I wouldn't say I "subscribe" to Marxism, though it seems plausible to me that I might in the near future. I'm still investigating it. While I wouldn't say that specific Marxist hypothesis have risen to the level of doxastic attitudes, the approach has affected the sort of facial explanations I give for phenomena. But as I said the tradition I'm most interested in is recent, economics-focused English language academic Marxism. (The cultural stuff doesn't really interest me all that much, and most of it strikes me as nonsense, but I'm not informed enough about it to conclude that "yes, it is nonsense!") If I could recommend a starting point it would be Harvey's "Limits to Capital," although it was Hobsbawm's trilogy on the 19th century that sparked my interest.
I hope this doesn't sound evasive! I try to economize on my explicit beliefs while being explicit on my existing biases.
(As a side note, while there are a lot of different LTVs floating around, it's likely that they're almost all a bit more trivial and a lot less crazy than what you might be imagining. Most forms don't contradict neoclassical price theory but do place some additional (idealized, instrumental) constaints in order to explain additional phenomena.)
By the signaling thing, I mean the following: normal humans (not neurotic screwballs, not sociopath salesmen) show a level of confidence in social situations that corresponds roughly to how confident they themselves feel at the time. Thus, when someone approaches you and tries to sell you on something - a product, an idea, or, most commonly, themselves - their confidence level can serve as a good proxy for whether they think the item under sale is actually worthy of purchase. The extent to which they seem guarded signals that they're not all that. So for game-theoretic reasons, salesmanship works.
But it's also the case that normal people become more confident and willing to let their guards down when they're around people they trust, for obvious reasons. Thus, lowering of guards can signal "I trust you; indeed, trust you significantly more than most people" if you showed some guardedness when you first met them. There are other signals you can send, but these are among those whose absence will leave people suspicious, if you want to take your relationships in a more serious direction.
So there are tradeoffs in where you choose to place yourself on the easy-confidence spectrum. Moving to the left makes it easier to make casual friends, and lots of them; to the right makes it easier to make good friends. I suspect that most people slide around until they get the goods bundle that they want - I've even noticed how I've slid around throughout time, in reaction to being placed in new social environments - although there are obvious dysfunctional cases.
Sorry for implying that racism is common here if it isn't! Seeing Saileresque shibboleths thrown around here a few times and, indeed, the nearbyness of blogs like Roissy probably colored my perceptions. (Perhaps the impression I have of PUA from the Game and Roissy is similarly inaccurate.)
I used to be interested in Marxism, but not so much anymore.
However, I'm still interested in theories of value. The labour theory of value is not just a Marxist thing; it was widely accepted in the 19th century, and there are still non-Marxists who use it.
I have a hard time deciding if the debate is anything more than a matter of definition. Perhaps one ought to have multiple theories of value for different purposes?
Anyway, I want to ask if you have any recommendations for reading on this subject.
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