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this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2025
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theory
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Hell yeah, lay it on me.
When I say "bargain" I don't mean a civilized transaction. I get the systemic violence. But isn't it a kind of bargain? Isn't that the whole point of a union? The individual worker has little or no bargaining power, because we are easily replaced, which is why we band together and threaten to withhold labor as a group.
In the early days of industrial wage labor, we had no unions or legislation to protect us. Our wages were individual bargains — and yes, our main leverage was that that we needed to stay alive to work. Our main threat was, "If you pay me any less, or work me any harder, I may starve and be too weak to work." That continued until the labor movement had sufficiently demonstrated the power of organized labor, forcing capital to grant concessions to stop us from radicalizing and militarizing any further.
But capitalists also depend on bargaining power — they just have a lot more of it than we do. If tomorrow the cops and the feds suddenly stopped protecting private property, and announced, "workers, you now have the choice to commandeer your boss's business and run it however you want," profits would vanish. The owners would no longer have the leverage to pay themselves millions of dollars a year, because we would just take over the business and keep the profits ourselves.
Not at all! Thanks for taking the time. And yeah, I am interested.
Give me a bit to write it up and I'll send you what I got!
But, I wanted comment on something you mentioned before I go.
I don't think that's a naïve interpretation, and in fact I think the insight there is spot on! When I say that natural prices are those prices that allow for the system to reproduce itself, I do mean the capitalist system. So natural prices under a capitalist formation must be able to reproduce the class exploitation of the capitalists (and hence their consumption), else it isn’t capitalism that is being reproduced.
In fact, bringing this insight into a definition of value is something that Ian Wright has done, and is part of his solution to the transformation problem, i.e. how to get natural prices from value. Essentially, his argument as I understand it is that one can create an extended measure of value that includes the labor required to cover products made for the owner’s consumption (surplus value), and that this extended measure of value is still a measure of value, just through lens of your insight. This extended measure of value is still measured in labor-hours, and is commensurate with prices under capitalism because while the surplus labor is not necessary for the workers, it is necessary for the system of capitalism to reproduce itself.
Though, like I mentioned before the transformation problem is worth its own post. And this is one solution, of many proposed, for the transformation problem.
The rest of your question was on the uniqueness of the solution
and I'll respond with a write up on solving for natural prices with the framework I'm most familiar with.
Just want to let you know that I'm still very much interested (and I won't lose interest so there's no rush), but also, no pressure! if life gets in the way or you run out of steam it's all good! Thanks either way. It's a potentially laborious effortpost, on a niche forum, in a small thread where I might be the only person who reads it. Stoked if you do but 110% understand if you don't.
I'm in the process of writing it up. I'm starting with a pure labor economy (simplest model and lays the foundation) and building it up from there. Not yet, finished but I am working on it.
And you may be the only one who reads it
but I've been wanting to write something like this up for a while anyways
Hopefully I dont get back to you within a year with some massive tome
Hell yeah
godspeed