u/le_disappointment

I've heard this argument many times from fellow comrades that the USSR was dissolved "illegally". This claim has two sub-parts

1. The USSR was dissolved by external forces, as opposed to the people of the USSR deciding to dissolve it

2. The process of dissolution itself was "illegal"

Since I don't quite understand this argument due to a lack of knowledge, I wanna learn more. In particular, I want answers to these questions:

1. Did the USSR democratically decide to dissolve itself? If so, then it wasn't as much "dissolved" as it decided to dissolve itself. Now this might look like a linguistic critique, but what I'm asking is who, the people of the USSR or external forces, was mainly responsible for the dissolution of the USSR

2. What do we mean by the word "illegal". Legality and illegality implies a certain set of laws. But whose laws are we talking about? Are we talking about the laws of the USSR? Are we talking about international law? What exactly do we mean by the word "illegal"?

Different currencies have different exchange values with respect to each other. For example, a single euro costs X US dollars, and each USD costs Y Chinese Yuan

1. What grounds these exchange rates? Why must each USD cost exactly Y yuan, and why must each euro cost exactly X USD? How are the exchange rates determined? What market forces cause each currency to gravitate towards a specific exchange value?

2. If each euro costs X USD, and each USD costs Y yuans, then this chain of exchange must terminate at some currency. Shouldn't it? Like eventually we'll end up at a point where each unit of currency A costs Z units of currency B. But why must currency A costs exactly Z units of currency B? Moreover, what grounds the value of currency B. If we can ground currency B in something, then we can ground every other currency as well, but how can we even ground currency B? Is this terminal currency (that's what I'm calling it; maybe there's a different term for it in the literature that I don't know) grounded in some commodity which has a certain amount of SNTL crystallized within it? However, even if that's true, the question still remains. What determines how many units of this terminal currency will correspond to this commodity? Moreover, what determines the values of X, Y, and Z?

3. Why do we even have different currencies with different values? Shouldn't 1 hour of similar labor done on similar equipment be worth the same regardless of wherever the worker does the labor and whichever currency the worker is paid in? Why is it that a person working in country A is paid say 10 units of local currency and a worker working on country B is paid 20 units of local currency, when one unit of country A's currency may NOT necessarily equal 2 units of country B's currency?

4. What determines the price of commodity in terms of the units of currency its price will gravitate towards? In olden days when gold was the means of exchange, as opposed to current times when paper money or even just bytes on some computer somewhere are the means of exchange, I can see how the price of a commodity would gravitate towards the equivalent worth of goal with the same amount of crystallized SNLT. But how does this work with modern currencies? What determines the amount of currency that the cost of a commodity will gravitate towards?

5. I can somewhat reframe a part of my question to make it easier to understand by using a concrete example. Why do crypto currencies have value? Why must say a single Bitcoin equal X USD. Why X in particular, why not 0.5X or 2X? What determines the exchange value of single Bitcoin?

I live in Texas. This place isn't really known for its progressive values. Almost every person that I meet has been fed anti-comminist propaganda since they were a little kid. I can't even begin discussing capitalism's issues before they either completely stop listening to me or start repeating right wing talking points. I'm sure y'all would've also encountered people as such. How do you talk to these people? I want to be able to show these people that what they believe in is actively hurting them. I want to show them that the people they vote for are acting against them. And I wanna show that communism can solve a lot of their problems. How do I talk to these people? Do any of y'all have any suggestions for talking to both conservatives and liberals?

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@mods please remove this post if it breaks any rules. I didn't know which subreddit to ask this question on, and this one felt like the most appropriate

I think I understand how LTV works, but I'm getting stuck on this. Some commodities (such as clothing, tech products, etc.) have a symbolic value attached to them. For example, the symbolic value of a branded T-shirt from a well known fashion company is different from that of an unbranded T-shirt that one can buy from Walmart. However, besides the logo of the company that's stamped on the branded T-shirt, both these objects are identical in terms of how much labor is crystallized within them. In fact, more likely than not, they were manufactured in the same factory. However, the cost of the branded T-shirt is more than that of the unbranded one. Now I understand that the price of a commodity is not the same as its value, but the price should eventually (due to the market forces as a result of competition) settle down to the actual value of the commodity. However, we don't see it happening. Some commodities are sold at higher prices if they are sold by certain manufacturers, and at lower prices if they are sold by others. How does LTV account for this discrepancy?

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The way I see it is that commodities also have a semiotic, i.e. symbolic, value associated with them. When I go and buy a branded T-shirt, I'm not buying just a T-shirt, rather I'm also buying the symbolic value that comes with owning that T-shirt. However, I don't see the crystallized labor that appears as the symbolic value. How do we make sense of this? Should LTV be modified to account for semiotic value as well?

I just wanna preface this post by saying that I've *not* been diagnosed with Anxiety and/or Depression. I don't wanna appropriate these terms. I don't wanna take anything away from people who have to suffer through this

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Lately I have been feeling like my whole body is in pain, tremendous pain. But here's the catch, I don't have any bruises or anything that would cause me to feel pain. It's almost like I'm feeling the emotions that pain elicits, without the pain itself. I don't know how else to explain this.

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Everything feels like a chore. I can't even get myself out of my bed. Every movement feels painful, without the actual pain of course. The feeling is most intense in my chest. It feels like I'm being constantly stabbed in my chest day in and say out. But I don't feel the pain that would come from being actually stabbed. I just feel the emotions that one would feel when they are stabbed

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I don't think that this is normal. This started about a week ago and I've been feeling like this constantly, from the moment I wake up to the moment I fall asleep. I know that my descriptions of it aren't that helpful but that's the best that I can do. I don't know how else to describe it. I feel awful, but it's not like the regular awful feeling, it's more like painful awful

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Has anyone else felt this way before? Is this a symptom of Depression and/or Anxiety? Please help me make sense of this

I think I understand the LTV. As per the LTV, the value of a commodity is the socially necessary labor crystallized in it. However, how does this work when the raw materials required to produce that commodity are rare?

For example, it takes about the same amount of socially necessary labor time to process Iron and Copper ores (As far as I know. The details don't matter much. This is just for illustration purposes). However, copper ores are much rarer than iron ores on Earth. Moreover, copper is way more expensive than iron. However, the socially necessary labor time crystallized in a pound of copper is about the same as that which is crystallized in a pound of iron. How does the LTV account for this?