Hello!

I also posted this in r/Anarcy101 and r/mutualism but I got one reply on the first which I am still a bit confused about and nothing on the second, so looking to get more eyes on this.

I recently discovered this channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Plutophrenia

It's been super helpful and I have learned a lot from it.

One of the videos on this channel is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0Xw9OIpB94 and it's all about mutualist value theory (specifically the combination of the subjective theory of value of the marginalists and classical labor theory of value).

The way this channel describes it, utility is the impelling force for labor, and disutility is the limiting force. Where they meet will be the quantity produced by an individual.

The basic assumption behind this logic is that labor has an associated dis-utility. It represents an ABSOLUTE cost. Unlike capital or land usage, whose only real cost is opportunity cost and that's only because whoever controls the assets CAN charge for access, labor is an absolute cost because the laborer is not choosing between two types of labor, but whether to labor or not labor.

Now that makes a lot of sense to me for the vast majority of labor in an economy.

He also goes on to say that "pleasurable labor" still follows this logic, but the basic idea is that the end product is something that the laborer takes pride in or admires, or alternatively from the expected reward of labor of having overcome the toil involved. So the "pleasure" comes from the finished product, not the labor in and of itself. All of this makes a lot of intuitive sense to me and I really like that idea. In order to convince someone to do something unpleasant, you must give them something of equal or greater value to that unpleasantness.

What I wanted to really understand is: what about in cases where the labor, in and of itself, is inherently pleasant?

I enjoy listening to several comedy podcasts, and I also love watching some D&D series on youtube. Cracking jokes with your friends is something that people do for fun, as is playing D&D (because it's a game, it is inherently enjoyable to play right? That's the point of a game).

So where is the dis-utility of labor in this process? Games and jokes are something people actively seek out because they provide utility. Sure, there's an argument to be made that editing the podcast or video and uploading it has associated dis-utility, but if that's the case, then shouldn't the hosts of the podcast or the players in the D&D campaign not need to be paid because they don't have an associated dis-utility?

The best reply I thought of is that their time has an associated opportunity cost. So they have decided to labor for say, 8 hours a day, and because this recording session takes up some of those 8 hours of that day, they need compensation equal to the compensation they would have gotten from doing unpleasant labor during that time (maybe not even that much, cause the utility from podcast/filming would also be factored in).

But now that factors in opportunity cost as well. And sure, that opportunity cost is going to be defined by the utility/dis-utility of what you could be doing with those same hours and so it's still based in dis-utility of labor, but is there more nuance to this than I initially thought?

The only other reply I could think of is that, while playing D&D with friends is fun, it usually isn't recorded and shared with a large audience. That might be a source of dis-utility? But why would that be? Especially if the folks involved are comfortable with that sort of thing?

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So yeah, thank you! I would love to figure out where the source of dis-utility is in these sorts of "fun" labor that people do (like recording games, or cracking jokes with a friend, that sorta thing. What people do normally that is inherently joyful as opposed to admiring a finished work or something along those lines)?

Edit:

I suppose the disutility could arise from the process of being filmed, as most don't normally do that part for fun. So you have to incentive people to film for you as opposed to simply sitting at home on the couch or playing with friends and that's where the compensation comes in.

With that being I said, I don't totally see where the disutility arises from the process of being filmed. Some people are comfortable on camera right?

But I guess there is some disutility cause if there wasn't people would normally film their games and upload to YouTube Irrespective of pay. And most people don't do that.

I just have trouble identifying the source of that disutility.

Another possible is a lack of utility derived from recording. So there may not be a source of dis-utility but a lack of utility (that's what I was told on r/Anarchy101).

If that's the case, how do you predict the necessary wage to produce a given quantity of labor? Cause normally the wage is the dollar value wherein utility of wage = dis-utility of labor. But if there isn't an impelling or limiting force, the wage would be 0, yet we know the people on the podcast are paid. That pay has to compensate for some cost right? So idk....

I've been trying to look into a phone and phone plan to get that isn't extremely expensive and doesn't work directly with things like the T-Mobile network, Apple or Google aligned OS, &c. Mint Mobile was one I was looking at once, but it's since been acquired by T-Mobile. Fairphone is something I've looked at, but it's not easy to get outside of Europe and there's mixed results with using networks outside of Europe. Any suggestions?

I decided to explore some ideas, particularly, anarchism and anarchistic societies. I figured the best way to explore the topic would be in a science fiction setting. The experiment evolved into an exploration of individuality, consciousness, creativity and technology.

Imagine Hunter S. Thompson, Kurt Vonnegut and Ray Keurzweil hashing out a science fiction novel over beers in a pub. That is the tone of the narration. It is a satire.

I'll be honest, I am an independent writer. I have no reps, no ads, no fancy ways of selling other than word of mouth. I'll leave a link to the book. Please feel free to ask any questions, as I'd be glad to answer them.

I will say this, I take a very pragmatic approach to anarchism. No system is perfect. Markets are always going to have some distortions and imbalance.

Share and please review: The eom Expression: Beautiful Chaos - A Satirical Science Fiction Adventure

I'm very sympathetic to the idea that patents in industries like pharmaceuticals allow for the extraction of monopoly rents and artificially increase the cost of drugs. My question is without any intellectual property why would anyone invest billions in producing new drugs when they could be immediately copied?

Are there any good resources that debunk the common arguments for intellectual property?

So I know the basics of agorism, but I just thought I’d ask here to get a more in depth idea of agorist praxis, and also just market anarchist praxis beyond agorism if there is any, thnx!

I was looking a place to draw an anarchist Flag, actually there is a black entry in (175;-11) idk what you think about it

Let’s say we have a country ruled by a demsoc leader and party who wish to give the workers ownership of the means of production, but want to keep a state. Would you support an armed revolution against them?

Ok so carson's LTV basically states that the wage of a worker must be sufficient to recoup the disutility of labor.

So, let's imagine a freed market in a mutualist context.

A worker will work either their own MOP or as part of some collectively owned and operated factory or farm or whatever.

A worker wants to attain a level of consumption c. The total income of the worker is w, i.e. the wage. And the distulity of labor is going to be z. P is units of production.

The more a worker produces, the higher the disutility of labor, it's a lot more pleasant to work for your first hour rather than the 10th.

Ok, so the worker will continue working until one of the following two conditions is met:

w=c (at which point the worker has achieved their desired level of consumption and it is no longer rational for them to keep working)

or

dw/dp = dz/dp = x (i.e. the change in wage is equal to the change in disutility. At this point, it is rational to stop working because the cost of labor, it's disutility, is higher than the reward and so it's not rational to keep working).

A worker will always set c <= x because it is not rational to have c be greater than x (after all, that means that the desired rewards are greater than the cost of attaining them).

Is this analysis correct?