CeJ jannuzi at gmail.com >>CB: Think about it. To admit that macroeconomics can be understood scientifically is to admit that there can be macroeconomic planning, ie. centralized planning, that Hayek is wrong. So, the bourgeoisie are always going to be leery of a prize for the science of economics. This contradiction also must doom the project of every school of bourgeois, i.e. "free market", economics to "fail" or else it undermines free market ideology.<<
Perhaps, but not necessarily. This is why the Vienna line of economists emphasize 'logic'. They think they are tapping into some sort of subsistent realm and providing a picture that captures the reality. ^^^^^ CB: What means "tapping in " ? smile. Somehow they "tap into" it, and provide a picture, but that tap in and picture don't allow using it to guide practice and plan. Sounds like some kind of Kantian unknowable thing-in-itself , what Engels calls shamefaced materialism. If the Viennans can't do anything with their "logic" , I don't think they should get credit for knowing anything. ^^^^ So according to a lot of thinkers following on Hayek, markets are rational because they encompass the totality of economic activity and express a 'collective will'. What the market does is rational, even if it doesn't make sense to an individual businessman, ponzi schemer, duped investor or academic economist. ^^^^ CB: The only ones it makes "sense" to are the anti-Communist ideologues trying to claim centralized planning is "impossible". What a mytifying crock of shit. ^^^^^ I don't buy recent arguments that the advent of supercomputers will result in our ability to model sufficiently in order to 'see all'. I'm still waiting for a three day extended weather forecast that is actually correct. ^^^^ CB: What, with such a supercomputer, hurricanes will suddenly make "sense" or be "logical" ? They make "sense" now. When one is coming , move out of town until it blows over. That's centralized weather planning. ^^^^^^^ I think the debate of public vs. private is largely irrelevant here. The question is more along the lines of on what scale can you undertake economic planning and business. The calamities of the US's occupation of Iraq shows both the calamities of central planning and the 'magic of the markets'. ^^^^^ CB: The calamaties of the US's occupation of Iraq show that centralized planning of war causes mass death and destruction. Centralized planning of production and distribution of goods and services averts and remedies death and destruction. ^^^^ Of course Hayek would look at recent financial events and see them as a rational change, a rational collective action of the market, I guess. ^^^^^^^ CB: What an idiot and prostitute for capitalism Hayek was ^^^^ As for being anti-science, as the paper that started this thread states, anti-science has often been associated with post-mo Marxists--literary Marxists and social theorists (although I disagree and don't seem them following mainly from Althusser). That potential was always there in the thought of Marx himself. ^^^^^ CB: Wheres the potential for anti-science in the thought of Marx ? ^^^^ Which brings us back to a recurring but much larger debate: is there such thing as a social science? Will there be a body of thought that unifies the various 'soft sciences' (social, psycho-, logico-formal--such as formal linguistics-- etc.)? Will there be a body of thought that ultimately unifies the social sciences with the natural sciences, etc? ^^^^^ CB: Historical materialism is the social science from Marxism. See my posts from a few months back on materialism. ^^^^^ I tend to take an anti-scientific stance in the fields that affect me the most--applied linguistics, second language acquisition, language education, education, etc. This often gets me backed into a corner with the children of the romantics, but for me it is more a stance of rationalism--destroy all pseudo-sciences and their various forms of oppression. ^^^^^^^ CB: Well, you are the linguist, but I'm not convinced there aren't laws and regular patterns in languages, grammars. Clearly we follow rules in speaking. There are definite grammatically correct and incorrect statements. There's lots of science in law, jurisprudence. It's very materialist. Must base legal claims on material evidence, etc. _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
