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I have discovered a revolutionary new theorem in mathematics. Applying this new bit of math allows me to solve some of the thorniest problems in physics. And the upshot is that we can now have FREE ENERGY!!! It lies at our fingertips. Energy for the taking. Free. (Okay... virtually free — incredibly cheap at any rate) And environmentally friendly to boot! Even the generators and powerplants will be inexpensive because of the amazing things the new math and physics uncovers. Utopia awaits!!! And what is this new, revolutionary mathematical theorem? Here it is in in its simplest form...
All odd numbers are prime.
Its sooooo simple ... 1 is prime. 3 is prime. 5 is prime. 7 is prime ... 11 ... 17 ... 23 ... 31
Once you know this you can do all sorts of revolutionary physics and free energy is the result!
Okay. Does anybody really want to enter into a serious discussion about the physics of or economics of my free energy proposal? Or would you rather just say "9"? Or perhaps "15"? Or "21"? Because all odd numbers are NOT prime. My theorem is just wrong.
See... "REAL FREE ENERGY" isn't attainable because there is a problem building the generators in my proposal. Or because it requires a new power grid. "Real Free Energy" isn't attainable because my revolutionary new mathematical theorem is just plain wrong. It's BS. Horse hockey. And because it is, all the free energy stuff that comes after, fun as it might be to talk about, is just pie in the sky. Impossible.
That's Marx's socialism. It's all based on the Labor Theory of Value. That was his "revolutionary new theorem in mathematics." And just like mine above, it's hokum. Socialism won't work because it's impractical. Socialism won't work because it's theoretically WRONG!
And it’s wrongheaded on the one crucial, keystone, foundational issue: where prices come from. The Labor Theory of Value contends that prices are determined by the amount of labor contained in a thing. All of Marx depends on LTV being correct. If LTV were correct, Marx would have exposed the fatal flaw at the heart of capitalism. Laborers create the value that gets expropriated by the capitalists. In this case, capitalists aren’t even bad guys bending the rules to enrich themselves. They are playing by the rules. It’s the very nature of the game that’s skewed against the workers. There’s no way to play it fairly. The only way to achieve a fair outcome for laborers is to sweep the game board and all the pieces from the table and toss the entire game in the trash. “Real socialism” requires that LTV is correct. If it’s not, then everything that comes after it is just plain fantasy. And arguing about the ins and outs of the mechanics is just plain silly…it’s like having a serious scientific argument about the aerodynamics of witch’s brooms or the locomotive techniques of Frosty the Snowman. And LTV is wrong. Labor inputs are not where prices come from. Prices come from the interplay of supply and demand. That’s why salaries in the WNBA are lower than in the NBA. It’s not sexism, but a gap in demand that sets the difference. Why did A-Rod make so much more money than Michael Phelps? Because love him or hate him, A-Rod sold lots more tickets than Phelps. It had nothing to do with how much labor it takes to achieve that level of performance. There are tons of examples showing that LTV is wrong. And they are the real nails in real socialism’s coffin.
Discussion (17)
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Only tangentially related, if at all, but this still fascinates me. On one web page I saw two directly contradictory articles about the fast food $20 minimum wage law in CA. One claimed 10,000+ jobs lost. The other claimed no impact at all, and that an insignificant increase in employment had taken place. So how are both true?
I spent more time than I should have investigating this and found that in the first article the losses were reported the week after the law took effect. Just straight numbers and reporting in that case. For the other article, a CA academic looked at the data from six months before the law was passed and six months after the law was passed and discovered no real difference. Now, here is the question: Incompetence or deliberate misrepresentation? You see, the first article mentioned that the law took effect six months after passage. The second article ignored that point.
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There's a series of jokes about proving this proposition. Let's see how many I can remember.
Physicist: three is prime, five is prime, seven is prime, nine is an experimental error, eleven is prime ...
Engineer: three is prime, five is prime, seven is prime, spot check twenty three is prime; looks like we're good.
Mathematician: three is prime, five is prime, seven is prime, by induction all odd numbers are prime.
Social scientist: three is prime, five is prime, seven is prime, nine is prime, eleven is prime ...
@SamRhody how many have I missed?
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My rule at this point is that any journalist is trying to deliberately mislead you unless they show their work. And then you should still assume they're manipulating you until you've carefully considered the context, looking for things they might have intentionally failed to mention.
I don't consume much journalism these days.
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Sadly true. Not only are they trying to mislead you, but they do not seem to care about informing you of even basic facts of a story. Often key details, like where the story took place, are only in figure captions, which are not referenced at all.
But back to the post, which is well done by the way, I seem to remember from elementary logic that a true conclusion cannot flow from a false premise.
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You could take away the Labor Theory of Value and lose not a single socialist to the cause. If deprived of that theory, it wouldn't make socialism one whit better.
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