I have previously summarized several accounts of combat from Poul Anderson's works. The sea and sky battle in "The Sky People" is one of the best and I might return to it to write a summary. Basically, a single Maurai sea ship destroys one Sky People airship and captures another. Then the sea ship and the captured airship attack and destroy three more airships.
In this first Maurai story as also in the first Kith story, "Ghetto," a political necessity gets in the way of a personal relationship. In "The Sky People," because the flying pirates have a scientific culture, the Maurai will seek long-term trade and peace with them, not the endless war that some Meycans would have preferred. In "Ghetto," the central characters breaks off his engagement rather than change sides in a class conflict.
31 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
More exactly, the Meycans we see in "The Sky People" were a declining fragment of a fallen empire, the Perio. Their culture had become ossified, and absent some drastic changes, would become poorer and less able to defend itself from aggressive barbarians who had reinvented science.
I did not see a "class" conflict in "Ghetto." What better describes it was that the Star Empire had become corrupt, stagnant, oppressive. The POV character might have been able to live happily in it during its younger, vigorous, hopeful days.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
We have discussed this issue in "Ghetto" before. I think there is class in the economic sense. A member of the family that the Kith hero plans to marry into expects him to help the ruling group to screw more tribute/tax/something like that out of the Kith.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But that is note "economics" as I would understand the word. It's merely the STATE imposing its demands on the Kith.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But the state supports, maintains the rule of, the dominant economic class.
Paul.
I mean arguably so elsewhere but explicitly so in this case.
Kaor, Paul!
I fear we understand some of the same words, concepts, ideas, etc, from different perspectives. What I see the Star Empire doing in "Ghetto" is the state being used to impose decisions and actions on the Kith for POLITICAL, rather than strictly economic reasons. And by that I mean the rational exchange of goods and services on terms all parties consider mutually beneficial. And that, to me, is how economic activities SHOULD be carried out.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Economics is the production and distribution of wealth. Economics as it SHOULD be carried out differs from economics as it IS carried out. The Star-free caste who control the Dominancy state and impose their will through it are able to do so precisely because they have appropriated wealth produced by the labor of others. And the purpose of the state is to keep things that way. And increasing taxes is a further way to appropriate wealth.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But I don't believe in the labor theory of value or wealth. Rather, my view is that of Classical and Austrian school economics, in which the value of goods, services, labor, etc., is determined by how much others are willing to pay for those things. What we see in "Ghetto" is the Star Empire/Dominancy (there were two versions of this story) using politics and coercive means to appropriate wealth to ends where it would mostly not have gone in a more rational socio/poliical/economic system. And I do agree the Dominancy uses taxes as one means of doing that.
I think we do agree on what we see reading "Ghetto," but disagree on the terminology used for describing what the story tells us.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
It is undeniable that labor creates wealth even if it is not agreed that labor bestows value on its products.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But to use a simple example a potter whose wares fail, for one reason or another, to be sold has not created wealth. In fact, it could be argued he may have been inefficient in his use of resources. Apologies, but the marginal theory of value makes more sense than the labor theory of value.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But it is the social labor time necessary to produce a commodity that counts. A product, X, that needs an hour of work is of greater value than an item, Y, produced in a few minutes - until a technological innovation makes it possible to produce X in a few minutes. Then the guy who is still taking an hour to do the job goes out of business.
The wares that do not sell have been outcompeted or there has been overproduction. The wares still have the value of the labor that was put into them and still have use-value if not exchange-value. They are not equivalent to the same quantity of raw materials. But it is a contradiction of the competitive economy that it overproduces and generates waste.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I agree that technological changes can and has made it possible to produce many far more quickly than in past times. And if doing so brings down the cost and hence the price asked for selling per unit, that obviously affects the value.
But I would still argue what you proposed better fits the marginal, and not the labor theory of value. A man or company who can more efficiently and quickly produce the same product as another who has not been as efficient is more likely to find customers valuing his products more than they do his less efficient competitor. The use value for the latter is lost or wasted because no one wanted to buy it.
I am not quite sure what is meant by saying "...it is a contradiction of the competitive economy that it overproduces and generates waste." If too much of a product is made, the answer to that is to cut back on production till demand has used that up. Then increased demand for that product will cause more to be made.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
If two commodities are made in the same way but one is sold whereas the other is not, this is not because one has value whereas the other is valueless! They have the same value. But the system produces more than can be sold of one kind of commodity whereas it fails to produce other items that are needed because it is random and chaotic.
Paul.
What I am trying to convey is that very many commodities remain unsold not because they, as individual products, lack value but only because of the way the system works.
Kaor, Paul!
And however "chaotic" free enterprise economics looks like to some, it WORKS when it is allowed to function as it should. And, IMO, works far better than anything else that has been tried.
Ad astra! Sean
Paul: the problem with distinguishing between "use" and "exchange" values is that it assumes that value is somehow inherent... and it isn't. If there's more wheat than people want, the extra has no value.
In fact, exchange value -is- value; there is no other. Nothing has any value except its value to human beings.
But there is still a big socioeconomic difference between growing a few potatoes to eat and a lot to sell, maybe to export to the antipodes?
Kaor, Paul!
But that would work only if the exporters can have at least a reasonable hope of finding people who would value the imports more than what might already be available.
No, if Potter A can't sell his pottery because people value imports made by Potter B, then A's pots has no value.
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Paul!
I also don’t agree with the labor theory of value. For one thing, different amounts of labor may be necessary in different circumstances, and for another, just because labor has gone into producing something, does not mean that anyone wants it. Consider two wheat farmers, one in Kansas and one in Nebraska, who each put in the same amount of labor on their farms, during a year when there is ideal weather in Kansas and drought in Nebraska. More hours of labor have therefore gone into a ton of the Nebraska farmer’s wheat, but people won’t usually pay more for bread of the same type and quality made from wheat that took more labor to produce.
Or suppose that one widget took three hours of labor by a master widget-maker, while another required ten hours of labor by an apprentice widget-maker, plus one hour of labor by his master, to supervise and point out to the apprentice what he was doing right and wrong. People will will normally care whether the widget is properly made and up to spec, but not how many hours of labor went into it. Five months ago, a periodontist performed gum surgery on me, which took him and his assistants perhaps an hour, but most people couldn’t have done it in an hour or a year. He was able to do it because he had obtained a basic education, then put in considerable time in dental school learning to perform oral surgery. So how many hours of labor really went into what he did, counting his training and the time his teachers put into training him, as well as the time actually working on my gums?
Yet further, I deny that a competitive economy generally results in overproduction, although it may seem that way when unsold goods pile up in a recession. Unemployment and recessions can be explained based on land speculation and the real estate cycle, withou accept8ng the Marxist or Keynesian idea of overproduction; Henry George did so in PROGRESS AND POVERTY back in 1879, and the late Professor Mason Gaffney further developed his ideas. George expressly denied tw9 proposed explanations current in his day, that periodic depressions were due to overproduction, and that they were due to overconsumption.
Best Regards,
Nicholas
Nicholas,
It would take a while to tackle all these points. Trained labor does cost more than untrained because more work has gone into producing it.
Paul.
I think that socially necessary labor time is basic to determining value and that other factors like weather in the case of agriculture complicate the issue.
Kaor, Nicholas and Paul!
Nicholas: Thanks for your very interesting comments, coming as they do from a Georgist POV. Comments I basically agree with, altho I lean more to the Austrian school of thought exemptlified by Ludwig von Mises.
Paul: But WHAT is "socially necessary labor time"? And how does that even make sense if actual people will value some goods and services more than those offered by others?
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Socially necessary labor time means that a job that used to be expensive because it took an hour of someone's time is now cheaper because technology enables it to be done in a much shorter time.
People value some goods more than others because the first set of goods are of higher quality because it has required more labor to produce them. This includes the labor time involved in training higher skilled workers.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Apologies, I don't "buy" that. Some goods can be made with great labor and effort and STILL not be sold because people preferred others or similar goods made at a lower costs. That IS to marginally value one set of goods over another.
The labor theory of value simply doesn't work, it does not fit the empirically observable evidence.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I know that this discussion of value becomes very abstract and that whatever theory we propose is an abstraction from many concrete details. However, I think that profit, "surplus value," is the difference between what workers are paid and what their products are sold for, thus that labor creates surplus value.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Respectfully, I still disagree because what you suggests conflates two different things, the price of a good or service, and how much the workers who make or provide hose services are paid. For one thing you CAN'T pay workers so much that the goods or services sold by their employer becomes too costly for most people to buy. Because, in that, case customers will still marginally prefer similar and less costly goods over the more expensive ones. The business charging too high prices has to either cut prices (and hence reduce costs such as wages) or get out of that line of work.
No, abstract as it might seem, only the marginal theory of value makes sense.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I agree that competition obliges employers to keep wages down, thus to maximize the surplus value that they extract from labor.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I fear we can't agree. The value of goods and services comes NOT from the labor needed to provide them, but from whether OTHERS are willing to buy them. To me, that is an obviously self evident fact.
A astra! Sean
Sean,
I have to accept that people value and pay for some things that have not been made. On the other hand, human labor transforms raw materials into valued and valuable commodities. Thus, labor plays some role in creating value.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Let me make a small correction: many people will prefer to buy Widget A if it not only costs less than Widget B but is also functionally the same. That is to marginally value A more than B, regardless of how much effort was put into making B. I do agree labor plays a role in determining value, IF would be buyers will buy certain goods and services. Otherwise it is misdirected labor.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But, in that case, A costs less because it took less time to make.
Paul.
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