I can't elaborate on my point of view in a short essay. First pick two questions that most people care about: 1, what is the labor theory of value; 2. What can we learn from Das Kapital?
1, what does the labor theory of value say?
What the labor theory of value says is "measure standard".
When we buy watermelons, we need moisture and sweetness. However, we buy and sell watermelons by the catty, because we can't directly measure moisture and sweetness. Sometimes we make up for the lack of measurement methods by looking at colors, listening to sounds and tasting. Labor is a widely used tool to measure the exchange rate.
Marx's economic theory mainly comes from Smith and Ricardo, and the labor theory of value was not initiated by Marx.
Starting from Aristotle, people found that different things can be exchanged and have a roughly fixed proportion. Things that can be exchanged must have something in common, otherwise there is no way to measure them. Before Marx, labor was considered as the common feature of all commodities. Followed by Marx's theory, utility theory appeared, saying that utility is the common feature of all commodities.
Undoubtedly, in Marx's system, utility and use value are synonymous, and everyone's utility is different, so they cannot be compared and superimposed. Marx believes that this can not be used as a measure of exchange, especially in capitalist society.
From the measurement point of view, utility is the characteristic of ancient and modern Chinese and foreign commodities, and labor is the characteristic of labor products. Many people criticize Marx's theory for its weak explanatory power and inability to explain the exchange of non-labor products. Unfortunately, this is exactly what Marx wanted to avoid. What Marx wants to explain is "capitalist society". He believes that economic laws that can be applied to all societies cannot explain the phenomena in a particular society.
In other words, even if the utility theory is used to explain the specific "capitalist society", it will also add some constraints and eventually return to Marx's field.
I won't say much, only that the most powerful criticism of Marx is recognized by western economists: the collapse of Pombavik's Marx system. Pombavik said: the criticism of Marx's theory failed because the people who criticized it were too poor. Pombavik's contribution lies in time. Later, Fisher used time to completely summarize the concept of capital along this road. I won't go into details.
2. What can we learn from Das Kapital?
This is a big problem. Das Kapital is a treasure house, which can be used for reference in both theoretical research and practical application.
For individuals, Das Kapital is more practical than other economic works. The Wealth of Nations and Principles of Economics teach us theories and methods, while Das Kapital directly teaches us the way to get rich.
Das Kapital directly analyzed Britain, the most developed capitalist country in the world at that time. It directly analyzes the two classes in society-the poor and the rich. It analyzes the different behaviors of the rich and the poor and their different attitudes towards the same policy. In a word, Marx used a lot of figures and historical facts to explain the secret that the poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer.
I have never seen any economics textbook give you the way to get rich directly like capital-the rich are tightly surrounded by capital, and the poor are used by the rich (without capital).
The most striking feature of Das Kapital is that it provides the phenomena and laws of capitalist society and reveals the ways for the rich to get rich.
This is really meaningful: the rich are constantly encouraging the working class to spend money, such as electrical appliances, cars, travel and loans. These are all to prevent the poor from owning assets, while the rich themselves have been accumulating assets. Look at the wage earners around you, and finally get some money together. The rich will sell you a house and provide loans, which will make you feel that the house is an "asset" at the same time.
There is a direct exposition in Das Kapital: raising the real estate price can make workers work longer in order to buy a house, and by selling houses, capitalists can get more funds to continue investing. Marx strongly criticized this view, and now this scene is being staged in China.
Few people read Das Kapital, even fewer people praise Das Kapital, but many people scold it. As a person who has read the original work, I would like to write some feelings about reading Das Kapital here, which is not rigorous and systematic enough, so it is a brief introduction to Das Kapital.
Just follow the previous serial number.
3. What happened to Das Kapital? It takes time to make money.
There are countless people who criticize capital, but no matter how you take risks, negotiate, play games, etc., you can't overthrow one of Marx's core ideas: some people only pay for capital and "do nothing" to gain benefits.
As mentioned above, the most powerful criticism of Das Kapital comes from Pombavik, who pointed out that people who do nothing pay "waiting" and "time". Marx found that the workers paid the labor time, but found that the capitalists did nothing. Pombavik said that capitalists also pay time. So we see that interest rates are defined according to different times.
In Das Kapital and Interest, Pombavik said that the completely correct theorem that a worker should get the full value of his products can be understood as that a worker should get the full present value of his products now or the full future value of his products in the future.
Fisher's interest theory completes the generalization of the concept of capital. Fisher said in the interest theory that the labor value of planting trees is 5 yuan, and the value of trees after 25 years is 15 yuan. Why didn't the workers get 15 yuan? The answer is: He only needs to wait 25 years to get 15 yuan.
This is recognized by western economists as the most powerful criticism of Marx's theory.
Generally speaking, Marx neglected that it takes time to make money. So getting rich overnight is accidental, with an annual yield of 28%. If you persist for decades, it is Buffett!
4. Where is the capital theory-making money should be in the right place.
Now, the construction of market mechanism is in full swing. In Das Kapital, Marx briefly pointed out the important elements: freedom, equality, ownership and bentham are the only things that dominate there.
Freedom-people who are equal and free in law conclude contracts;
Equal and equivalent exchange;
Ownership-only dominate their own things;
Bentham-egoism.
In this market, Marx correctly pointed out that you can't make money just by replacing your own things with equivalent ones.
Where can I make money? Marx said: ... enter the secret production site with the sign "No Public Access" on the door! There, you can see not only how capital is produced, but also how capital itself is produced. The secret of making money will eventually be revealed.
It is a principle that making money depends on production rather than trading. More people buy stocks. If you often buy and sell them, it is a transaction, hoping to be smarter than others, and you win and he loses; If you pay attention to enterprise management, like Buffett, you participate in the production process, a capitalist and a capital appreciation.
Therefore, to make money, we must adhere to two principles: first, time, patience, and eliminating the psychology of getting rich; Second, local governments should participate in the production process and not speculate.