Carrol Cox wrote:
> I have no underestanding at all of economics. Hence the following is a
> series of free associations from the 'outside' as it were.
I wish _economists_ would admit ignorance more often.
> Capitalism (in its developed forms) has a very short history, of around
> two centuries. As a result, historical understanding of how capitalism
> operates in practice is very slight.
Yes, but Marx, Keynes, and some others have given us some
understanding of how capitalism works, at least enough that we
shouln't throw up our hands in nihilistic despair. It's not as vague
and subjective as (say) literary theory.
> I am assuming the correctness of Postone's argument that Marx created a
> Critique of Polical Economy (of capitalism at its most abstract level)
> and NOT Critical Political Economy (of capitalism as it operates
> concretely in givenhistorical conditons.
That's a trope (or meme?) that encourages lefty economists to cling to
a totally academic vision of the world. Even if we assume that Marx is
the last source to be consulted for understanding of the way
capitalism works (and I reject that assumption), the problem is _not_
that Marx dedicated all of CAPITAL to the "critique of (bourgeois)
political economy" but rather the fact that he never finished the
book, bringing all of the elements in the three volumes and the TSV
that described his understanding of the "laws of motion" of capitalism
into one place where it formed a coherent sythesis. (BTW, it's pretty
clear that KM wanted to understand those "laws.")
> That is there is no economic
> science of any sort, only various empirical descriptions of this, that
> or the other temporary capitalist operations. Capitalism at this
> concrete level changes continuously, and at certain points in its
> history the empirical understanding of an earlier condition becomes
> irrelevant to the new conditons. Historical materialism (or reading
> history backwards) gave us an understasnding of those fetures of
> capitalism that make it capitalisdm under all historical condtions, but
> it gives us no particular understanding of the operations of capitalism
> at a particular time. Hence "economists" (historians pretending to be
> scientists) will only begin to understand each 'new' form of capitalism
> after it has existed for some time, and it seems that capitalism changes
> fast enough for such understanding of a given fomr to begin to develop
> only as that form is dying. We are in the midst of such a radical change
> in the operations of capitalism, and so everyone is operating pretty
> much in the dark.
it's always easier to understand what's happening after the fact (the
Owl of Minerva and all that jazz). But that doesn't mean that we
should give up.
--
Jim Devine
"Those who take the most from the table
Teach contentment.
Those for whom the taxes are destined
Demand sacrifice.
Those who eat their fill speak to the hungry
of wonderful times to come.
Those who lead the country into the abyss
Call too ruling difficult
For ordinary folk." – Bertolt Brecht.
_______________________________________________
pen-l mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
