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Archive 1 |
1) In a branch, firms, which, with a given amount of invested capital, can produce the most, have an advantage against competitors. Therefore firms try to out-produce each other.
2) To increase production (or production capacity) firms can enlarge their enterprise by investing their profits on the basis of the given technique. More workers, more means of production are used with the same technique.
3) To increase production (or production capacity) firms can increase investments per worker in order to increase production per worker. The technical composition of capital rises thereby.
4) In order that for a firm it is rational to use profits to increase the technical composition of capital (the capital intensity) by a certain percentage, it is necessary that thereby production per worker is increased by a larger percentage. Otherwise more production could be achieved by investing profits in capacity enlargements on the basis of the existing technique.
5) Therefore, an incentive for firms to use profits to increase the technical composition of capital by a certain percentage exists, if thereby production per worker can be increased by a larger percentage.
6) In so far as this incentive is given, firms will try to increase the technical composition of capital as much as possible. They will try to increase it, if possible, by a percentage, which is larger than the preceding rate of growth of the productivity of their workers. (They might use only their profits to finance more investments per worker, but they can also borrow money from banks or merge with other firms. Capital concentration – growth of single firms – goes hand in hand with capital centralisation – the number of firms declines in order to allow even higher growth rates for the remaining firms.)
7) If this continues to happen, if an increase in the productivity of labour in firms is followed by an even larger increase in the technical composition of capital, then it follows mathematically, that growth of employment will slow down, employment will even shrink sooner or later. According to the labour theory of value, this means that the rate of profit must decrease. (It might suffice to say, that employment must finally shrink. This is sufficient for a tendency for crisis to come about.)
8) So, the condition for a slowing down of employment growth or for a falling rate of profit is, that firms have an incentive to increase the technical composition of capital more (in %) than the productivity of their workers has increased (in %).
9) If this incentive is given, firms are caught in a rationality trap or in a prisoners’ dilemma. It is rational for individual firms to increase the technical composition of capital more than labour productivity has risen, but for the collective of firms, for the economy as a whole, this leads to crisis.
Alex1011 22:10, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
I added a fourth response to the criticism.
The page in general could use better documentation of its sources.
-- Rainercale 19:40, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
I don't mean to be presumptuous or mean, but I took the liberty of changing the intro to this section in order to more accurately reflect Marx's own explanation and the terms he uses in that explanation, as found in Capital, vol. 3, chapter 2 and chapter 13, as well as to draw the connections between these terms as Marx draws them. The previous intro offered a general idea of Marx's argument, but in such as way as to confuse some of the key elements going into that argument. The use of "technology" in place of Marx's "constant capital," for example, gives us only a tiny fraction of the ingredients that go into constant capital. The intro was right to point out the pardoxical character of the decline in profits in spite of rising productivity, but failed to point out the relation of surplus value to variable capital inherent in the term productivity; and thus the reason behind the paradox remained somewhat obscure, when in fact Marx's argument makes this relation plainly evident.
I also added Marx's argument in mathematical terms.
The rest of the section is good and I left it as is.
-- Rainercale 13:10, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
You say "and since profit equals surplus value divided by total capital ...", don't you mean "since the rate of profit equals ..." I believe that "profit" is different than "rate of profit" and is arrived at by a different calculation (profit = revenue - (variable expenses + depreciation). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.3.56.57 ( talk) 04:58, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
Book I, Chapter X, Part I, Pg.132 in The Modern Library Classics edition (unabridged)..The paragraph heading is "and higher profits". I feel qualified to assist you since I read the whole text....Now get out from under your bridge, dust your ego off and make it right. Gee whiz if you can,t hack this striving for perfection ditch it!!-- Oracleofottawa ( talk) 06:31, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
I understand that the theory of TRPF has been discredited by modern economists. But I don't quite see why this article falls under the domain of philosophy rather than economics. It is apparent that this theory once pervaded economic thinking, especially during the Great Depression and the aftermath of WW2. I won't claim to know how the WikiGods organize articles into projects, but it seems to me that this should be categorized as Economics instead of Philosophy. MisplacedFate1313 ( talk) 01:38, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
Amen friend....-- Oracleofottawa ( talk) 06:32, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
I don't see how the Okishio argument is at all relevant to the Marxist articulation of the falling rate of profit. Okishio says, if unit prices remains the same, the rate of profit will rise, but that's obvious to anyone with half a brain. Marx's point, however, was that unit prices will not remain the same. Alexandergreenb ( talk) 22:02, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
There is a french translation : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baisse_tendancielle_du_taux_de_profit I don't know how to add a link. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.82.178.85 ( talk) 21:56, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
see above; Marx uses the term 'law of the tendential falling rate of profit' and its abbreviation is thus LTFRP not TRPF.
Also, reference #2 should be removed. It leads to an irrelevant source ( http://www.newschool.edu/nssr/subpage.aspx?id=9836) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.84.68.252 ( talk) 09:19, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
I have tried to spruce up the article I started, and bring it up to speed with current controversies. I have fitted the references into notes. Jurriaan ( talk) 19:10, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
In writing this article, I have done my best to cover all the main controversies in the Marxian tradition, as well as noting ideas outside that tradition. I cannot help it, if criminal editors destroy the valid content of the article by simply removing referenced text that explained different points. Jurriaan ( talk) 13:34, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
It is perhaps of interest that Salon.com hyperlinked to this wiki article [1] so, despite attacks against the article, I have not done so badly, it seems. Jurriaan ( talk) 12:40, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
Jurriaan, why did you reinsert all this stuff even after I pointed out problems with synthesis, original research, and misuse of sources? These articles are not your personal soapbox, and you are not exempt from wikipedia's policies. bobrayner ( talk) 17:11, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
At this stage the article has about 17,800 words, 97,700 characters, 1,500 lines and 136,000 bytes. If that is too long, I would like to hear that from readers first, and I would prefer people to discuss this rationally, before Nikkimaria once more autocratically runs roughshod over the article to reduce its size by any means possible. Jurriaan ( talk) 19:43, 22 May 2014 (UTC)
I am very annoyed to find that the article which I originated, has been edited by people who obviously do not know what they are talking about, resulting in a lot of deformed waffle in the article, instead of a clear explanation of the concept and its implications User:Jurriaan 19 July 2009 13:10 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.182.183.8 ( talk)
→What a delightfully refreshing and naive piece of wishful thinking! :) This is Wikipedia. Good luck! Don't get me started on trying to get the correct adiabatic burn temperature of Jet-A1 Aviation Kerosene recorded on WP (it's about 2300 Celsius). 124.168.117.136 ( talk) 03:35, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
Some 107 people "liked" this article on Facebook [2]. Jurriaan ( talk) 22:55, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
The section entitled "In terms of mainstream economics" pretty much has nothing to do with mainstream economics, aside perhaps from the first sentence. In mainstream economics the falling rate of profit is a result of diminishing returns to capital and that's it. Volunteer Marek 00:27, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
If the amount of labour is proportional or at least in a relation to the amount of goods produced, labour is productive. If there is no relationship between the amount of labour employed and the amount of goods produced (administration, planning, research etc.) labour is unproductive. See also the "machine chapter" in Marx's "Grundrisse" describing unproductive labour like supervising etc. -- Alex1011 ( talk) 06:29, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
The student User:Timmartin decided to weigh in with a longwinded paragraph in the introduction about Mill's theory of the TRPF. I have removed this, because (1) the intro paragraphs to the article must be brief and not long and convoluted, (2) because a statement such as "Marx considered his theoretical working out of the 'Law of the tendency for the rate of profit to fall' and its 'counteracting tendencies' to be his greatest theoretical achievement and is the theoretical underpinning for his Crisis Theory and the marxist theory of capitalist imperialism." is FALSE. There is no evidence whatever that Marx believed this, and there is nobody that argues this. (3) In his revision User:Timmartin misplaces references or provides a reference that is dubious. To accommodate his alteration somewhat nevertheless, I have restored a short bit from the original article, to the effect that Smith, Ricardo, Mill, Jevons etc. all had a theory of the TRPF. This true and referenced statement was previously removed by the right-wing journalist Bob Rayner from Richmond VA. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.124.14.59 ( talk) 13:57, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
Callinicos (1) mentions that Engels introduced that one senctence insisting on the validity of the law, a sentence, which is not from Marx himself. And (2) he critisises (rightly or wrongly) Engels for his remarks on the labour theory of value. [What Engels means, is that the law of value in a narrow sense - prices are directly proportional to labour values - is modified in capitalism, where production prices replace the direct labour value prices.] This is, however, in Callinicos's book in a new paragraph, which does not deal with the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. Therefore I deleted the following, which might (without the first senctence) find a place in law of value or in something like that:
"Professor Alex Callinicos, the chief theoretician of the British International Socialists after Tony Cliff, believes that Friedrich Engels seriously misrepresented Marx's tendency of the rate of profit to fall. Callinicos believes, that Engels said in his afterword to Capital, Volume III that the law of value existed prior to capitalism, but not during capitalism – “a complete misunderstanding of Marx’s value theory.” [1] This contrasts with Engels's preface to Capital, Volume III, where Engels says the law of value does exist during capitalism, and criticizes Conrad Schmidt for abandoning that idea. [2]"
-- Alex1011 ( talk) 09:52, 5 July 2015 (UTC)
===Well, the actual passage on p. 42 of Callinicos's book states: "...the biggest weakness of Engels’s edition of Volume III has long been well known, namely the famous Supplement and Addendum where he outlines the so-called historical interpretation of the labour theory of value, claiming that it holds true in conditions of simple commodity production, prior to the development of capitalism, but ηot where capitalist productions prevails. This involves a complete misunderstanding of Marx's value theory." If Callinicos now wants to widdle out of the implication of his own argument, and erase my report, denying any connection between the Marxian interpretation of the TRPF and the Marxian law of value, then all I can say is that he doesn't even understand what he is arguing himself, and what he is theoretically committed to. If the law of value as a determinant of price levels does not exist in capitalism, as he (falsely) alleges is argued by Engels, then Marx's argument for the TRPF falls down, precisely because Marx's argument is premised on the idea that the value of past labour incorporated in means of production increases vis-a-vis the value of living labour performed, as a longterm historical trend, something which cannot fail to be reflected in the price levels and returns for capital investments. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.148.154.58 ( talk) 21:02, 18 February 2017 (UTC)
"In defense of the theory that the organic composition of capital does rise in the long term (lowering the average rate of profit), Mandel claimed that there does not exist any branch of industry where wages are a growing proportion of total production costs, as a secular trend. The real trend is the other way: toward semi-automation and full automation which lowers total labor costs in the total capital outlay.[115] Critics of that idea point to low-wage countries like China, where the long run trend is for average real wages to rise. For example, the Chinese Communist Party aims to double Chinese workers' wages by 2020.[116]"
The last sentence here is supposed to "refute" Mandel's argument it seems, but if I am not totally mistaken it rests on a spectacular, and obvious, mix-up of totally different things (real wages and wages as part of capital outlay). Is that so, or is it me who is misunderstanding something? ill check in here again in a couple of days, if no reply I'll erase the "respons" and let Mandel's observation stand. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.18.169.243 ( talk) 19:26, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
As the author of this article, I do not know whether the CCP can double Chinese workers' wages by 2020. But if hypothetically they could do this, in the space of 7 years, it would mean that the wage-bill grew faster than the increase in the total outlay on fixed capital, materials and operating expenses. In that case, the organic composition of production capital (C/V) would be lowered by rising wage rates. This would in turn contradict Mandel's claim that there is no evidence that wages become a bigger proportion in the total capital outlay for production, in the long run. The counter argument would be, that although continental East-Asian wages rise pretty fast, outlays on constant capital in production rise even faster. That is an empirical thesis, which would have to be tested against available data. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.160.222.66 ( talk) 08:07, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
Have a look at: Steve Johnson, "Chinese wages now higher than in Brazil, Argentina and Mexico". Financial Times, 26 february 2017. [3] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.148.154.58 ( talk) 22:40, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
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This article contains a lot of content that violates Wikipedia rules. Passages like the one below need to be removed. Intuition plays absolutely no role in what should or should not appear in an article. Everything has to come from the secondary literature and be referenced.
Intuitively, Okishio's argument makes sense. After all, why would capitalists invest in more efficient production on a larger scale, unless they thought their profits would increase? Orthodox Marxists have typically responded to this argument in five kinds of ways (there are, of course, numerous other arguments, involving more or less complex mathematical models): — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.95.67.107 ( talk) 03:35, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
I have noticed that user Sdio7 has inserted more text in the section "empirical studies"in the 20th century. The way this is done is highly objectionable, on several counts. First, the new text concerns the 21st century, not the 20th century. Second, the new text is waffly and rambling, instead of precise, brief and succinct. Third, the references lack any proper notation and formats, or are incomplete. Fourth, the new text repeats points already made explicitly or implicitly elsewhere in the article. Fifth, there are punctuation and spelling errors. This sort of freshman "editing" is NOT what we want in this article, because then other people have to tidy up the mess. If you want so badly to weigh in with your own research, and add it to the article, bear in mind the article is already too long. Familiarize yourself with its content, before adding even more stuff to it. As pointed out in the TRPF wiki, there exist literally thousands of articles and books on the TRPF, and the article could be extended by hundreds of pages. But that is not the purpose here, it is only just a brief overview. What I have done for now, is to edit the long ramble down to size. But actually, I am keen to remove most of the Sdio7 edits, because they add little to what is already said, and are in the wrong section. Cambridge Optic ( talk) 13:58, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
I have created a new section 4.2 on empirical studies in the 21st century, and shifted the relevant material down to that section. Cambridge Optic ( talk) 23:57, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
This whole article could use a review but as it goes on (interminably) the point of view of the author becomes less and less neutral until it's simply stating opinions with citations (to cleverly disguise them as factual, of course) near the end. 98.172.49.132 ( talk) 15:47, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
Ok, I'm going to start by saying I really, really appreciate Cambridge Optic's effort to re-write the article. It's much improved. However, I feel the final section does have a few problems with how it is written. For example, the section about Liberty starts by stating the following:
Today's neoliberal ideology affirms that people should be free in the global market place - but not "too free". After all, people might (and do) use their freedoms also for things which, according to the elite, do not benefit society at all, in which case business and governments make more and more rules to control more and more aspects of human behaviour. More freedom for capital can mean less freedom for labour.[590]
Problems: It asserts that a neoliberal ideology states that people should be free but not to free. I checked the source for this (source 590) and couldn't find any reference to this anywhere - indeed neoliberalism isn't even mentioned in the article. It seems like it is simply a statement of opinion trying to use a source to back itself up. This breaks away from the purpose of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia and veers into original thought and research territory, as well as possible soapbox territory, which again runs contrary to wiki rules. It lacks sources for some claims - it notes an observation about Brexit being about things like sovereignty but doesn't provide a link to source for this (I am aware this is true but it still needs a source)
Other parts have similar problems: The section on Equality has no sources for any paragraph after the first one. In the section "Alternatives", there is a note that Marxists rush for the barricades but then don't explain what comes after the revolution. It notes that neither Stalin, Hitler nor Mao knew the answer to this either and cites threw sources. However these are biographies on the three aforementioned dictators rather than a source that argues "Marxists have no idea what will replace our current system when they tear it down". I am aware this is a criticism of Marx and Marxism but it needs a source. The inclusion of the three dictators also seems odd without a source explain their relevance to the issue at hand, making it again appear closer to original research. The section "Here to stay" explains, in its first paragraph, how surplus value/labour is appropriated by capitalists but provides no sources for this claim. In addition, the notion of surplus value isn't accepted anymore in mainstream economics to my knowledge, so it's inclusion is counter to established economic science.
Essentially the issue is that there are numerous claims made in the section that seem to be the editor's opinion or argument rather than reports of what sources have made. It reads like an essay intended to argue a point rather than a report of information and facts. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia so this is counter to the purpose of the site.
And again, I fully respect and appreciate Cambrdige Optic's work on the page. In addition, I don't think the "Loss of Narrative" section should be removed. Since it seems to be a section discussing whether or not the falling rate of profit is even relevant or the right question for people to be asking, it is essentially intended as a commentary section. I think this is a welcome element. However in its current state I don't think it meets wiki standards, which is a shame given the high quality of the rest of the article. Thus I posit that changes should be made to make it more neutral and not appear to be like a personal opinion. Additional sources should be provided as well. Sdio7 ( talk) 03:29, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
Note: I have slightly
refactored the discussion in this section to improve
threading and
accessibility, particularly to avoid
list gaps and skips, which can be problematic for those using
screen readers. The changes can be seen
here. I hope they are acceptable.
What, specifically, appears to be the problem here, JulkaK? And what, specifically, does that problem have to do with specific contents of this article? Moreover, what specifically and actionably can be done to address that problem? While I appreciate the time and effort you all have contributed to discussing these matters at length, and though it is heartening to see some thoughtful discussion about these matters, please remember that these talk pages are not forums to discuss political and economic theory (or anything else). They are for discussing the article with the goal of improving it and specific recommendations are what is important. I am intervening now because I don't want anyone here departing from this discussion with bitter feelings, which may discourage further productive contributions or even risk losing thoughtful editors such as yourselves. If there is any way I can help address matters here, if only as an uninvolved third party (fourth party?), I'm more than willing to do so. I have no intention of remaining uninvolved, either; if I can contribute substantively to improving the article, whether through this discussion or beside it, I will.
With that said: Cambridge Optic, I have been observing your contributions here and at other Marxism-related articles (such as at Value-form and Law of value) over the months, since you first showed up on Wikipedia in late February earlier this year due to many of those articles being on my watchlist. While it is obvious that you are erudite on these subjects (are you an academic?), I have been concerned since you began that you may be contributing to these articles in the way one might expect an academic authoring an original work to be published in a book or journal to do. I generally agree with the concerns (and praise) stated by JulkaK and Sdio7 above, but let me be specific as well.
Specifically, your contributions have been in excellent detail, but might be too detailed for the summary style and readership of a general encyclopedia such as Wikipedia. Moreover, the tone and style they have are unlike almost anything I have seen on Wikipedia, including among Featured articles (where "brilliant prose" and complete coverage are necessary criteria for promotion). The content is engaging and thoughtful and nuanced, but my immediate concerns are whether the language is too close to being non-neutral (in Wikipedia's terms) and opinionated, and may qualify as original synthesis or outright original research in many places. All of that is not what Wikipedia is about and they are all problems which can lead to other editors concluding that one is not here to build an encyclopedia, which is commonly used as grounds for blocking editors as disruptive to the project. I'm not saying that is my opinion, but I am being candid about the realities here as someone familiar with the wiki way and the community's norms and conventions. Unless that is rectified, any clueful editor can justifiably (according to the policies and guidelines) begin undergoing major changes of their own, including simply deleting large amounts of content you have added, since the onus is on you to keep your changes within policy and justify their inclusion. This has been such a concern of mine that I have been almost expecting someone to notice your prolific changes and intervene, probably in a much more bitey way with warnings and reversions and reports, though that fortunately seems to have not yet occurred—perhaps, in part, because these articles on abstruse Marxian theory have few monthly views and even fewer watchers.
Nonetheless, I'm explaining this now because I want to bring these general observations to your attention. I have remained quiet and largely kept out of your way up until now, since your contributions have generally been improvements to neglected articles on neglected subjects in Wikipedia, but I might as well bring it up now while I'm intervening here. You may also want to consider soliciting input and attention from WikiProject Socialism about the articles you have expanded, especially if you're interested in some additional opinions about your changes. Perhaps someone there might even be willing to adopt you. Given your general interests and apparent expertise, as exemplified by your contributions history, consider joining the WikiProject as a member and watchlisting it to keep track of discussions, as well. That goes for all three of you, by the way, JulkaK and Sdio7 included.
Lastly, I want to thank all of you for your interest in contributing to Wikipedia and improving coverage of topics related to Marxian theory. All three of you are new users (as in not even one-year-old accounts, excepting
Sdio7 by almost a month) and all three of you have demonstrated a clear capacity to
communicate,
collaborate, and
contribute with enough
competence to be constructive members of this project. If any of you ever want assistance, feel free to ask me on
my talk page or
via email, ask your
questions at the
Teahouse or
Help Desk, or place {{
help me}}
on your talk page with a description of your problem and someone else should come along to answer eventually. Given it appears all four of us have a predilection for
hypergraphic paragraphic prose, I hope you all can forgive my own prolixity. Lastly, since it seems none of you have received a welcome that wasn't
from a template (my favorite is {{
Welcome to Wikipedia}}
), I have one that is long overdue: Welcome to Wikipedia! —
Nøkkenbuer (
talk •
contribs) 20:44, 8 September 2018 (UTC); last edited for minor rewording at 21:08, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
{{
ping}}
me if you need anything.
czar 22:09, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
intellectually dishonest" and "
strawmanning" behavior may actually be due to the fact that we have a stranger in a strange land who doesn't grok the wiki way and thus is behaving like a lecturer might when explaining complex topics to a pestering questioner. I'm not saying this is so with Cambridge Optic, or even that they are an academic (I don't know, which is why I asked), but I think this is at least worth considering here.Now, with that said, I'm going to read this discussion from top to bottom (including the comments Czar just posted and edit-conflicted with this) and might comment further if I feel I should, though I'll of course reply to any messages directed at me. — Nøkkenbuer ( talk • contribs) 22:13, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
On what basis do you assert this? You workshopped the article before "ordinary working people"? No one is preventing you from giving the article the bare minimum of legibility. I can dip into any section of this article and have zero mooring as to what the section is meant to address—so even what you deem good information/analysis does little good if not communicated for a general audience. czar 21:48, 15 September 2018 (UTC)The article on the Tendency of the rate of profit to fall, aimed at a general audience, was actually well liked, very readable, and used by a lot of people (like many other articles I wrote). The critics don't even know how good the article is, precisely because they are themselves not well-versed in the topic. It was actually read by top academics, top journalists, top economists, activists, public servants and politicians - as well as many students, pensioners and ordinary working people who don't have easy access to all kinds of resources.
As regards the loss of narrative section, LSE academic Peter Pomerantsev recently picked up this idea, and wrote an article for Francis Fukuyama’s journal on the question: ‘’What happens when the stories through which we make sense of the world collapse? “ (see: Peter Pomerantsev, "Losing the narrative: under the information bubble". The American Interest, 9 October 2018. [4]). Long before Pomerantsev, Jean-François Lyotard stated “I define postmodern as incredulity toward meta-narratives.” (Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, 1984, p. xxiv). “Lamenting the ‘loss of meaning’ in postmodernity boils down to mourning the fact that knowledge is no longer principally narrative” (ibid., p. 26). In the computer age, programming requirements turn knowledge into abbreviated clips and bits of information, i.e. precisely coded messages that fit with the cyber-system of transmission and communication. Technical super-specialization, the compartmentalization and commodification of knowledge, social fragmentation, and lack of moral consensus tend to destroy the coherence of all human narratives. The new legitimation criterion is not storytelling, but instant performativity (the ability to “be” the story, maximizing information flow, and minimizing “noise” and “rubbish”). However, the concept of “loss of narrative” has an ancient history with religious, theological and spiritual roots. Stories make experience meaningful, and those meanings are needed, to orient ourselves in the world and to understand ourselves, even if it was only through consuming newspaper stories written by professional or corporate storytellers. This is the “narrativization process”, which also occurs fairly spontaneously in everyday life. Yet our stories about ourselves and about the world may also be undermined, attacked and destroyed, to the point where it become difficult to construct our own narratives as such anymore. This leads to “narrative loss”. To restore our own sense of narrative, and create new stories of our own, is a process of healing and recuperation, through which we regain our sense of who we are, and our sense of purpose. Cambridge Optic ( talk) 12:44, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
If User:Volunteer Marek cavalierly deletes large slabs of text from the TRPF article, which took a lot of work to write, I would expect that he offers good reasons for doing so, on this talk page, and explains properly WHY he did so, beyond a vague cryptic comment in the article history, as if that will suffice to justify the deletions. If no more detailed explanation is forthcoming, I intend to restore the slabs of text that were removed without any acceptable reason within wiki protocol. The whole section on Thomas Piketty for example was removed, even although Piketty specifically addresses the validity of the TRPF argument - an important contribution to the current debate about the TRPF. This is not "original research" of mine, or some kind of "original synthesis", but merely a descriptive report of what Thomas Piketty actually said and argued about this issue and the scholarly responses to his interpretation; anyone familiar with the relevant literature knows this. I don't see myself, why this section should be dropped, given that Piketty's research has been very influential, and widely read in recent times around the whole world. You don't really improve the article by simply deleting large slabs of text, on the ground it does not meet your personal preferences, without any appropriate explanation. Cambridge Optic ( talk) 22:37, 29 December 2018 (UTC)
Personal attacks by blocked user. -- MarioGom ( talk) 11:48, 14 January 2020 (UTC) |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
I would like to emphasize again that, unlike a false rumor spread by the criminal wiki administrator NinjaRobotPirate who blocked me from working on articles I wrote in wikipedia (including this one on Tendency of the rate of profit to fall), I have NEVER engaged in "sockpuppetry". It is merely that, some time after my first account User:Jurriaan was permanently blocked (unfairly) in an editing dispute I had with a vandal, I returned with another account User: Jurriaan2 to complete wiki articles I piloted. Subsequently, when this account was also permanently blocked in another editing dispute I had with a vandal, I set up the User:Cambridge Optic account to finish a few articles I had piloted. That is to say, there has NEVER been any point in time when I operated "two or more accounts" at once. I operated one account, the other two accounts I had previously were permanently blocked. So, the sockpuppetry allegation is simply a false accusation, by a wiki administrator who does not even bother to verify the real background. I did submit the case for arbitration, but this was formally refused, on the ground that an unblock request should be submitted on my talk page. But because of the block, I cannot actually use my talk page to make the request, it is a catch-22, and therefore I cannot lodge an unblock request either. Indeed, all the personal text on my original personal page (which stated, amongst other things, exactly which articles I piloted or worked on in English wikipedia) has been deleted by the criminal administrator NinjaRobotPirate. Therefore, I am no longer contributing to English wikipedia. User: Cambridge Optic 82.173.128.20 ( talk) 14:45, 25 August 2019 (UTC) |
This page is not an encyclopedia article, but a debate between editors. Most of the content is irrelevant or tangential to the theory of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, which, along with many of its critiques, is misrepresented throughout. I recommend that admins restrict this page due to flagrant and continuous disregard for Wikipedia standards and general grandstanding throughout. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8806:2500:E100:C003:896D:E131:1BA3 ( talk) 15:41, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 |
1) In a branch, firms, which, with a given amount of invested capital, can produce the most, have an advantage against competitors. Therefore firms try to out-produce each other.
2) To increase production (or production capacity) firms can enlarge their enterprise by investing their profits on the basis of the given technique. More workers, more means of production are used with the same technique.
3) To increase production (or production capacity) firms can increase investments per worker in order to increase production per worker. The technical composition of capital rises thereby.
4) In order that for a firm it is rational to use profits to increase the technical composition of capital (the capital intensity) by a certain percentage, it is necessary that thereby production per worker is increased by a larger percentage. Otherwise more production could be achieved by investing profits in capacity enlargements on the basis of the existing technique.
5) Therefore, an incentive for firms to use profits to increase the technical composition of capital by a certain percentage exists, if thereby production per worker can be increased by a larger percentage.
6) In so far as this incentive is given, firms will try to increase the technical composition of capital as much as possible. They will try to increase it, if possible, by a percentage, which is larger than the preceding rate of growth of the productivity of their workers. (They might use only their profits to finance more investments per worker, but they can also borrow money from banks or merge with other firms. Capital concentration – growth of single firms – goes hand in hand with capital centralisation – the number of firms declines in order to allow even higher growth rates for the remaining firms.)
7) If this continues to happen, if an increase in the productivity of labour in firms is followed by an even larger increase in the technical composition of capital, then it follows mathematically, that growth of employment will slow down, employment will even shrink sooner or later. According to the labour theory of value, this means that the rate of profit must decrease. (It might suffice to say, that employment must finally shrink. This is sufficient for a tendency for crisis to come about.)
8) So, the condition for a slowing down of employment growth or for a falling rate of profit is, that firms have an incentive to increase the technical composition of capital more (in %) than the productivity of their workers has increased (in %).
9) If this incentive is given, firms are caught in a rationality trap or in a prisoners’ dilemma. It is rational for individual firms to increase the technical composition of capital more than labour productivity has risen, but for the collective of firms, for the economy as a whole, this leads to crisis.
Alex1011 22:10, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
I added a fourth response to the criticism.
The page in general could use better documentation of its sources.
-- Rainercale 19:40, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
I don't mean to be presumptuous or mean, but I took the liberty of changing the intro to this section in order to more accurately reflect Marx's own explanation and the terms he uses in that explanation, as found in Capital, vol. 3, chapter 2 and chapter 13, as well as to draw the connections between these terms as Marx draws them. The previous intro offered a general idea of Marx's argument, but in such as way as to confuse some of the key elements going into that argument. The use of "technology" in place of Marx's "constant capital," for example, gives us only a tiny fraction of the ingredients that go into constant capital. The intro was right to point out the pardoxical character of the decline in profits in spite of rising productivity, but failed to point out the relation of surplus value to variable capital inherent in the term productivity; and thus the reason behind the paradox remained somewhat obscure, when in fact Marx's argument makes this relation plainly evident.
I also added Marx's argument in mathematical terms.
The rest of the section is good and I left it as is.
-- Rainercale 13:10, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
You say "and since profit equals surplus value divided by total capital ...", don't you mean "since the rate of profit equals ..." I believe that "profit" is different than "rate of profit" and is arrived at by a different calculation (profit = revenue - (variable expenses + depreciation). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.3.56.57 ( talk) 04:58, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
Book I, Chapter X, Part I, Pg.132 in The Modern Library Classics edition (unabridged)..The paragraph heading is "and higher profits". I feel qualified to assist you since I read the whole text....Now get out from under your bridge, dust your ego off and make it right. Gee whiz if you can,t hack this striving for perfection ditch it!!-- Oracleofottawa ( talk) 06:31, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
I understand that the theory of TRPF has been discredited by modern economists. But I don't quite see why this article falls under the domain of philosophy rather than economics. It is apparent that this theory once pervaded economic thinking, especially during the Great Depression and the aftermath of WW2. I won't claim to know how the WikiGods organize articles into projects, but it seems to me that this should be categorized as Economics instead of Philosophy. MisplacedFate1313 ( talk) 01:38, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
Amen friend....-- Oracleofottawa ( talk) 06:32, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
I don't see how the Okishio argument is at all relevant to the Marxist articulation of the falling rate of profit. Okishio says, if unit prices remains the same, the rate of profit will rise, but that's obvious to anyone with half a brain. Marx's point, however, was that unit prices will not remain the same. Alexandergreenb ( talk) 22:02, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
There is a french translation : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baisse_tendancielle_du_taux_de_profit I don't know how to add a link. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.82.178.85 ( talk) 21:56, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
see above; Marx uses the term 'law of the tendential falling rate of profit' and its abbreviation is thus LTFRP not TRPF.
Also, reference #2 should be removed. It leads to an irrelevant source ( http://www.newschool.edu/nssr/subpage.aspx?id=9836) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.84.68.252 ( talk) 09:19, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
I have tried to spruce up the article I started, and bring it up to speed with current controversies. I have fitted the references into notes. Jurriaan ( talk) 19:10, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
In writing this article, I have done my best to cover all the main controversies in the Marxian tradition, as well as noting ideas outside that tradition. I cannot help it, if criminal editors destroy the valid content of the article by simply removing referenced text that explained different points. Jurriaan ( talk) 13:34, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
It is perhaps of interest that Salon.com hyperlinked to this wiki article [1] so, despite attacks against the article, I have not done so badly, it seems. Jurriaan ( talk) 12:40, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
Jurriaan, why did you reinsert all this stuff even after I pointed out problems with synthesis, original research, and misuse of sources? These articles are not your personal soapbox, and you are not exempt from wikipedia's policies. bobrayner ( talk) 17:11, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
At this stage the article has about 17,800 words, 97,700 characters, 1,500 lines and 136,000 bytes. If that is too long, I would like to hear that from readers first, and I would prefer people to discuss this rationally, before Nikkimaria once more autocratically runs roughshod over the article to reduce its size by any means possible. Jurriaan ( talk) 19:43, 22 May 2014 (UTC)
I am very annoyed to find that the article which I originated, has been edited by people who obviously do not know what they are talking about, resulting in a lot of deformed waffle in the article, instead of a clear explanation of the concept and its implications User:Jurriaan 19 July 2009 13:10 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.182.183.8 ( talk)
→What a delightfully refreshing and naive piece of wishful thinking! :) This is Wikipedia. Good luck! Don't get me started on trying to get the correct adiabatic burn temperature of Jet-A1 Aviation Kerosene recorded on WP (it's about 2300 Celsius). 124.168.117.136 ( talk) 03:35, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
Some 107 people "liked" this article on Facebook [2]. Jurriaan ( talk) 22:55, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
The section entitled "In terms of mainstream economics" pretty much has nothing to do with mainstream economics, aside perhaps from the first sentence. In mainstream economics the falling rate of profit is a result of diminishing returns to capital and that's it. Volunteer Marek 00:27, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
If the amount of labour is proportional or at least in a relation to the amount of goods produced, labour is productive. If there is no relationship between the amount of labour employed and the amount of goods produced (administration, planning, research etc.) labour is unproductive. See also the "machine chapter" in Marx's "Grundrisse" describing unproductive labour like supervising etc. -- Alex1011 ( talk) 06:29, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
The student User:Timmartin decided to weigh in with a longwinded paragraph in the introduction about Mill's theory of the TRPF. I have removed this, because (1) the intro paragraphs to the article must be brief and not long and convoluted, (2) because a statement such as "Marx considered his theoretical working out of the 'Law of the tendency for the rate of profit to fall' and its 'counteracting tendencies' to be his greatest theoretical achievement and is the theoretical underpinning for his Crisis Theory and the marxist theory of capitalist imperialism." is FALSE. There is no evidence whatever that Marx believed this, and there is nobody that argues this. (3) In his revision User:Timmartin misplaces references or provides a reference that is dubious. To accommodate his alteration somewhat nevertheless, I have restored a short bit from the original article, to the effect that Smith, Ricardo, Mill, Jevons etc. all had a theory of the TRPF. This true and referenced statement was previously removed by the right-wing journalist Bob Rayner from Richmond VA. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.124.14.59 ( talk) 13:57, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
Callinicos (1) mentions that Engels introduced that one senctence insisting on the validity of the law, a sentence, which is not from Marx himself. And (2) he critisises (rightly or wrongly) Engels for his remarks on the labour theory of value. [What Engels means, is that the law of value in a narrow sense - prices are directly proportional to labour values - is modified in capitalism, where production prices replace the direct labour value prices.] This is, however, in Callinicos's book in a new paragraph, which does not deal with the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. Therefore I deleted the following, which might (without the first senctence) find a place in law of value or in something like that:
"Professor Alex Callinicos, the chief theoretician of the British International Socialists after Tony Cliff, believes that Friedrich Engels seriously misrepresented Marx's tendency of the rate of profit to fall. Callinicos believes, that Engels said in his afterword to Capital, Volume III that the law of value existed prior to capitalism, but not during capitalism – “a complete misunderstanding of Marx’s value theory.” [1] This contrasts with Engels's preface to Capital, Volume III, where Engels says the law of value does exist during capitalism, and criticizes Conrad Schmidt for abandoning that idea. [2]"
-- Alex1011 ( talk) 09:52, 5 July 2015 (UTC)
===Well, the actual passage on p. 42 of Callinicos's book states: "...the biggest weakness of Engels’s edition of Volume III has long been well known, namely the famous Supplement and Addendum where he outlines the so-called historical interpretation of the labour theory of value, claiming that it holds true in conditions of simple commodity production, prior to the development of capitalism, but ηot where capitalist productions prevails. This involves a complete misunderstanding of Marx's value theory." If Callinicos now wants to widdle out of the implication of his own argument, and erase my report, denying any connection between the Marxian interpretation of the TRPF and the Marxian law of value, then all I can say is that he doesn't even understand what he is arguing himself, and what he is theoretically committed to. If the law of value as a determinant of price levels does not exist in capitalism, as he (falsely) alleges is argued by Engels, then Marx's argument for the TRPF falls down, precisely because Marx's argument is premised on the idea that the value of past labour incorporated in means of production increases vis-a-vis the value of living labour performed, as a longterm historical trend, something which cannot fail to be reflected in the price levels and returns for capital investments. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.148.154.58 ( talk) 21:02, 18 February 2017 (UTC)
"In defense of the theory that the organic composition of capital does rise in the long term (lowering the average rate of profit), Mandel claimed that there does not exist any branch of industry where wages are a growing proportion of total production costs, as a secular trend. The real trend is the other way: toward semi-automation and full automation which lowers total labor costs in the total capital outlay.[115] Critics of that idea point to low-wage countries like China, where the long run trend is for average real wages to rise. For example, the Chinese Communist Party aims to double Chinese workers' wages by 2020.[116]"
The last sentence here is supposed to "refute" Mandel's argument it seems, but if I am not totally mistaken it rests on a spectacular, and obvious, mix-up of totally different things (real wages and wages as part of capital outlay). Is that so, or is it me who is misunderstanding something? ill check in here again in a couple of days, if no reply I'll erase the "respons" and let Mandel's observation stand. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.18.169.243 ( talk) 19:26, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
As the author of this article, I do not know whether the CCP can double Chinese workers' wages by 2020. But if hypothetically they could do this, in the space of 7 years, it would mean that the wage-bill grew faster than the increase in the total outlay on fixed capital, materials and operating expenses. In that case, the organic composition of production capital (C/V) would be lowered by rising wage rates. This would in turn contradict Mandel's claim that there is no evidence that wages become a bigger proportion in the total capital outlay for production, in the long run. The counter argument would be, that although continental East-Asian wages rise pretty fast, outlays on constant capital in production rise even faster. That is an empirical thesis, which would have to be tested against available data. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.160.222.66 ( talk) 08:07, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
Have a look at: Steve Johnson, "Chinese wages now higher than in Brazil, Argentina and Mexico". Financial Times, 26 february 2017. [3] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.148.154.58 ( talk) 22:40, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
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This article contains a lot of content that violates Wikipedia rules. Passages like the one below need to be removed. Intuition plays absolutely no role in what should or should not appear in an article. Everything has to come from the secondary literature and be referenced.
Intuitively, Okishio's argument makes sense. After all, why would capitalists invest in more efficient production on a larger scale, unless they thought their profits would increase? Orthodox Marxists have typically responded to this argument in five kinds of ways (there are, of course, numerous other arguments, involving more or less complex mathematical models): — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.95.67.107 ( talk) 03:35, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
I have noticed that user Sdio7 has inserted more text in the section "empirical studies"in the 20th century. The way this is done is highly objectionable, on several counts. First, the new text concerns the 21st century, not the 20th century. Second, the new text is waffly and rambling, instead of precise, brief and succinct. Third, the references lack any proper notation and formats, or are incomplete. Fourth, the new text repeats points already made explicitly or implicitly elsewhere in the article. Fifth, there are punctuation and spelling errors. This sort of freshman "editing" is NOT what we want in this article, because then other people have to tidy up the mess. If you want so badly to weigh in with your own research, and add it to the article, bear in mind the article is already too long. Familiarize yourself with its content, before adding even more stuff to it. As pointed out in the TRPF wiki, there exist literally thousands of articles and books on the TRPF, and the article could be extended by hundreds of pages. But that is not the purpose here, it is only just a brief overview. What I have done for now, is to edit the long ramble down to size. But actually, I am keen to remove most of the Sdio7 edits, because they add little to what is already said, and are in the wrong section. Cambridge Optic ( talk) 13:58, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
I have created a new section 4.2 on empirical studies in the 21st century, and shifted the relevant material down to that section. Cambridge Optic ( talk) 23:57, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
This whole article could use a review but as it goes on (interminably) the point of view of the author becomes less and less neutral until it's simply stating opinions with citations (to cleverly disguise them as factual, of course) near the end. 98.172.49.132 ( talk) 15:47, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
Ok, I'm going to start by saying I really, really appreciate Cambridge Optic's effort to re-write the article. It's much improved. However, I feel the final section does have a few problems with how it is written. For example, the section about Liberty starts by stating the following:
Today's neoliberal ideology affirms that people should be free in the global market place - but not "too free". After all, people might (and do) use their freedoms also for things which, according to the elite, do not benefit society at all, in which case business and governments make more and more rules to control more and more aspects of human behaviour. More freedom for capital can mean less freedom for labour.[590]
Problems: It asserts that a neoliberal ideology states that people should be free but not to free. I checked the source for this (source 590) and couldn't find any reference to this anywhere - indeed neoliberalism isn't even mentioned in the article. It seems like it is simply a statement of opinion trying to use a source to back itself up. This breaks away from the purpose of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia and veers into original thought and research territory, as well as possible soapbox territory, which again runs contrary to wiki rules. It lacks sources for some claims - it notes an observation about Brexit being about things like sovereignty but doesn't provide a link to source for this (I am aware this is true but it still needs a source)
Other parts have similar problems: The section on Equality has no sources for any paragraph after the first one. In the section "Alternatives", there is a note that Marxists rush for the barricades but then don't explain what comes after the revolution. It notes that neither Stalin, Hitler nor Mao knew the answer to this either and cites threw sources. However these are biographies on the three aforementioned dictators rather than a source that argues "Marxists have no idea what will replace our current system when they tear it down". I am aware this is a criticism of Marx and Marxism but it needs a source. The inclusion of the three dictators also seems odd without a source explain their relevance to the issue at hand, making it again appear closer to original research. The section "Here to stay" explains, in its first paragraph, how surplus value/labour is appropriated by capitalists but provides no sources for this claim. In addition, the notion of surplus value isn't accepted anymore in mainstream economics to my knowledge, so it's inclusion is counter to established economic science.
Essentially the issue is that there are numerous claims made in the section that seem to be the editor's opinion or argument rather than reports of what sources have made. It reads like an essay intended to argue a point rather than a report of information and facts. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia so this is counter to the purpose of the site.
And again, I fully respect and appreciate Cambrdige Optic's work on the page. In addition, I don't think the "Loss of Narrative" section should be removed. Since it seems to be a section discussing whether or not the falling rate of profit is even relevant or the right question for people to be asking, it is essentially intended as a commentary section. I think this is a welcome element. However in its current state I don't think it meets wiki standards, which is a shame given the high quality of the rest of the article. Thus I posit that changes should be made to make it more neutral and not appear to be like a personal opinion. Additional sources should be provided as well. Sdio7 ( talk) 03:29, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
Note: I have slightly
refactored the discussion in this section to improve
threading and
accessibility, particularly to avoid
list gaps and skips, which can be problematic for those using
screen readers. The changes can be seen
here. I hope they are acceptable.
What, specifically, appears to be the problem here, JulkaK? And what, specifically, does that problem have to do with specific contents of this article? Moreover, what specifically and actionably can be done to address that problem? While I appreciate the time and effort you all have contributed to discussing these matters at length, and though it is heartening to see some thoughtful discussion about these matters, please remember that these talk pages are not forums to discuss political and economic theory (or anything else). They are for discussing the article with the goal of improving it and specific recommendations are what is important. I am intervening now because I don't want anyone here departing from this discussion with bitter feelings, which may discourage further productive contributions or even risk losing thoughtful editors such as yourselves. If there is any way I can help address matters here, if only as an uninvolved third party (fourth party?), I'm more than willing to do so. I have no intention of remaining uninvolved, either; if I can contribute substantively to improving the article, whether through this discussion or beside it, I will.
With that said: Cambridge Optic, I have been observing your contributions here and at other Marxism-related articles (such as at Value-form and Law of value) over the months, since you first showed up on Wikipedia in late February earlier this year due to many of those articles being on my watchlist. While it is obvious that you are erudite on these subjects (are you an academic?), I have been concerned since you began that you may be contributing to these articles in the way one might expect an academic authoring an original work to be published in a book or journal to do. I generally agree with the concerns (and praise) stated by JulkaK and Sdio7 above, but let me be specific as well.
Specifically, your contributions have been in excellent detail, but might be too detailed for the summary style and readership of a general encyclopedia such as Wikipedia. Moreover, the tone and style they have are unlike almost anything I have seen on Wikipedia, including among Featured articles (where "brilliant prose" and complete coverage are necessary criteria for promotion). The content is engaging and thoughtful and nuanced, but my immediate concerns are whether the language is too close to being non-neutral (in Wikipedia's terms) and opinionated, and may qualify as original synthesis or outright original research in many places. All of that is not what Wikipedia is about and they are all problems which can lead to other editors concluding that one is not here to build an encyclopedia, which is commonly used as grounds for blocking editors as disruptive to the project. I'm not saying that is my opinion, but I am being candid about the realities here as someone familiar with the wiki way and the community's norms and conventions. Unless that is rectified, any clueful editor can justifiably (according to the policies and guidelines) begin undergoing major changes of their own, including simply deleting large amounts of content you have added, since the onus is on you to keep your changes within policy and justify their inclusion. This has been such a concern of mine that I have been almost expecting someone to notice your prolific changes and intervene, probably in a much more bitey way with warnings and reversions and reports, though that fortunately seems to have not yet occurred—perhaps, in part, because these articles on abstruse Marxian theory have few monthly views and even fewer watchers.
Nonetheless, I'm explaining this now because I want to bring these general observations to your attention. I have remained quiet and largely kept out of your way up until now, since your contributions have generally been improvements to neglected articles on neglected subjects in Wikipedia, but I might as well bring it up now while I'm intervening here. You may also want to consider soliciting input and attention from WikiProject Socialism about the articles you have expanded, especially if you're interested in some additional opinions about your changes. Perhaps someone there might even be willing to adopt you. Given your general interests and apparent expertise, as exemplified by your contributions history, consider joining the WikiProject as a member and watchlisting it to keep track of discussions, as well. That goes for all three of you, by the way, JulkaK and Sdio7 included.
Lastly, I want to thank all of you for your interest in contributing to Wikipedia and improving coverage of topics related to Marxian theory. All three of you are new users (as in not even one-year-old accounts, excepting
Sdio7 by almost a month) and all three of you have demonstrated a clear capacity to
communicate,
collaborate, and
contribute with enough
competence to be constructive members of this project. If any of you ever want assistance, feel free to ask me on
my talk page or
via email, ask your
questions at the
Teahouse or
Help Desk, or place {{
help me}}
on your talk page with a description of your problem and someone else should come along to answer eventually. Given it appears all four of us have a predilection for
hypergraphic paragraphic prose, I hope you all can forgive my own prolixity. Lastly, since it seems none of you have received a welcome that wasn't
from a template (my favorite is {{
Welcome to Wikipedia}}
), I have one that is long overdue: Welcome to Wikipedia! —
Nøkkenbuer (
talk •
contribs) 20:44, 8 September 2018 (UTC); last edited for minor rewording at 21:08, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
{{
ping}}
me if you need anything.
czar 22:09, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
intellectually dishonest" and "
strawmanning" behavior may actually be due to the fact that we have a stranger in a strange land who doesn't grok the wiki way and thus is behaving like a lecturer might when explaining complex topics to a pestering questioner. I'm not saying this is so with Cambridge Optic, or even that they are an academic (I don't know, which is why I asked), but I think this is at least worth considering here.Now, with that said, I'm going to read this discussion from top to bottom (including the comments Czar just posted and edit-conflicted with this) and might comment further if I feel I should, though I'll of course reply to any messages directed at me. — Nøkkenbuer ( talk • contribs) 22:13, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
On what basis do you assert this? You workshopped the article before "ordinary working people"? No one is preventing you from giving the article the bare minimum of legibility. I can dip into any section of this article and have zero mooring as to what the section is meant to address—so even what you deem good information/analysis does little good if not communicated for a general audience. czar 21:48, 15 September 2018 (UTC)The article on the Tendency of the rate of profit to fall, aimed at a general audience, was actually well liked, very readable, and used by a lot of people (like many other articles I wrote). The critics don't even know how good the article is, precisely because they are themselves not well-versed in the topic. It was actually read by top academics, top journalists, top economists, activists, public servants and politicians - as well as many students, pensioners and ordinary working people who don't have easy access to all kinds of resources.
As regards the loss of narrative section, LSE academic Peter Pomerantsev recently picked up this idea, and wrote an article for Francis Fukuyama’s journal on the question: ‘’What happens when the stories through which we make sense of the world collapse? “ (see: Peter Pomerantsev, "Losing the narrative: under the information bubble". The American Interest, 9 October 2018. [4]). Long before Pomerantsev, Jean-François Lyotard stated “I define postmodern as incredulity toward meta-narratives.” (Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, 1984, p. xxiv). “Lamenting the ‘loss of meaning’ in postmodernity boils down to mourning the fact that knowledge is no longer principally narrative” (ibid., p. 26). In the computer age, programming requirements turn knowledge into abbreviated clips and bits of information, i.e. precisely coded messages that fit with the cyber-system of transmission and communication. Technical super-specialization, the compartmentalization and commodification of knowledge, social fragmentation, and lack of moral consensus tend to destroy the coherence of all human narratives. The new legitimation criterion is not storytelling, but instant performativity (the ability to “be” the story, maximizing information flow, and minimizing “noise” and “rubbish”). However, the concept of “loss of narrative” has an ancient history with religious, theological and spiritual roots. Stories make experience meaningful, and those meanings are needed, to orient ourselves in the world and to understand ourselves, even if it was only through consuming newspaper stories written by professional or corporate storytellers. This is the “narrativization process”, which also occurs fairly spontaneously in everyday life. Yet our stories about ourselves and about the world may also be undermined, attacked and destroyed, to the point where it become difficult to construct our own narratives as such anymore. This leads to “narrative loss”. To restore our own sense of narrative, and create new stories of our own, is a process of healing and recuperation, through which we regain our sense of who we are, and our sense of purpose. Cambridge Optic ( talk) 12:44, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
If User:Volunteer Marek cavalierly deletes large slabs of text from the TRPF article, which took a lot of work to write, I would expect that he offers good reasons for doing so, on this talk page, and explains properly WHY he did so, beyond a vague cryptic comment in the article history, as if that will suffice to justify the deletions. If no more detailed explanation is forthcoming, I intend to restore the slabs of text that were removed without any acceptable reason within wiki protocol. The whole section on Thomas Piketty for example was removed, even although Piketty specifically addresses the validity of the TRPF argument - an important contribution to the current debate about the TRPF. This is not "original research" of mine, or some kind of "original synthesis", but merely a descriptive report of what Thomas Piketty actually said and argued about this issue and the scholarly responses to his interpretation; anyone familiar with the relevant literature knows this. I don't see myself, why this section should be dropped, given that Piketty's research has been very influential, and widely read in recent times around the whole world. You don't really improve the article by simply deleting large slabs of text, on the ground it does not meet your personal preferences, without any appropriate explanation. Cambridge Optic ( talk) 22:37, 29 December 2018 (UTC)
Personal attacks by blocked user. -- MarioGom ( talk) 11:48, 14 January 2020 (UTC) |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
I would like to emphasize again that, unlike a false rumor spread by the criminal wiki administrator NinjaRobotPirate who blocked me from working on articles I wrote in wikipedia (including this one on Tendency of the rate of profit to fall), I have NEVER engaged in "sockpuppetry". It is merely that, some time after my first account User:Jurriaan was permanently blocked (unfairly) in an editing dispute I had with a vandal, I returned with another account User: Jurriaan2 to complete wiki articles I piloted. Subsequently, when this account was also permanently blocked in another editing dispute I had with a vandal, I set up the User:Cambridge Optic account to finish a few articles I had piloted. That is to say, there has NEVER been any point in time when I operated "two or more accounts" at once. I operated one account, the other two accounts I had previously were permanently blocked. So, the sockpuppetry allegation is simply a false accusation, by a wiki administrator who does not even bother to verify the real background. I did submit the case for arbitration, but this was formally refused, on the ground that an unblock request should be submitted on my talk page. But because of the block, I cannot actually use my talk page to make the request, it is a catch-22, and therefore I cannot lodge an unblock request either. Indeed, all the personal text on my original personal page (which stated, amongst other things, exactly which articles I piloted or worked on in English wikipedia) has been deleted by the criminal administrator NinjaRobotPirate. Therefore, I am no longer contributing to English wikipedia. User: Cambridge Optic 82.173.128.20 ( talk) 14:45, 25 August 2019 (UTC) |
This page is not an encyclopedia article, but a debate between editors. Most of the content is irrelevant or tangential to the theory of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, which, along with many of its critiques, is misrepresented throughout. I recommend that admins restrict this page due to flagrant and continuous disregard for Wikipedia standards and general grandstanding throughout. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8806:2500:E100:C003:896D:E131:1BA3 ( talk) 15:41, 5 January 2020 (UTC)