Obama's Labor Theory of Value

Ron Ross, writing today at The American Spectator:

Full article here.

Tired, poorly researched troll is tired and poorly researched.

It wasn't just Marx -- Adam Smith and Ricardo also applied the theory to some of their work. However, it's clear from the article that the author isn't actually talking about this theory at all, since that isn't at all connected to what Obama has said. So either Ross doesn't understand it, or more likely, figures the reader won't, but that he can fool people by hanging a theory associated with Marx around Obama's neck. Goes along with birthism in my opinion.

The true goofiness is that Obama could've bypassed most all of the hoopla/furor over his comment by adding one simple word. How about "You didn't build that alone"! It doesn't take away the ownership of those who create industry so much as reminds them about the help/education/mentoring they had along the way. Which it seems to me was supposed to be the whole point of the phrase.... JMO.

Well he's right! 99 percent of the people are equally fucked in Cuba, N. Korea and Zimbabwe. Mission accomplished!

Also, how many more times is that quote going to be used in this misleading way? The "that" which Obama was referring to was not businesses, but the roads and other infrastructure that said businesses used.

Obama's a marxist nazi kenyan, and a secret Muslin!!!!1!!!!

Is there not any rational criticism of the man? I can think of a few things.

You fail at grammar and at telling the truth.

Stupid cpurick Tricks

His grammar is impeccable. As for your commenting on anyone else's honesty...

The useful idiot "out of context" defense of Obama is no less nonsensical. Even if we agree the rich person did build his business, the argument being advanced is that he didn't build it himself because other people helped.

Consider "there was a great teacher somewhere in your life." Yeah, so what if there was? Are you saying that teacher wasn't paid? Or are you saying the teacher retains some claim on the future wealth of her students?

And what about all the other people who took the same class, but didn't succeed -- do they somehow owe less? Don't they have access to the same roads and bridges the successful business has access to?

The best explanation I've heard was that the A student takes the same bus to school as all the other kids. When he gets his A, he did that. And the role the bus and the bus driver played in it is an opportunity that was shared with all the other kids. Paid in full. The other kids did not succeed, and the difference is uniquely his. As should be the reward.

And, by the way, the suggestion that "you did build it, but you owe all the people who helped" is 100% Marxist. Those people were all paid when services were rendered. This notion, of some compensated benefactor's retained interest in a beneficiary's future success, is exactly what Marx was talking about.

CPUDICKED!

In your case, the adjective is dubious...

You have to admit, he could have worded it better. It's too easy to misconstrue what he meant and that is never a good idea in any speech.

Marx was "about" social revolution, not some level of taxation to fund infrastructure and education, which is what Obama was defending here. That he even had to defend such things just indicates how much of a grip wackaloons like you have on the political debate.

Absolutely,he fumbled the line, but it's still clear in context. He should have said, "you didn't build that road," which is what he does say in the follow-up examples about Internet and such. He missed the word and the rest is history. But as evidenced within this thread, people hear what they want to hear anyway, so some of us believe he missed the word, others believe it was some sort of effort to bring socialism down on us all.

And lets just all ignore the obvious that those sacred roads, bridges & teachers were paid for by taxpayer dollars. In other words, money that is confiscated from the producers in society, govt. can't pay for anything without first taking those funds from individuals. Meaning, the guy who in fact did build his business, paid for all these things.

And they'll just ride right back around to, "Well, we know he's on video saying it. And sure, we know everything surrounding him saying it doesn't actually change the context of what he said in the least. The problem is, if we actually acknowledge with honesty and integrity the fact that he said what he did, in fact say... we're gonna feel stupid for ever having supported him. And guilty for continuing to support him. And we don't want to stop supporting him, or feel stupid, or feel bad. So just go ahead and forward our mail up our asses, 'cause that's where we're gonna be until further notice."

That's what happens when he doesn't use a teleprompter. He says what he's really thinking.

From the end of the article:

Amazing. Right out of HUAC - there's a marxist behind every bush - while at the same time making an overt allusion to birthers. Certainly knows his audience.

The funny thing is the meaning of the term 'Marxist' is twisted 180 degrees from its historical basis. Marx and Engels didn't use the term. It was used as an orthodoxy test by adherents on who was the most ideologically pure. People who followed any form of revisionist Marxian thought weren't Marxists to those who believe only they followed the true dictates of Marx.

So if that was happening now, they'd be referred to as MINOs, Marxists In Name Only. Gotta love a good ideological purity test, LOL. It purges independent thought.

Regardless, as already stated, the quote is taken out of context. Anyone who truly thinks Obama is a Marxist is simply throwing a pejorative term at something they don't like without understanding its meaning.

Even if Obama believed 100% in the labor theory of value, and that would be an extraordinary reach considering his policies, that in no way shape or form is sufficient to qualify one as a Marxist. Hell, Marx attributed his ideas of the labor theory of value as being nascent in his readings of St. Thomas Aquinas and to economic thoughts penned by Benjamin Franklin, who himself got the idea from reading John Locke.

Oy! That's the point! You can't build your business without roads? Then we need tax money to pay for the roads. That's not something Obama ignored in the quoted passage; it is what he said.

Yup. Actually they DID "build that". And they built it so that not only they, but everyone else could use it.

Technically, they built a very small part of it, as did each of the rest of us. And we all have shared in the use. But the business owner could not have built the road or bridge by himself. That's the key element that a few people seem to gloss over.

Um, yeah, entirely analogous. I'm sure he's made lots of speeches claiming he was entitled to it. Maybe he even fixed the voting.

LOL. Perfectly consistent with his observation that Marxists will not identify as such. Demi argues that there's no singular definition of "Marxist". Thus every Marxist has a built-in argument that it's the other guys. Thanks for proving him right.

I see nobody here, Demi, who's worked harder than you to rationalize massive wealth as exploitative. Deny it all you want: You are under Karl's spell.

So cpurick is a devoted Marxist. Got it.

He doesn'tunderstand a thing about Marxism, but he is devoted to it anyway. Which is probably the typical kind of devotion for any -ism anyway. There's a Bertrand Russell quote to go with that, but googling it is more trouble than this thread is worth.

Certainly seems that way:

Is it this one?

"Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate."

That isn't bad either. No, I somehow got Russell and Chesterton confused -- I guess Russell just quoted him somewhere, because I've never actually read Chesterton. Anyway, he said:

Good one! Of course, cpurick isn't willing to die for anything. His goal is to bore everyone around him to death...

Well, there are the big ostentatious deaths, and then there are those ways of living that just amount to dying bit by bit, day by day... I see his sacrifice for his unintelligible idea more along those lines.