Worlding and the labour theory of value part two

In part one I described a sweorlfd or narcissist and his world-parasitising methods of extracting labour from his new-agey targets or marks, by saying to the fools, I mean volunteers, “Do it for the house.”

I restrained myself from quoting directly from Marx or a Marxist canon or any Marxian contributions on the labour theory of value, wanting to example how labour (also known as, comprise of, or split into: effort, skills and time) is alienated by the laws of capital. The owner of real estate owns everything that happens on it unless there is some exclusion governed by statute or agreed to by contract.

It's the same set of circumstances if you improve a property you rent, even if it is just a wonky shelf. Once up and affixed, and the property is thus improved, the landlord owns it. Some of these fools were renting spaces, some were customers and their friends.

This is a slightly different use of the term ‘alienation’ in its legal context.

This term 'alienation' is the Latin form of what the Greeks called metaphor, and refers to the transfer of legal title from one to another, on say property like real estate sold in exchange for some consideration.

These days in our post-scarcity economies we have been somewhat re-framed by the use of 'alienation' in psychology and existential literature of the 20^th century to forget both these more economic and legal uses, there was even a time in the 1800s when an 'alienist' referred to membership of the nascent profession of 'psychologist' —as we call it now. Even now 'alienist' seem more alchemical than the chemistry to which they aspired.

Alienated teenagers, who gives a fuck really?

When I was a young poet I was called an alienist by Pete Spence, publisher, and I, not knowing any of this thought it referred to my introverted reclusive demeanour.

Anyway back to economic-ish arguments about value.

Marxists used the term alienation of labour not to refer to a proper transfer of ownership, however legal it was within inherited and constructed legal systems, but to the appropiation of the value of the work from those who do the work, to those own the business, the plant and machinery, the brand and marketing. I.E. the difference between the costs of running the business and the price one sells it for, makes up the profit one can get in the market. This difference is generated by work. Ideally you pay the workforce nothing inorder to maximise profits. Make ‘em work for tips I say. Or the world.

“Do it for the house.”

Anyways, Marxianists used these arguments of alienation to talk about the labour theory of value, i.e. value is generated by work, regardless of what you get for it in the marketplace. Further, that this reality should determine the price one should/might pay, and not whatever is agreed between thieves and those who fence for them (owners of factories and whoelsaler/retailer ecosystems of distribution). The laws that say any work done on the house is owned by the owner of the house is a situtation that is very 'how convenient', and is an example of ideology/superstructure and those who work for wages and see it as normal and just and the way of the world have false consciousness.

I'll not critique the labour theory of value, nor outline the history of arguments about it. The literature is vast and it will attract the cultural warrior flies.

For my purposes, which ever is 'correct' about ‘reality’ both are the result of the organisation urge we have to should things, it is a way to world the world about us, according to our values, which are both inherent in being human and negotiated among us. If we realise this we will do better at it.

Be better at worlding.

Some game theorist calls this “being human and negotiating among us” in the markletplace 'coordination', not 'cooperation', but I feel (however accurate or well demonstrated they describe various situations) they miss the main game. Without the world we co-operate to produce, the co-ordination (of allocation of resources) is not possible in the marketplace. Some stuff is bottom up, and some stuff is top down, but most of the world is neither/both of these.

If we were better at worlding you would know what I mean. If we were less good at worlding we would be able to see the failures of the world more clearly and be able to do something about it. But our empathy is so good it is bad at, for example, policing the narcissistic sweorlfds among us.

We are like a school of fish who complain about the degradation of the environment but have no word for water.

Why co-ordinate? Is that not just another way to organise and should things into place with a description, normative or not? (Descriptions are nearly always normative in this frame because they inform how we should the world, and if we did not world we would be dead).

Remember sweorlfds or (narcissists/psychopaths) as parasites do not target ‘co-ordination’ or ‘co-ooperation’ or even ‘altruism’ they target the world as it is built by empathy, as we live (and negotiate inorder to co-ordinate/co-operate/should… — it has feedback).

And in reference to the sweorlfds among us, what ever system is used or defended as right/better —labour theories of value or otherwise— sweorlfds will target how we world and twist them to fit their needs.

This is why I feel that arguments that rely on systemic or structuralist (type 1 or type 2) to analyse or argue for various positions on bad things in the world, totally miss the point, and therefore, so distracted, fail to police the narcissists in their own houses, on their own sides.

Sure, 'doing it for the house' is supported by the capitalist infrastructure of the law it co-ordinates, but this sweorlfd guy is a fucking narcissist. Some might say, ‘Let’s wait for the revolution, he’ll disappear.’ My arse he will.

I’d say that if we policed narcissists then it wouldn’t matter what system we used to world, because we would world better and police sweorlfds among us and remove them out of the ‘system’. Otherwise they take the system over and remake it in their own name, and the world in all it power shrinks into the brittle one-ness of a death cult.

Part 3 will look at ideology and paranoia. Part 4 will look at art, and maybe the “art world”.