#nochd answers

[nochd]

Kia ora! I followed you before even realising you were from Aotearoa. ^_^ Ko Ngāti Whakaue te hapu. Nō Ōtautahi me Pōneke au. Kei Ōtepoti tōku kāinga ināianei. Just sending a request for elaboration if you care to on your pretty fantastic point from the post re: insulating ourselves from right-wing viewpoints.

"Capitalism promotes selfishness and greed."

"Value is created by labour. Profit is theft."

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

"Reducing all value to monetary value is soulless and shallow."

"You can't earn a billion dollars."

At the very least, leftists need to become aware of the neoliberal answers to these, and start coming up with better counter-arguments.

Kia ora, e hoa. He Pākehā au. Kei Ōtepoti tōku kāinga hoki -- te hia te oruatanga!

I'm probably going to have to spread this out over a bunch of reblogs, but it's going to go quicker if I start by explaining neoliberal economic theory once to begin with, rather than going point by point.

The first premise is that value is subjective. Different things are valued differently by different people, and no-one is wrong about their own valuation of something.

This subjectivity is the foundation of all economic transactions. Economic value is created by the differential between two different people's valuation of a good or service.

Let's say you buy a coffee for $5, and let's say you do so freely. You wouldn't do that if that coffee was worth less than $5 to you. But the sale also wouldn't happen if the coffee was worth more than $5 to the seller.

Just for the sake of argument, let's say that if that coffee had cost $6 you would still have bought it, but if it had cost over $7 you would have gone elsewhere. Then that coffee is worth $7 to you.

Meanwhile, the seller would (hypothetically) be willing to lower their price if they weren't getting enough customers, but let's say only down to $2 a coffee. So the coffee is worth $2 to the seller.

In this scenario, you've paid only $5 for something that's actually worth $7 to you. You've gained value equal to $7 - $5 = $2. The seller, meanwhile, has been paid $5 for something that's only worth $2 to them. They've gained value equal to $5 - $2 = $3. You're both richer, in terms of total value enjoyed, than you were before you bought the coffee. A total of $5 in surplus value has been created out of nowhere, simply by the act of buying and selling.

I've described this transaction in terms of a dollar price, because that's an easy way to talk about value, but it's important to note that the logic works just the same if you're exchanging goods and services directly for other goods and services. If you don't have $5 but you're willing to wash dishes for half an hour in exchange for your coffee, then by definition that coffee is worth more to you than that half-hour of your time.

That, by the way, already illustrates another foundational principle: value is measured by what people are willing to exchange for it. People can talk all they like about what they want and what's important to them, but if they're not willing to put anything on the line, then it's just talk.

What we've seen so far already gives you the neoliberal answer to a couple of our bullet-points:

"Reducing all value to monetary value is soulless and shallow." -- the neoliberal economist would answer, if you're not willing to pay for something, if you're not willing to give anything up for it, then it is your claim to still "value" it in some sense that is shallow.

"Value is created by labour. Profit is theft." -- to unpack that a little, the difference between the sale price of a good and the production cost to make that good is created by the worker's contribution. The economist will answer, no it's not; it's created by the fact that the buyer values the good more than the maker does.

Workers willingly come in to work and exchange their labour for the wage they're offered; their acceptance demonstrates, by definition, how much their time and energy is truly worth to them. Selling labour to an employer is exactly the same as selling goods to a customer; once sold, the customer owns the goods and is free to do what they like with them, including sell them at a higher price.

(I imagine you can already see at least one of the major problems with this theory; but I'm going to leave counter-arguments for a later reblog.)

Also: "You can't earn a billion dollars." -- the economist would answer that if people are willing to pay you that much money, then by definition whatever you do for them is worth that much money. Provided, of course, that they're fully aware of what they're buying when they agree to buy it.

But if value is subjective, you might be asking, why do economists talk so often as if things had a "true" value or a "correct" price? That's where the market comes in.

Leftists love to use "market" as a word of scorn, but to neoliberals "the market" is simply -- people.

Let's go back to that $5 coffee. If you're only willing to part with $1 for a coffee, you're out of luck. The seller is not willing to sell at that price and the coffee will go to someone else, someone who is willing to pay $5. Contrariwise, if the seller asks for $8, they're not going to get many customers, and people will go buy someone else's cheaper coffee.

If the price is too high, some sellers won't find buyers; the coffee will go unsold, and it will be wasted. If it's too low, some buyers won't find sellers; the coffee will all be snapped up by the first lot of customers to get there, regardless of whether they're the ones who valued the coffee highest, and there will be a shortage. Either way, some surplus value which could have been created, won't be.

But in a free market, customers can choose whose goods to buy, and sellers can choose what price to sell their goods at. Mathematically, the price which will generate the most profit for the sellers is also the price which creates the most total surplus value for sellers and buyers alike, thus minimizing both waste and shortage. That's what's called the market price.

Remember, surplus value -- in neoliberal theory -- is basically people getting what they want. The ideal situation is for the greatest possible number of people to get the greatest possible amount of what they want. That's the same thing as creating the greatest possible surplus value across the economy.

I've already pointed out one of the problems with this aspect of the theory in a reblog of the earlier post. But again, I'll come back to counter-arguments at a later time.

In fact I think I'll wrap up here for now, because this post is already getting megabig. I haven't covered everything yet, but I'm going to save it for next time.

However, this is an ideology which is sincerely and seriously believed by people some of whom are very intelligent. Which means it's important not to underestimate its allure. So to counter that, I do want to impress upon you that according to this ideology, the best possible outcome for any situation is by definition that which is determined by the market, human consequences be damned.

If the market deems that climate disaster is better than cutting back on fossil fuels, then climate disaster is better than cutting back on fossil fuels. If the market deems that millions dying of Covid is better than lockdowns and mask mandates, then millions dying of Covid is better than lockdowns and mask mandates.

Just bear that in mind.

#nochd answers #economics #capitalism #neoliberalism #politics

[gaelicinternet]

In Gàidhlig, there are numerous ways to say 'to' verb. Using gu, ri, a, a bhith, airson. Chaidh iad ann airson sealg Chaidh mi ann a shealltainn orra Bha mi air mo dhòigh a bhith a' bruidhinn riut Feuchaibh gu bhith sàmhach Etc There's times where one seems more preferred. Like with the copula and a bhith. And others where you have a choice. Any tips or different ways to interpret what you want to say with the best Gàidhlig choice? Any big do's or don'ts? Any other 'to' type you prefer?

I’ll go through each of these in order:

chaidh iad ann airson sealg: airson is very common today as a general substitute for “to” when it’s indicating purpose — “they went there (in order) to hunt”. it can only mean “to” in this context, when used with a verb-noun. etymologically, airson is “for the sake of” — airson + verb is very strongly purposive, and tbh I think maybe it’s overused a bit (especially by learners). it’s usually followed by the infinitive, although when there’s no object (as in this sample sentence) you’ll hear just the bare verb-noun.

airson has the advantage over a (see below) that it can in theory be used with any verb, although I prefer to use gus; airson sounds a little too odd to me with non-motion verbs.

n.b. that with tha, airson also can be a way of saying “want”: bha mi airson siud a dhèanamh “I wanted to do that”.

chaidh mi ann a shealltainn orra: this is a much more generic (but still purposive) construction, but this a (which is not the infinitive a, no matter what LearnGaelic says), which triggers lenition of consonants and adds a dh’- before a vowel or fh, can only be used with verbs of motion: bha mi a’ dol a shealltainn orra, thig e a dh’òl còmhla riutha, etc.

bha mi air mo dhòigh a bhith a’ bruidhinn riut: this is the infinitive; I was trying to find a good explanation but taic seems to be requiring a password now, which I don’t have. D: in any case, you’ll note that there’s no purpose element to this, and unlike the a mentioned above, this a just lenites, and is dropped before a vowel or fh.

feuchaibh ri bhith sàmhach: (you feuch ri something, not *gu.) this is less that ri means “to” per se and really just that feuch ri is a set construction. you can sometimes use ri instead of ag with a verb-noun, but it means something a little different (dè tha thu ris?, for example, is something like “what are you up to?”).

in addition to these, there’s also gu and gus:

tha taisbeanadh gu bhith againn: in this case gu means something like “(supposed) to” or “(expected) to”: bha e gu bhith ann, ach cha b’ urrainn dha aig a’ cheann thall, “he was (supposed) to be there, but he couldn’t in the end”. gu can also, though, mean something closer to “will” or “going to” — tha mi gu bhith a’ cluiche a-nochd, “I’m going to be playing tonight”. there’s still a sense of expectation here, though, I’d say, in contrast to the “going to” future with dol a, which is more about purpose than expectation.

gu is usually followed by bhith (plus or minus another verb noun, like bha e gu bhith a’ seinn).

rinn mi siud gus a bhith cinnteach: “I did that in order to be sure”. gus is like airson but not quite as strong, and it sounds a little funny when used with verbs of motion (in contrast to airson). but it sounds better to me with non-motion verbs than airson does. like airson, it’s followed by the infinitve.

I’m probably missing things, and this might be a little confusing; I’m not 100% sure how to explain the difference I perceive between airson and gus, for example, as you probably noticed. but does that help clarify the differences between all of these at least a little?

it’s easier to answer more specific questions than big general ones, lol.

#ceistean #gràmar

[nochd]

Hey, how does one becomes a Taker of Notes for Disabled University Students? That actually sounds like it's a really cool job

At the moment I'd have to say "One doesn't."

I got the job 11 years ago, when there were a dozen or more of us. My own disability doesn't interfere so much with my ability to work as with my ability to convince employers that I'm someone they want working for them. But the Disabilities Information & Support people at Otago University were, as one would hope, a bit more enlightened.

Disabilities Information & Support are great employers. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for the University of Otago. Over the last decade their policy decisions have spent lavishly on building and branding projects to sparkle up their public image for very marginal improvements in user experience, whilst raising tuition fees and laying off staff left and right.

One casualty of the layoffs was the note-taking service. See, there's an alternative service where the Disabilities office buys what are called peer notes, taken by students in their own courses, and provides those to students with disabilities. That of course is contingent on there being students willing to sell their notes and able to take notes that another person will understand. And of course peer note-takers have their own studies to do and can't focus on the writing and editing process like I can.

But the University decided that one way to save money for their big rebranding projects would be to drop the number of professional note-takers from fourteen down to two, and let peer note-takers pick up the slack. Not long after that the one other professional note-taker quit to go do something else. I'm the only one left.

#nochd answers