Although I disagree with Coy's reduction of Marx to Marx's crisis orientation, I think there is an important point that "the crisis" is a rather precarious thing to hang a political strategy on.
Within the neo-classical tradition there is a much-neglected corroboration of Marx's theory that, however, performs a crucial shift from the ACUTE problem of crisis to the CHRONIC problem of "market failure". I put scare quotes around market failure because I think the term is a misnomer. It isn't the market that fails but the institutional arrangements within which the market is embedded that fail. The market just carries out a series of instructions. Now that the term "capitalism" is in fashion with bourgeois commentators, perhaps its time for subversives to appropriate the phrase, "system of natural liberty" from Adam Smith. Thorstein Veblen and Henry Sidgwick presented trenchant critiques of the system of natural liberty and its discontents toward the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th. Policymakers may indeed be able to manage "capitalism" out of its once-in-lifetime crisis, but the pecuniary system of natural liberty can only prevail by increasingly subjugating and enslaving the population and defiling nature. On Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 8:51 AM, Jim Devine <[email protected]> wrote: > Marx to Market > The economic crisis has made the philosopher’s ideas relevant again, > but the world shouldn’t forget what Marx got wrong > By Peter Coy > > Society generally moves on from its mistakes. Doctors no longer drain > blood from patients. Aviators don’t try to fly by strapping wings to > their arms. Nobody still thinks that slavery is a good idea. Karl > Marx, though, appears to be an exception to the rule of live and > learn. Marx’s most famous predictions failed; there has been no > dictatorship of the proletariat, nor has the state withered away. His > followers... > > You might even say the Bearded One has rarely looked better. The > current global financial crisis has given rise to a new contingent of > unlikely admirers. In 2009 the Vatican’s official newspaper, > L’Osservatore Romano, published an article praising Marx’s diagnosis > of income inequality, which is quite an endorsement considering that > Marx declared religion to be “the opium of the people.” In Shanghai, > the turbo-capitalist hub of Communist-in-name-alone China, audiences > flocked to a 2010 musical based on Capital, Marx’s most famous work > [!!]. In Japan, Capital is now out in a manga version. Brazilians > elected a former Marxist guerrilla, Dilma Rousseff, as President last > year. > > The vogue for Marx should be expected at a time when European banks > stand on the precipice of collapse and poverty levels in the U.S. have > reached levels not seen in nearly two decades. Politicians know they > can score points with their constituents by kicking job-creating > capitalists like mangy curs. > > Here’s the surprising thing, though: You don’t have to sleep in a Che > Guevara T-shirt or throw rocks at McDonald’s to acknowledge that > Marx’s thought is worth studying, grappling with, and possibly even > applying to our current challenges. Many of the great capitalist > thinkers did so, after all. Joseph Schumpeter, the guru of “creative > destruction” who is a hero to many free-marketeers, devoted the first > four chapters of his 1942 book, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, > to explorations of Marx the Prophet, Marx the Sociologist, Marx the > Economist, and Marx the Teacher. He went on to say Marx was wrong, but > he couldn’t ignore the man. > > As misguided as Marx was about many things, and as pernicious as his > influence was in places like the U.S.S.R. and China, there are pieces > of his (voluminous) writings that are shockingly perceptive. One of > Marx’s most important contentions was that capitalism was inherently > unstable. One only has to look at the headlines out of Europe—which is > haunted by the specter of a possible Greek default, a banking > disaster, and the collapse of the single-currency euro zone—to see > that he was right. Marx diagnosed capitalism’s instability at a time > when his contemporaries and predecessors, such as Adam Smith and John > Stuart Mill, were mostly enthralled by its ability to serve human > wants. > > Marx has gotten an attentive reading recently from the likes of New > York University economist Nouriel Roubini and George Magnus, the > London-based senior economic adviser to UBS Investment Bank. Magnus’s > employer, Switzerland-based UBS, is a pillar of the financial > establishment, with offices in more than 50 countries and over $2 > trillion in assets. Yet in an Aug. 28 essay for Bloomberg View, Magnus > wrote that “today’s global economy bears some uncanny resemblances” to > what Marx foresaw. (Personal opinion only, he noted.) > > Consider the particulars. As Magnus notes, Marx predicted that > companies would need fewer workers as they improved productivity, > creating an “industrial reserve army” of the unemployed whose > existence would keep downward pressure on wages for the employed. It’s > hard to argue with that these days, given that the U.S. unemployment > rate is still more than 9 percent. On Sept. 13 the U.S. Census Bureau > released data showing that median income fell from 1973 through 2010 > for full-time, year-round male workers aged 15 and up, adjusted for > inflation. The condition of blue-collar workers in the U.S. is still a > far cry from the subsistence wage and “accumulation of misery” that > Marx conjured. But it’s not morning in America, either. > > Marx loved to bash French economist Jean-Baptiste Say, who argued that > general gluts cannot exist because the market will always match supply > and demand. Marx argued that overproduction was in fact endemic to > capitalism because the proletariat isn’t paid enough to buy the stuff > that the capitalists produce. Again, that theory has lately been hard > to dispute. The only way blue-collar Americans managed to maintain > consumption in the last decade was by overborrowing. When the housing > market collapsed, many were left with crippling debt. The resulting > default nightmare is still playing itself out. > > Admirers of Marx view all this with a rueful I-told-you-so. The > radical geographer David Harvey, 75, has taught Marx’s Capital for 40 > years at schools including Oxford University, Johns Hopkins > University, and now the City University of New York Graduate Center. > Harvey’s office, a block from the Empire State Building, is decorated > with a silk-screen portrait of Marx, glowering from a bookcase. Harvey > believes, as Marx did, that capitalists tend to sow the seeds of their > own destruction. Unbridled capitalism tends toward wild excess, so > complete deregulation is actually disastrous for it in the long run, > the professor argues. “The Republican Party is en route to destroy > capitalism,” Harvey says in a pleasant tone, “and they may do a better > job of it than the working class could.” > > But wait. What Marx and his acolytes underappreciated was capitalism’s > power to heal itself. It may have been his fatal intellectual mistake. > The Communist Manifesto said that when the workers’ revolution came, > it would bring free public education for children and the abolition of > “children’s factory labor in its present form.” And yet, as it turned > out, the world didn’t require a proletarian revolution for those > social reforms to occur; all it took was enlightened capitalism. [but > will public education survive "enlightened capitalism" in its new > form, with its "no child left behind," "race to the top," and > vouchers?] > > Doctrinaire Marxists love to say that the economic “base” determines > and controls the sociopolitical “superstructure,” but the reverse can > be true as well. Political leaders have corrected capitalism’s > excesses again and again, as in President Teddy Roosevelt’s > trustbusting campaign, President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, and > President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. > > Now, once again, unbridled capitalism is threatening to undermine > itself. The world’s biggest banks, financially weak but politically > powerful, are putting the screws on borrowers in an attempt to rescue > their own balance sheets. Likewise, creditor nations such as China and > Germany are attempting to shift the pain of rebalancing onto debtor > nations, even though squeezing them too hard threatens to cause an > economic and financial disaster. > > It’s time for another burst of enlightenment. In years past, Britain’s > John Maynard Keynes and America’s Hyman P. Minsky (author of > Stabilizing an Unstable Economy) did capitalism a service by > diagnosing its tendency toward crisis and advising on ways to make > things better. The sooner policymakers today “recognize we’re facing a > once-in-a-lifetime crisis of capitalism,” as Magnus writes, “the > better equipped they will be to manage a way out of it.” Grasping the > ways in which Marx was right is the first step toward making sure that > his predictions of capitalism’s downfall remain wrong. [Will > capitalism enjoy a new burst of enlightenment without a mass > working-class movement to push it to do so?] > > Coy is Bloomberg Businessweek's Economics editor. > > > > > -- > Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your > own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > -- Sandwichman
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