one year ( Of course, you need to know the production technology of these machines). In fact, China is now producing machines at this rate and becoming the world's factory, but the possibility of catching up with the United States in terms of capital value is very small.

In the statistics of national income, how can the high income of those football stars and singers, which exceeds tens of millions, be added together with bread to form GDP. Why can the meager wages of bakers and the incomes of football stars and movie stars be added together to form the total GDP? The reason is simply that they are all employed by capitalists. If the profit rate is 10%, and the capitalist pays the baker a salary of 100 US dollars, he will sell the bread for 110 US dollars and get a profit of 10 US dollars, while the 10 million US dollars paid to the movie star will The salary is to recover a million dollars in profit from the sale of the film, and it is this nature that allows the disparate products and services to be aggregated. Since the national income accounting system was used in the 1930s, its nature and significance have not been considered theoretically. On the contrary, Marx's definition of productive labor and value seems to be the theoretical basis for GDP and other national income statistics. After criticizing Smith for taking the production of material products as the definition of productive labor, Marx pointed out that in capitalist economic relations, Only labor that can bring surplus value to capitalists or wage labor that produces capital is productive labor. Here, Marx's surplus value can be linked to GDP statistics by measuring it in monetary terms. When using monetary transactions, assuming that all enterprises are capitalist enterprises and all workers are employed by capitalists, Marx's definition of productive labor is consistent with the statistics of national income, that is, all products are processed through The two processes of buying and selling money in order to increase its value do not involve at all the specific form of labor that produces surplus value. (Here I emphasize a logical problem raised by Marx. Only what has use value is wealth. Value does not represent wealth. Therefore, only the growth of use value can be called the production function or gross production value, but it is different from the value of things. Heterogeneity makes it impossible to add together, so the total production value of foreign objects is a non-existent concept. We can only say how much homogeneous objects are produced and how they are used. It can only be used in the material balance sheet. To express)

Therefore, for market economy or capitalist economic relations, what is important is nominal GDP, not the "real GDP" that reflects output, and this "real GDP" does not reflect the output at all. exist.

Moreover, the so-called GDP of a society under complete military control will become zero, which is incomprehensible to those who regard this so-called GDP as a production function.