Marxist theory

[Figleaf]

Were you hoping I would take you to Paris?

With this post, you have managed to leave me with a negative impression of you personally. Up until this point, I respect reasoned debate. But I loath ridicule.

What else would you expect from a leftist who'd force Israel to be swamped with millions of "returning" terrorists (we are on the "Moral and Religious Issues" topic so this is on point).

1. What is the purpose of this drive-by, non sequitur spew? This thread is about Marxist theory and you have plenty of options to discuss middle east issues on other threads.

2. I'm not a leftist.

3. Despite your participation on at least two threads wherein I have stated my actual position on the 'right of return', you've got it abjectly wrong there.

[Mad_Michael]

Really? I didn't respond the first time you said how pointless the discussion was, but since you were at pains to raise it again, I was assuming you were looking for SOME kind of response. Next time, just tell me whatever magic words it is you want me to recite.

Seriously though, dude, you gotta learn to roll with the reparte.

It is not required that I have to learn anything from you - other than the fact that discussion with you serves no meaningful purpose.

Your attitude (which seems to be quite common at this forum site) has convinced me that posting at this site is a waste of time. Speculative and/or intelligent discussion is clearly not welcome here.

Goodbye.

[Figleaf]

Really? I didn't respond the first time you said how pointless the discussion was, but since you were at pains to raise it again, I was assuming you were looking for SOME kind of response. Next time, just tell me whatever magic words it is you want me to recite.

Seriously though, dude, you gotta learn to roll with the reparte.

It is not required that I have to learn anything from you -

Depends on what you mean by 'required'.

... other than the fact that discussion with you serves no meaningful purpose.

Well, it's lovely to hear from you again.

Your attitude (which seems to be quite common at this forum site) has convinced me that posting at this site is a waste of time.

And you're telling me this because....?

[rover1]

Well, I suppose that Marx et al studied and found what they found. Marx, at some point, while thinking that the result was inevitable, decided to 'help it along' with various suggestions for implementation. He may have missed something in discovery or analysis, or may have come up with a defective plan of implementation, and/or his followers may have somehow spoiled it. Whatever the circumstances might have been, my observation is that the whole thing has bee unsuccessful on a practical basis. In addition, most of the important provisions have required coercion to implement, and when given a choice have been rejected by those they were intended to help. On a competitive basis, Marx's proposed system has not been up to the mark as far as material enrichment, and providing those things, including choices, democratic and otherwise that people want. Capitalism or free enterprise or whatever it is, with all its warts, seems to have pleased more people more of the time.

Marx proposed an interesting philosophy which is bound to be attractive to many, at least at first glance, and will not likely go away--hope reigns eternal-- by seems unlikely to ever be implemented successfully. This theory will continue to cause trouble in the future, in my view.

[ScottSA]

My point is there is no such thing as "Marxist scholarship".

That rather depends on your definitions, doesn't it?

Sure does. Marx spawned a "grand theory", in that it explains all things everywhere and always. That is its strength and its flaw in one. It's helpful as a scholarly tool in some cases.

Marxian class analysis, by which I mean the simple treatment of people as divisions based on economic groups, is a lens through which to examine social dynamics. It can be very useful, and it's a relatively new way of looking at things. Unfortunately the subtext to both Marx and Engels is thoroughly normative, and it seems difficult for most people to seperate the normative from the analytical. Another problem with class analysis is that it is only one stream of Marxian thought, but it's often taken as a totality...researchers all too often assume the causality of Marx along with the analysis of class, and that leads folks down all sorts of garden paths. Probably the greatest flaw in class analysis is that scholars have taken it and run right out of the ballpark with it. So-called "Marxist feminists" have done an end run around Marx's economic classes by positing women a class by virtue of gender instead of economics. Homosexuals, race activists, handicapped activists and everyone else who can possibly set themselves apart from hegemonic society have adopted the same class analysis, although it has nothing whatsoever to do with Marxian economic class analysis. There is even a school of international relations represented by Wallerstein and others that posits an economic class relationship between nations...this is where the "imperialism" meme comes from. The irony would have Marx doing somersaults in his grave. Having said all that, Marxian class analysis is something new and quite brilliant if it's used as an analytical tool.

Everything else about Marxian thought (especially the early Marx) is essentially a rehash of Kant, Hegel and other philosophers. There's nothing new in the so-called "Marxian dialectic". Hegel was there long before and explained it so much better than Marx's turgid attempt.

[Figleaf]

My point is there is no such thing as "Marxist scholarship".

That rather depends on your definitions, doesn't it?

Sure does. Marx spawned a "grand theory", in that it explains all things everywhere and always. That is its strength and its flaw in one. It's helpful as a scholarly tool in some cases.

Marxian class analysis, by which I mean the simple treatment of people as divisions based on economic groups, is a lens through which to examine social dynamics. It can be very useful, and it's a relatively new way of looking at things. Unfortunately the subtext to both Marx and Engels is thoroughly normative, and it seems difficult for most people to seperate the normative from the analytical. Another problem with class analysis is that it is only one stream of Marxian thought, but it's often taken as a totality...researchers all too often assume the causality of Marx along with the analysis of class, and that leads folks down all sorts of garden paths. Probably the greatest flaw in class analysis is that scholars have taken it and run right out of the ballpark with it. So-called "Marxist feminists" have done an end run around Marx's economic classes by positing women a class by virtue of gender instead of economics. Homosexuals, race activists, handicapped activists and everyone else who can possibly set themselves apart from hegemonic society have adopted the same class analysis, although it has nothing whatsoever to do with Marxian economic class analysis. There is even a school of international relations represented by Wallerstein and others that posits an economic class relationship between nations...this is where the "imperialism" meme comes from. The irony would have Marx doing somersaults in his grave. Having said all that, Marxian class analysis is something new and quite brilliant if it's used as an analytical tool.

Everything else about Marxian thought (especially the early Marx) is essentially a rehash of Kant, Hegel and other philosophers. There's nothing new in the so-called "Marxian dialectic". Hegel was there long before and explained it so much better than Marx's turgid attempt.

I think you're being a bit reductionist and harsh with your characterization of some of those interest groups, but otherwise that seems like a sound analysis. I agree particularly with the part I italicized. Marx's flaws as a political theoretician are regretable, considering his strengths as an observational economist.

[ScottSA]

considering his strengths as an observational economist.

He didn't really come up with anything new, outside of class analysis. As an "observational economist", all he did was identify value-added and paint it as 5 different types of "alienation" with the help of Feuerbach. In other words, he simply took what Adam Smith and others had already discovered and rewrote it with a scary soundtrack and sinister lighting.

Funny thing is, the most profound economic analysis I've read in a long while is a little book selling at Coles on the cheap table, called "The company". It is a teensy Grand theory in it's own right...arguing quite convincingly that the establishment of the limited liability company is at the root of western economic acscendency, and even at the root of the British empire's surge to pre-emminence during the industrial revolution.

[Figleaf]

considering his strengths as an observational economist.

He didn't really come up with anything new, outside of class analysis. As an "observational economist", all he did was identify value-added and paint it as 5 different types of "alienation" with the help of Feuerbach. In other words, he simply took what Adam Smith and others had already discovered and rewrote it with a scary soundtrack and sinister lighting.

I have to part company from you there. Das Kapital is an important and original analysis of economic value that is both different and beyond previous efforts in that direction -- not necessarily determinative or authoritative, true, but substantial nonetheless.

[jbg]

I have to part company from you there. Das Kapital is an important and original analysis of economic value that is both different and beyond previous efforts in that direction -- not necessarily determinative or authoritative, true, but substantial nonetheless.

His historiography was first rate; his conclusions and predictions quite wrong.

[August1991]

Das Kapital is an important and original analysis of economic value that is both different and beyond previous efforts in that direction -- not necessarily determinative or authoritative, true, but substantial nonetheless.

Marx's labour theory of value is an extension of David Ricardo's original idea.

It's also wrong, in that the notion of value in economic theory was not properly understood until after Marx died and the marginalist revolution occurred in economic thought. The same can be said about Marx's idea of the interest rate which had to wait for Irving Fisher and Keynes to develop a modern understanding.

Value and interest rates are critical to Marxist economic theory and yet Marx got both of these notions wrong.

By and large, I think that economic theory has superceded Marx or simply proven him wrong in every regard since his time. That's not true of Smith and Ricardo, for example, whose insights still apply.

In the previous century, there was a time when it was fashionable in some circles to identify oneself as a Marxist (or a Bolshevik). People who called themselves Marxists wanted to appear to be radical.

As Vaclav Havel once said, the only remaining Marxists in the world today teach in Western universities. Once they retire, Marx's worldview will be the equivalent of the Ptolemaic system. No one who believes in a flat earth is considered radical.

[ScottSA]

Class analysis as an academic pursuit will be an enduring legacy of Marx. That and about a billion premature deaths are what he left us.

[jbg]

Class analysis as an academic pursuit will be an enduring legacy of Marx. That and about a billion premature deaths are what he left us.

But, in China, he brought us a "great leap forward".

[August1991]

Class analysis as an academic pursuit will be an enduring legacy of Marx.

Even class analysis has been superceded by modern mathematics.

"Class" amounts to membership in a cartel. As John Nash (and John von Neumann) rigourously observed, cartels are inherently unstable.

The idea that millions or billions of people would respect a social class cartel defies what we know of individual human behaviour.

----

There is ample opportunity to criticize modern economic theory or to point out the sheer waste of resources in this world. There is much to be radical about. If you want to take on the fat cats, change the world and make it more just, you have many miles to go. It's just that Karl Marx (and Leftists of his ilk) don't offer the right map at all.

[ScottSA]

Class analysis as an academic pursuit will be an enduring legacy of Marx.

Even class analysis has been superceded by modern mathematics.

"Class" amounts to membership in a cartel. As John Nash (and John von Neumann) rigourously observed, cartels are inherently unstable.

The idea that millions or billions of people would respect a social class cartel defies what we know of individual human behaviour.

----

There is ample opportunity to criticize modern economic theory or to point out the sheer waste of resources in this world. There is much to be radical about. If you want to take on the fat cats, change the world and make it more just, you have many miles to go. It's just that Karl Marx (and Leftists of his ilk) don't offer the right map at all.

I'm not familiar with Nash or von Neumann, but it doesn't matter if they have modified the thesis...Marx still gets credit for the seminal paradigmatic shift he started with class analysis. Again, I'm talking about his theoretical and analytic contributions to academia; not the havoc praxis has wreaked from one end of the globe to the other.

[August1991]

Marx still gets credit for the seminal paradigmatic shift he started with class analysis.

But it's a false paradigm.

Well before Karl Marx, Adam Smith observed that "people of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public..." I don't mean to defend Smith against Marx but rather I want to point out how simplistic both were.

A cartel or a conspiracy requires policing. Any social theory based on class behaviour must explain how the cartel is maintained. Cartels are inherently unstable and so too class analysis.

Nash would have fascinated both Smith and Marx but I think Marx would have gained more from the encounter.

Since this thread is about Marxism, let me present my idea this way. If I had a time machine and could make several mathematicians or economists meet Karl Marx, Marxism as it is known today would not exist. Marx would have changed his ideas. Allowing the same mathematicians or economists to meet Adam Smith, Smith would have returned to the past with a wry smile on his face.

There is much that is wrong in The Wealth of Nations, and there is far more that is innocent or ignored. But Smith's insights are striking. Smith was the first to observe that prices (numbers), a relatively recent human invention, lead anonymous individuals to co-operative behaviour.

Marx offers no similar insight. In fact, all his purported insights have proven to be wrong or misplaced. The only thing remaining is that Marxists are radical.

[Figleaf]

A couple of comments --

1. Smith might be somewhat content with what has come of his economic theories, but he would probably regret that his moral philosophy was ignored. In fact, it's a great shame that the moral side of his thought has not been appreciated for its importance in explaining the economy. Smith realized that economic choices are based on incentivies and motivations and he tried to work on those concepts in his less famous book the "Theory of Moral Sentiments".

2. Many people wish to diminish the importance of Marx in the history of economic thought. In fact, he made certain significant contributions to the advancement of economic understanding, even though he was wrong on several points too. (That said, many criticisms of him are based on wilfull misunderstandings of his work). In particular, Marx must be credited with building the labor theory of value to a level of maturity it had not previously obtained. While modern economists prefer the explicative use of the marginal theory of value, Marx's LTV remains theoretically sound and useful in understanding economic systems. Even more important, is Marx's formulation of the 'social relations of production' (called inaccurately 'class theory' by some). The concept of social relations of production remains seminal to modern thinking about politics, society and economy.

[Mad_Michael]

Class analysis as an academic pursuit will be an enduring legacy of Marx.

With this statement you prove that you don't know much about either Marx or academia.

Marx's conception of class analysis is perhaps commonly encountered in 1st year "intro" courses in a variety of social sciences and that's about it. No one pays much attention to it because it is probably the weakest aspect of Marx's critical thought.

Marx's greatest influence is his philosophic argument that 'man is a productive animal' - this argument stands as Marx's most enduring legacy in academia (certainly in North America anyway - I'm not competent to speak about European academia which I have no experience or connections to).

Bonus question: Can anyone tell me why people who manifestly don't know something seem to make the most emphatic statements about that same topic? Curious phenomena that and notably common in discussion forums.

[ScottSA]

Class analysis as an academic pursuit will be an enduring legacy of Marx.

With this statement you prove that you don't know much about either Marx or academia.

Marx's conception of class analysis is perhaps commonly encountered in 1st year "intro" courses in a variety of social sciences and that's about it. No one pays much attention to it because it is probably the weakest aspect of Marx's critical thought.

Marx's greatest influence is his philosophic argument that 'man is a productive animal' - this argument stands as Marx's most enduring legacy in academia (certainly in North America anyway - I'm not competent to speak about European academia which I have no experience or connections to).

Bonus question: Can anyone tell me why people who manifestly don't know something seem to make the most emphatic statements about that same topic? Curious phenomena that and notably common in discussion forums.

Can anyone tell me why bloviated twits tend to be historical illiterates? Class analysis was not only seminal, it is a profound deviation from the institutional analysis of socio-politics that preceded it. Bloviated twits may want to visit graduate work they may not have encountered to read up on that...it's not usually found in 1st or 2nd year classes.

Whether or not said bloviated twits are competent to speak on European Marxism, the fact that they bring it up at all ought to indicate that they have at least a passing familiarity with the Frankfurt school, which happens to involve folks like Lucaks and Gramsci, who took the early Marx and ran with it in various theoretical directions. Oh, and spawned the so-called American school that bloviated twits seem enamoured of. Bloviated twits really ought to learn the origins of the theses they are flogging.

Incidently, bloviated twits must also be aware of the distinction between the early Marx in which the rehashed dialectics of Kant and Feuerbach were applied to economics to produce his theory of alienation and...you guessed it...man as a productive species being, and the later less philosophical and more politicized later Marx? Unfortunately most of the early Marx was hardly new ground, even if it was couched in turgid Marxian blither, and while it makes for great debate among stoned undergrads, it's not clear to me why bloviated twits would afford it undue attention. Even the old clarion call of "economic determinism" had at least hand some logic behind its elevation to the status of "Marx's most enduring contribution," even though the deviations of Wallerstein and his ilk into "international Marxism" made a laughing stock out of both he and it.

Just a bit of advice for bloviated twits: A bit of surface knowledge, when it lacks depth of any kind, ought not be used to mock one's betters. The mockery has a habit of coming back and biting one in the ass.

[Mad_Michael]

Class analysis as an academic pursuit will be an enduring legacy of Marx.

With this statement you prove that you don't know much about either Marx or academia.

Marx's conception of class analysis is perhaps commonly encountered in 1st year "intro" courses in a variety of social sciences and that's about it. No one pays much attention to it because it is probably the weakest aspect of Marx's critical thought.

Marx's greatest influence is his philosophic argument that 'man is a productive animal' - this argument stands as Marx's most enduring legacy in academia (certainly in North America anyway - I'm not competent to speak about European academia which I have no experience or connections to).

Bonus question: Can anyone tell me why people who manifestly don't know something seem to make the most emphatic statements about that same topic? Curious phenomena that and notably common in discussion forums.

Can anyone tell me why bloviated twits tend to be historical illiterates? Class analysis was not only seminal, it is a profound deviation from the institutional analysis of socio-politics that preceded it. Bloviated twits may want to visit graduate work they may not have encountered to read up on that...it's not usually found in 1st or 2nd year classes.

Whether or not said bloviated twits are competent to speak on European Marxism, the fact that they bring it up at all ought to indicate that they have at least a passing familiarity with the Frankfurt school, which happens to involve folks like Lucaks and Gramsci, who took the early Marx and ran with it in various theoretical directions. Oh, and spawned the so-called American school that bloviated twits seem enamoured of. Bloviated twits really ought to learn the origins of the theses they are flogging.

Incidently, bloviated twits must also be aware of the distinction between the early Marx in which the rehashed dialectics of Kant and Feuerbach were applied to economics to produce his theory of alienation and...you guessed it...man as a productive species being, and the later less philosophical and more politicized later Marx? Unfortunately most of the early Marx was hardly new ground, even if it was couched in turgid Marxian blither, and while it makes for great debate among stoned undergrads, it's not clear to me why bloviated twits would afford it undue attention. Even the old clarion call of "economic determinism" had at least hand some logic behind its elevation to the status of "Marx's most enduring contribution," even though the deviations of Wallerstein and his ilk into "international Marxism" made a laughing stock out of both he and it.

Just a bit of advice for bloviated twits: A bit of surface knowledge, when it lacks depth of any kind, ought not be used to mock one's betters. The mockery has a habit of coming back and biting one in the ass.

Mocking one's betters? Bemused giggles.

Get back to classes kid.

[Figleaf]

Can anyone tell me why bloviated twits tend to be historical illiterates?

If you don't know that, there's no-one here with the expertise to advise you better.

That said, are you sure your usage of 'bloviated' is correct? Does it apply to the speaker, or should it rather be to the speech (or text)?

[ScottSA]

Can anyone tell me why bloviated twits tend to be historical illiterates?

If you don't know that, there's no-one here with the expertise to advise you better.

Well thank you for offering your services sweal...but you forgot the advice...

[ScottSA]

Mocking one's betters? Bemused giggles.

Get back to classes kid.

I love rebuttals like this. Nothing underscores an abject rout more vividly.

[Figleaf]

I should also add, to my thoughts in post #66, that it is arguable that without Marx the whole realm of Critical studies might not have emerged in the 20th century.

Also, though to a much lesser extent than say, J.S.Mill, Marx still nonetheless is part of the 'background erudition' of our culture.

[Mad_Michael]

Mocking one's betters? Bemused giggles.

Get back to classes kid.

I love rebuttals like this. Nothing underscores an abject rout more vividly.

No, just contempt. There is a difference.

[ScottSA]

Mocking one's betters? Bemused giggles.

Get back to classes kid.

I love rebuttals like this. Nothing underscores an abject rout more vividly.

No, just contempt. There is a difference.

Right. I understand. You're just too smart to have to actually make a point, right? You knew all about the Frankfurt school and the origins of the American school, and you know all about Lucaks and feuerbach and Kant and Gramsci, but you're just too damned clever to feel the need to discuss it with the likes of me. You were just testing me by saying something really really dumb, right?