Edmund Wilson gives a good explanation and analysis in "To the Finland Station." He really digs in to "Kapital." He says it works better as literature than as economic science, and, as example, that labor-capital is a concept that Marx is never able to adequately "prove.".. I'm paraphrasing, broadly, from memory. It's a really good read. As, says Wilson, is "Kaptial." I thus far haven't had the fortitude.
the music industry strikes me as a semi-special case. you have a global market where musicians around the world are all competing with one another for a very small number of profitable spots. with the surplus of artists making music above a credible bar, there's a surplus of labor. the geographic dispersion adds to the competition between laborers to make it hard for them to form realize their power. and the culture of cool modernity -- everything new all the time -- provides a logic for the turbid flow from one band to the next. it's still true that there's no "value" without the labor. regardless of these factors i still can't quite grasp why artist-owned platforms never took off, the same way it's not clear to me why drivers can't run their own Uber. i get that there are huge startup costs but still. it is fascinating how tech "democratized" the production (offloading recording costs, investment in labor) while capital retained a stranglehold on distribution. (Edit: i mention "semi-special" because I suspect this kind of case is becoming more common, and my own fields -- journalism and environmental research -- are both fields where wages are suppressed by a similar oversupply of people interested in joining them. Not as glamorous as rock star, but thanks to Star Trek IV/Free Willy etc you still meet a lot of kids who want to be marine biologists!)
I really appreciated this piece. I’ve written twice about this very thing over the past year or so. One of my pieces was titled, “You May Be Over the Pandemic, But the Pandemic Isn’t Over.” I totally get the wanting for it to be over, but I also am able to see and accept that it very much is not.
This is why Marx's labor-capital equation never worked: labor has no value.
Omg can't believe you just mentioned that, I have been deep over my head researching this very part of Marx's reasoning...
heard this last week, might be of interest: The Lit Review podcast talking with Angela Davis about Marx's Capital https://soundcloud.com/thelitreviewchi/episode60
Edmund Wilson gives a good explanation and analysis in "To the Finland Station." He really digs in to "Kapital." He says it works better as literature than as economic science, and, as example, that labor-capital is a concept that Marx is never able to adequately "prove.".. I'm paraphrasing, broadly, from memory. It's a really good read. As, says Wilson, is "Kaptial." I thus far haven't had the fortitude.
the music industry strikes me as a semi-special case. you have a global market where musicians around the world are all competing with one another for a very small number of profitable spots. with the surplus of artists making music above a credible bar, there's a surplus of labor. the geographic dispersion adds to the competition between laborers to make it hard for them to form realize their power. and the culture of cool modernity -- everything new all the time -- provides a logic for the turbid flow from one band to the next. it's still true that there's no "value" without the labor. regardless of these factors i still can't quite grasp why artist-owned platforms never took off, the same way it's not clear to me why drivers can't run their own Uber. i get that there are huge startup costs but still. it is fascinating how tech "democratized" the production (offloading recording costs, investment in labor) while capital retained a stranglehold on distribution. (Edit: i mention "semi-special" because I suspect this kind of case is becoming more common, and my own fields -- journalism and environmental research -- are both fields where wages are suppressed by a similar oversupply of people interested in joining them. Not as glamorous as rock star, but thanks to Star Trek IV/Free Willy etc you still meet a lot of kids who want to be marine biologists!)
I really appreciated this piece. I’ve written twice about this very thing over the past year or so. One of my pieces was titled, “You May Be Over the Pandemic, But the Pandemic Isn’t Over.” I totally get the wanting for it to be over, but I also am able to see and accept that it very much is not.
are you really making matzah
Yes! True to the tale, it doesn’t take long.