Let's not forget that Marx was so slothful that he didn't even manage to write the last two volumes before he died. Now that's the ultimate slothfulness!
Relationship of Marxism to Progressive Policies and the Virtues or Risks Thereof
- Thread starter Emily's Cat
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Corns Laws were tariffs and restrictions on international trade, so still very relevant.
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My grandparents, like lots of working class people of their time - pre-Stalin's dictatorship- were "communists" when younger and that was based on what these days we would call "lived experience" rather than any intellectual theory. One such experience was what happened to one of my maternal side great-grandfathers. He was a miner, he was caught in a mining accident and nearly died, he was rescued and was taken to a charity hospital to receive what minimum medical treatment was available for the poor. In such a hospital relatives had to bring food for the patients, often bedding and generally see to much of the non-medical nursing, there was also payment expected, not much but it was there. His injuries were very serious, he lost most of an arm and it was touch and go that he would pull through. He did. Whilst he was convalescing he received no wages. He was also sacked by the mining company because of course he could no longer mine with just one arm, this meant they also lost their home as that was a tied house provided by the company (not for free they had to pay rent). One of his daughters was also a pit brow lass and she was sacked. That pushed the family into abject poverty, broke the family up, and created multi-generational abject poverty. When folk wonder why Marxism, socialism and communism were attractive to the working classes stories such as the above should explain it.
You may have missed it but the corn laws were repealed a few years back...
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Helen
Implicitly explicit
Story of my life; bustling about, getting things done at breakneck (and regrettably often break-them) speed, so that I will finally be able to go full potato on my couch, only to find myself inventing more stuff to fix (or break, as the case may very well be).
But the early followers of marxism were never able to indulge in being slothful. Not if they wanted to eat, at least. Yes, there were intellectuals/academics as well, but the movement would not have taken off without the working class, and the unbridled exploitation of cheap and expendable labour back then. We owe many of the rights we take for granted today to them, rights most of them never came even close to enjoying.
I was going to mention that, it has taken generations of improvements to get to even our imperfect and unfair situation. With issues like the best predictor of your future wealth is your parents' wealth.
Ivor the Engineer
Penultimate Amazing
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One of the biggest flaws of neoclassical economics (a.k.a 'economics', as taught today virtually everywhere in the world) is that it uses in its models a single consumer, or in economics language, representative agent, to model all consumers. This single consumer represents both those in the market for super-yachts and private jets as well as those visiting food banks to obtain enough calories just to survive. Inequality, as well as many other important factors and outcomes, are lost in the average.
The neoclassical economic model of labour supply is a simple example. As the wage for labour goes up, the amount of labour supplied also goes up. Sounds sensible right? But think a bit deeper. It implicitly assumes that those supplying the labour must have some other means of income to support themselves and so are merely weighing up trading some of their leisure time for increased income. For most people not working will sooner or later result in their leisure time consisting solely of sleeping on a park bench. But based on this economists and similarly brainwashed politicians then warn of the dangers of introducing a minimum wage because they put it in their equilibrium supply and demand models with their "representative agent" and it resulted in "distortions" that lowered overall "utility".
An economic theory that does not recognise there are different groups (or classes) in society is less than useless; it is actively harmful because it both encourages political and economic interventions that misdirect resources and inhibits policies that would improve the economy. An example of the former is the Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment, or NAIRU. Basically your government and central bank actively try to keep a proportion of people who want to work from working through fiscal and monetary policy because it believes unemployment below NAIRU will cause inflation to go out of control. The NAIRU is an estimate that comes from economic models that are based on unrealistic (and in some cases just absurd) assumptions.
Neoclassical economics is a cult whose ideology has infected the minds of nearly everyone whose taken a course in economics or done a PPE degree at university.
The neoclassical economic model of labour supply is a simple example. As the wage for labour goes up, the amount of labour supplied also goes up. Sounds sensible right? But think a bit deeper. It implicitly assumes that those supplying the labour must have some other means of income to support themselves and so are merely weighing up trading some of their leisure time for increased income. For most people not working will sooner or later result in their leisure time consisting solely of sleeping on a park bench. But based on this economists and similarly brainwashed politicians then warn of the dangers of introducing a minimum wage because they put it in their equilibrium supply and demand models with their "representative agent" and it resulted in "distortions" that lowered overall "utility".
An economic theory that does not recognise there are different groups (or classes) in society is less than useless; it is actively harmful because it both encourages political and economic interventions that misdirect resources and inhibits policies that would improve the economy. An example of the former is the Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment, or NAIRU. Basically your government and central bank actively try to keep a proportion of people who want to work from working through fiscal and monetary policy because it believes unemployment below NAIRU will cause inflation to go out of control. The NAIRU is an estimate that comes from economic models that are based on unrealistic (and in some cases just absurd) assumptions.
Neoclassical economics is a cult whose ideology has infected the minds of nearly everyone whose taken a course in economics or done a PPE degree at university.
Vixen
Penultimate Amazing
Avoiding a derail, originally from here:
Marx' approach was strictly based on class, even though such classes were poorly defined. That said, the foundation of Marx's approach was premised on an insurmountable conflict between the 'oppressed' and the 'oppressor'. Woven throughout their philosophy is an unspoken assumption that each can only be one thing, and that there's no overlap between them. That of course is an absurd notion... but philosophy in general quite frequently oversimplifies complex relationships.
Many progressive notions are also based on this oppressed vs oppressor assumption, and they often exhibit the same style of oversimplification that Marx assumed. Race relations in the US, for example, are framed as if it's inescapably black vs white, and as if black people can only be viewed as oppressed and white people can only be viewed as oppressor. That's the underlying premise of anti-racism, and it's embedded throughout critical race theory. It's also the foundational framework for queer theory, gender studies, and modern liberal feminism, among many other topics. While it's rarely stated outright, there's a common thematic approach in these progressive concepts that frames whoever has been labeled 'oppressor' as being malicious and selfish, motivated purely by greed and a desire for power over others; similarly it frames the 'oppressed' as being powerless, noble, and it excuses them from any responsibility for their own outcomes.
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Not really. Marx's tenets are based on the principle of the ownership of the means of production (which translates for Marx into capital). All else follows on from there, although Marx did borrow from Engels about the division of labour leading to the origins of female oppression and the origins of the patriarchal* family (i.e., the Victorian family as he knew it, wherein the father was the absolute authority and everything revolved around him and his power to earn money to support his nuclear family). The owners of the the means of production (capital), the factory owners, the mill owners, etc., didn't aim to 'oppress' people, their sole aim, as Marx argues is profit. The more the means of production (and thus, the resulting capital = money)) is controlled by a small handful of people, the more a propertyless underclass develops dependent on the 'capitalists' for work, or starve, as used to happen. The oppression is a follow on from this, not the aim. And you know Marx is absolutely right. I have A-Level Economics and numerous business diplomas in business enterprise, and I confirm virtually the entire syllabus revolves around one key obsession, and that obsession is identified as the 'contribution'. This is roughly a euphemism for 'profit'. The whole area of business enterprise is about making a profit. Of course it can be equally argued that the enterpreneur takes on the 'risk' and even perhaps the intellectual property of what he or she is flogging. But Marx analysis of capital is entirely correct, in a nutshell.
*It has not always been like this.
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Vixen
Penultimate Amazing
What a ridiculous comment. You might as well argue half the world's greatest composers were drunks (Sibelius), infested with syphilis (Schubert) horrible bigots (Wagner) or what about painters, Van Gogh, an epileptic, and so on.I think it's best to first look at Marx the man. He was slothful, useless, always bumming others for money. So he created a whole political/economic philosophy that justified his sloth as good. So sad that so many had to suffer because of that twat.
Vixen
Penultimate Amazing
The Bolshevik Uprising was to do with the profligacies of the monarchy whilst the serfs starved.
angrysoba
Philosophile
Hmmm.... I think there is something ironic about a post beginning with the claim that Progressives are basically Marxists because, "the foundation of Marx's approach was premised on an insurmountable conflict between the 'oppressed' and the 'oppressor'" and that's just like the Progressives! Oh, and Marx was "simplistic"!
No doubt there could be an interesting discussion on this, but it starts badly when there is apparently no close reading of any texts almost as though it could have been written without having bothered to read anything by Marx to begin with.
Also, "Woven throughout their philosophy is an unspoken assumption that each can only be one thing, and that there's no overlap between them. That of course is an absurd notion... but philosophy in general quite frequently oversimplifies complex relationships."
Is there no overlap between classes? That one thing can only be one thing and complex relationships are oversimplified? I don't think this is true in Marxist terms. Someone can move from proletarian to bourgeouisie in the Marxist conception, or they can be "lumpenproletariat" and leach off other proletarians through pimping or drug dealing etc...
It seems that the critique itself is oversimplified.
Also, it reminds me of a debate I heard between Christopher Rufo and Yascha Mounck on this very question. Rufo, of course, said that words like "oppressed" or "liberation" being used by progressives immediatley flagged them up as Marxists. But Mounck pointed out that Rufo himself would call himself a capitalist, and that term comes directly from Marxism, so by his own argument Rufo would be a Marxist.
Instead, Mounck pointed out that many of the main proponents of Progressive ideas themselves rejected Marxist analyses of society:
Derrick Bell, who is perhaps the inventor of Critical Race Theory, rejected the idea of class solidarity leading to a communist utopia. He was thoroughly pessimistic about racial harmony arising from economic means, and instead essentially called for a segregationist approach.
Michel Foucault also broke from Marxism as he did from all grand narrative theories and instead argued that all institutions have their power dynamics which are less interested in making things better and more interested in surveilling and controlling people within their remit. Those institutions include schools, clinics, hospitals, factories, and famously, prisons. One of his chapters on Panopticonism even begins with what sounds like an anti-lockdown screed. In fact, his views almost sound libertarian in many ways. People who were upset about Twitter mobs cancelling them probably have more in common with Foucault than he does with Marx.
And beyond that there are other thinkers who argue for a kind of standpoint episemology in which only people with certain characteristics should be allowed to speak for certain groups or even able to understand them. This kind of "post-modern" epistemology is at odds with Marxism which requires no special privelege to understand.
In short, no, Marxism should not be lazily equated with Progressivism.
No doubt there could be an interesting discussion on this, but it starts badly when there is apparently no close reading of any texts almost as though it could have been written without having bothered to read anything by Marx to begin with.
Also, "Woven throughout their philosophy is an unspoken assumption that each can only be one thing, and that there's no overlap between them. That of course is an absurd notion... but philosophy in general quite frequently oversimplifies complex relationships."
Is there no overlap between classes? That one thing can only be one thing and complex relationships are oversimplified? I don't think this is true in Marxist terms. Someone can move from proletarian to bourgeouisie in the Marxist conception, or they can be "lumpenproletariat" and leach off other proletarians through pimping or drug dealing etc...
It seems that the critique itself is oversimplified.
Also, it reminds me of a debate I heard between Christopher Rufo and Yascha Mounck on this very question. Rufo, of course, said that words like "oppressed" or "liberation" being used by progressives immediatley flagged them up as Marxists. But Mounck pointed out that Rufo himself would call himself a capitalist, and that term comes directly from Marxism, so by his own argument Rufo would be a Marxist.
Instead, Mounck pointed out that many of the main proponents of Progressive ideas themselves rejected Marxist analyses of society:
Derrick Bell, who is perhaps the inventor of Critical Race Theory, rejected the idea of class solidarity leading to a communist utopia. He was thoroughly pessimistic about racial harmony arising from economic means, and instead essentially called for a segregationist approach.
Michel Foucault also broke from Marxism as he did from all grand narrative theories and instead argued that all institutions have their power dynamics which are less interested in making things better and more interested in surveilling and controlling people within their remit. Those institutions include schools, clinics, hospitals, factories, and famously, prisons. One of his chapters on Panopticonism even begins with what sounds like an anti-lockdown screed. In fact, his views almost sound libertarian in many ways. People who were upset about Twitter mobs cancelling them probably have more in common with Foucault than he does with Marx.
And beyond that there are other thinkers who argue for a kind of standpoint episemology in which only people with certain characteristics should be allowed to speak for certain groups or even able to understand them. This kind of "post-modern" epistemology is at odds with Marxism which requires no special privelege to understand.
In short, no, Marxism should not be lazily equated with Progressivism.
Helen
Implicitly explicit
Which parties?
Venom
Philosopher
I think most of the slop we hear today about "Marxism" is Critical Theorist (re)interpretation of Marxism.
Emily's Cat
Rarely prone to hissy-fits
That's some interesting selective reading. You seem to have skipped right over the part where I said...
I also find it... interesting... that somehow you've taken my position that some wealth inequality is necessary for innovation to occur and somehow turned that into something to do with race.
Emily's Cat
Rarely prone to hissy-fits
Yes, yes, no application of marxism in the real world actually reflects what marx wrote. We're all quite familiar with that argument.
Marx's notions are great... up to a few hundred people. That's the problem with them - they cannot scale. The fundamental premise of marxism requires that there are no freeloaders, no cheaters, and that everyone is happy and content to contribute to the greatest extent of their ability, and to the fruit of their labor distributed to others on the basis of their need.
This is an absolutely fantastic approach for a small community, where everyone knows each other well enough that social pressure will keep anyone from freeloading, and where everyone keeps an eye on everyone else. But as soon as your society gets large enough that some people are unknown strangers, then it allows cheaters to take hold, and that will quickly destroy the society.
Marxism isn’t socialism.
Nonsense, her atheism alone means her ideas are of limited appeal to the GOP. Literally no way you can look at Trumps and MAGAs economic policies and think they are inspired by Rand. They are practically a copy of the antagonists in her books, mostly crony capitalists. Of course, the "thinkers" among the MAGA crowd are just desperately trying to justify Trumps gut feelings. So really Trump is currently the preeminent philosopher among the GOP. Rand never was. Maybe Milton Freeman, Hayek, Burke, or Sowell but not Rand.
As I understand it, Marx thought capitalism was the necessary step to provide sufficient industrialization for socialism to develop properly. So, its the perfect excuse for Marxist. There hasn't been Marxist government takeover of a society that was at the necessary level of development for socialism to work. So, I think we agree on that. It's funny, I've had lefties complain that I characterized Marx as not hating capitalism before.
Other semi-related thoughts on the connection between modern progressives and marxists. Critical theory developed out of the Frankfurt Marxists, so sure there is that connection. As noted by others some of the folks who influenced modern progressive thought eventually broke from Marxism though.
Sometimes, the various branches of critical theory do basically sound like they did a search and replace of "class" for their school of thought. IE, swap out race for class or gender for class or what not. More a criticism of style than anything substantial.
And I really think Marx's biggest flaw is he was way to enamored of the dialectic. Maybe fine for thought experiments but not in any way predictive. As I understand him, he basically thought capitalism would inevitably lead to socialism as feudalism led to capitalism. Which is well, not at all true. I'm no expert on Marx. I've read the communist manifesto, bits and pieces of capital, some commentary by others.
In short, modern progressivism in the US has been influenced by Marx but it's a vast over simplication to say that all of it. I cringe every time I hear someone use the phrases "neo-marxist" or "cultural marxist".
acbytesla
Penultimate Amazing
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I think there are a lot of problems with Marx. But not his observations about capitalism. Those points are as true today as they were then. The idea that Musk keeps pushing for a trillion dollar compensation package is one example. Millions of homeless Americans is another.