Marx and the Marxists
The founders of social movements and schools of thought often try to distance themselves from their followers. (Or their later interpreters do this for them). Thus one can ask if Freud was a Freudian, Ricardo a Ricardian, Walras a Walrasian, Keynes a Keynesian (chapter 5 Keynesian? chapter 12 Keynesian?), and so on.
What about Marx? Murray Rothbard wrote that the key to understanding Marx was one simple truth: "Karl Marx was a Communist. A seemingly trite and banal statement set alongside Marxism's myriad of jargon-ridden concepts in philosophy, economics, and culture, yet Marx's devotion to communism was his crucial focus, far more central than the class struggle, the dialectic, the theory of surplus value, and all the rest." But was Marx a Marxist?
Andrew Kliman is a True Marxist and argues, in his new book, that fellow Marxists have gone off track by accepting what Kliman calls "the myth of inconsistency." In other words, contrary to both Marx's critics and his disciples, there are no internal inconsistencies in Das Capital. "It had to be done," states one dust-jacket endorsement: "someone has finally rescued Marx from the Marxists." Bertell Ollman, perhaps today's most famous living Marxist, says Kliman's arguments "operate like a buzz saw clearing away the underbrush of misplaced criticisms that have kept the real Capital hidden from most of its potential readers." Given how many college students have been forced to slog through at least one volume of Marx's lengthy tome -- with little or no exposure to Marx's critics -- it's hard to believe that Marx's true message has remained hidden for so long. Nonetheless, devotees of the secondary literature on Marx will surely wish to add this volume to their collections.
(Cross-posted at Organizations and Markets.)
Update: Kliman emails me some corrections: "Actually, I'd be foolish to say that there aren't inconsistencies in Capital, so I don't. My argument is restricted to the allegations of inconsistency that are extant. Also, in regard to 'True Marxist,' which sounds a bit like Hoffer's 'True Believer,' I point out several times in the book that 'logically consistent' doesn't mean correct or true."
Comments (24)
Mises discusses Marxism (and Marx, and prominent Marxists) very extensively in a NEW book just issued by the Foundation for Economic Education (www.fee.org) called "Marxism Unmasked: From Delusion to Destruction." This book is a transcript of a series of lectures he delivered in San Francisco in 1952, and so is, at least in these words, previously unpublished so far as I know.
Published: January 3, 2007 2:49 PM
"In other words, contrary to both Marx's critics and his disciples, there are no internal inconsistencies in Das Capital."
Neat! Like the bible, "Das Kapital" is held to be perfect! For years I've been claiming Marxism is a religion, and now I have the proof -- as with other religions, it is based on a holy book that the true believer thinks contains no internal inconsistencies.
Published: January 3, 2007 3:12 PM
I believe the following comment is appropriate for all those rejuvenated and newly salivating Marxists and would-be Marxists:
Marx’s economic system (as opposed to his philosophic system and theory of history) undeniably rests on the labor theory of value. And as anyone modestly familiar with sound economics understands, the labor theory of value is plainly incorrect, having been replaced by the subjective theory of value that was largely initiated by Carl Menger. In addition, Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk in “Capital and Interest” demolished Marx’s value and interest theory. Furthermore, as other Austrian School economists such as Fetter, Mises, and Rothbard have demonstrated, interest results from the inescapable principle of time preference, and not from the exploitative position of the capitalists.
Published: January 3, 2007 3:15 PM
Has anyone noticed that Kliman is an economics professor at Pace University, home to the prominent Austrian and Mises senior fellow Joeseph Salerno? Talk about weird water cooler conversations.
Published: January 3, 2007 4:38 PM
It's probably true that Marx was internally consistent. That's not hard to do and Marx was intelligent. The real problem with most false philosophies is not the internal consistency, but the premises. Marx's premise of the labor theory of value is one example. His unwritten assumption about the nature of man is another. He thought that people are born good and capitalism makes them evil. Another was the ancient idea that one person gains by taking from another, in other words, exchange is zero sum, not mutually beneficial. If you accept these premises, the rest of Marxism falls into place nicely and with great consistency.
Published: January 3, 2007 5:01 PM
I've read some Mutualist writings, and they seem to believe that attacks on capitalism by 19th Century Marxist and Socialists were not attacks on the free market, but on Statist Capitalism. They claim that land and monetary regulation/control by the state has created "exploitative capitalism". Kevin Carson at mutualist.blogspot.com has written some very good pieces on the issue.
So was Marx making an attack on Corporatism, which he called capitalism, and his followers decided to attacks markets in general?
Published: January 4, 2007 5:55 AM
Nick:"So was Marx making an attack on Corporatism, which he called capitalism, and his followers decided to attacks markets in general?"
A lot of confusion exists among Marxists as to what Marx taught. But as someone has mentioned, Marx based his thought on the labor theory of value. He believed that labor should receive all of the profit in a venture and the owners none. So naturally he would have opposed corporations and favored small shops where the owners were also the laborers.
Published: January 4, 2007 8:26 AM
A lot of self-described Lefties who, when called upon to list the Top 5 problems with capitalism, will often include at least 3 or 4 items that are not a part of a free market at all, but are straight-up right-wing state-capitalism.
Published: January 4, 2007 8:59 AM
Internal consistency, as someone has earlier (above) pointed out, is not that big a deal--it's more like a requisite minimum. It's equally (or perhaps even more) important that the discussion be not inconsistent with ordinary external reality.
Marx not only subscribed to the labor theory (of value) but, as well, to the Ricardian "Iron Law of
Wages" (postulating that workers received just enough--as though calculated--to sustain a meager, near-marginal existence and with just enough more to bear progeny destined to be the next worker generation). But, in Das Kapital, the author insists that, with the advance of capitalism and its methods, the worker "sinks deeper and deeper." That impossible relationship hit me (doing a "skim") back in 1956 and caused me to lose interest in anything else said, as well as all interest in Economics (since Marx was widely touted by intellectuals as a "scientific economist"). Apparently (somewhere in HUMAN ACTION), the same blatant impossibility hit Mises at least 30 years previously, though I wouldn't know that until 1972.
There's even more to Marx' ignorance. While purporting to describe the workings of capitalism, he didn't understand profit (and loss) any better than the economically uneducated "man in the street" (in those days or now), much less the origin and ineradicable nature of interest in time preference.
Marx' (and Marxism's) real strength lies in the degree to which it reinforces common, popular errors in economic understanding and soothes and encourages the failed and envy-ridden with its promise (after the revolution) of a world in which such as they will see their fortunes (and social positions) dramatically reversed. The USSR may be no more and every left intellectual can now parrot "socialism is unable to calculate." But the stuff still sells--just not quite as well as before.
Published: January 4, 2007 7:01 PM
Perry E. Metzger wrote: "For years I've been claiming Marxism is a religion, and now I have the proof ... it is based on a holy book that the true believer thinks contains no internal inconsistencies."
Peter G. Klein's "Update" corrects this misinterpretation of my position. Sorry, no proof. I'm no "true believer."
Metzger's comment counts as "intelligent and civil"?!
Published: January 9, 2007 9:55 PM
The people here are obviously do not think very deeply. Capitalism has it's pro's and con's but the basis of profit is that, there is no legal limit to profit, and hence extracting too much profit is in fact theft.
When someone price gouges someone we call it extortion and rightly so: Because it *is* stealing, stealing someones time, resources or labour using ABSTRACT MONETARY VALUES, DISPLACEMENT gentlemen, unequal displacement is what marx and socialists, et al, hate the most.
Look at a man like Stephen Spileberg, the man made 300,000,000 million USD as his salary this year. That is 25,623 times more then a person in canada gets for a disability disablity payment to pay rent and eat food, which is roughly 11,700 dollars. No man on earth is worth 25 thousands times another person in objectibe economic terms, I don't care who the fuck you are. One must distinguish between CAPTURING VALUE and CREATING VALUE. Mr spielberg captures value, what he creates (movies) are mostly of limited value when compared to other scientific endeavours and overall survival of the human race... like doctors, medical researchers and other professionals in the health field.
You take more money in then goes out, and due to competition and supply their is always downwards pressure on wages towards slave earnings, especially in the lowest rungs of the economy because businesses are like economic warlords and dictators... Look at Wal-marts profits then compare it to how much it pays its workers, the fact is people that run corporations have to realize their is an OPTIMUM rate of profit, beyond which you start hurting society. Until this is realized capitalism is nothing more then anarchical theft based on cave-man conceptualizations of property and ownership.
The truth is marx never lived long enough to refine his ideas and thinking, he never got to live into the 21st century, so that must be taken into account. He was writing from his own limited time and age in which he was born.
The truth is marx saw that people were forced into working for businesses by not owning their own LAND, FOOD and resources.
I am FORCED to participate in the market, I can't just go claim some land and start farming, the government would use its force to take my right to food and a life away from me that isn't bent towards their enforcement of wage worker market ideology...
Capitalism is a social control idealogy, it's enforced by governments to try to attempt to maintain society through resource deprivation model by keeping food and energy from being publically owned.
Published: January 12, 2007 6:21 AM
oooo, Bob, you're going to get when hard-core Libertarians reply to your comment. I suppose there'd be two basic replies to your comments. One would be when companies work with governments to warp the market unnaturally then it's called Crony Capitalism. The other is the issue productivity. The more productive you are the more you earn (at least in a pure free-market). The problem of poverty hits upon these two issues: in some areas people aren't allowed to be free to earn their way out of poverty and in other places people aren't just particular productive per se.
Published: January 12, 2007 6:48 AM
Actually, I'm surprised that no-one has jumped on Bob for slipping value judgements in to his argument. The most pervasive, if not the most evident, one is the assumption that all values are already market-ized. Once you realize that there are human values that are simply not subject to catallactic exchange, then a lot of the supposedly alarming inequalities you can find with your calculator become less alarming.
Bob: you should delve into some sociology of everyday life. You might even wind up with the conclusion, as I have, that a rising level of monetary inequality is indicative of a mismatch between money and status. As an economist, you can easily conclude that such a mismatch does provide a disincentive, for the status-conscious, to going into trade, which encourages monetary inequality because the number of people going for the gelt is therefore reduced.
One more thing: your conclusions about the supposed helplessness of the propertyless tend to be tested whenever new farming techniques make cheap land (there's still lots of it) potentially productive. These "Back To The Land" movements tend to be short-lived, even when encouraged by government. It was tried in Quebec in the 1930s - there was even a Minister of Colonization to oversee the process - but the resultant movement didn't last long.
Published: January 12, 2007 10:07 AM
Bob does obviously not think very well.
"One must distinguish between CAPTURING VALUE and CREATING VALUE. Mr spielberg captures value, what he creates (movies) are mostly of limited value when compared to other scientific endeavours and overall survival of the human race... like doctors, medical researchers and other professionals in the health field."
Many people who attend Steven Spielberg's movies might disagree. But then, Stenven Spielberg and the movie studios in general aren't as heavily regulated as doctors, medical researchers, etc. Also, I don't hear a whole lot about "wage labor" in Hollywood.
"The truth is marx saw that people were forced into working for businesses by not owning their own LAND, FOOD and resources"
Actually many of them do. Or they can work to gain experience and skills so as to move up the economic ladder, so that they can buy their own LAND, FOOD, AND RESOURCES.
"I am FORCED to participate in the market, I can't just go claim some land and start farming, the government would use its force to take my right to food and a life away from me that isn't bent towards their enforcement of wage worker market ideology...
Capitalism is a social control idealogy, it's enforced by governments to try to attempt to maintain society through resource deprivation model by keeping food and energy from being publically owned."
Once again, you plunge the depths of foolishness. Capitalism is based upon individualism and individual rights to life, liberty, and property. Governments forcing you into the market isn't capitalism, its socialist collectivism. Keep in mind that it has been socialist societies throughout the twentieth century that forced people on to collective farms. And in the U.S. many people such as yourself are prevented from claiming some land and farming on it by public ownership of lands to begin with. What you're whining about bob is not being able to own private property, which is one of the staples of capitalism. Capitalism, private property, and free-enterprise do not need to be enforced by governments. Only socialism and public ownership need to be enforced by governments.
Published: January 12, 2007 1:50 PM
Nick wrote:
"So was Marx making an attack on Corporatism, which he called capitalism, and his followers decided to attacks markets in general?"
I have always found these quotes, placed next to each other, to make the issue pretty clear:
"In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property." - Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto
"The program of liberalism, therefore, if condensed into a single word, would have to read: property, that is, private ownership of the means of production. . . . All the other demands of liberalism result from this fundamental demand." - Ludwig von Mises, Liberalism
Does it get any clearer than that? :)
Published: January 12, 2007 2:16 PM
Everyone misses the point: As a human being I start out with no money and no property, therefore I am beholden to those who own property, in a modern society almost every piece of land is owned by some government or someone who got there first. Therefore I am forced to participate in the money system... I am forced to acquire money in order to gain property and keep that property, I can lose that property through taxes and not working, if I chose to use my property to farm and feed myself, and not engage in trade I would eventually be forced off it due to forced taxes.
Since the government would force me to pay taxes on that property, yet I did not consent to being born under US market ideals.
The market could not exist if the state did not have the force to enforce contracts. Markets as they exist today only exist by consent of the people and the backing of police and the military. Markets would soon break down into hostilities and criminal activity if there were no policemen.
Extreme individualism and Propertarianism is nothing more then individual economic dictators, that get to dictate who gets what.
It's still enslavement, it's just occurs in teh asbtract instead of by the point of a gun.
Just look at how pissed the US was when chavez raised prices on oil, indeed they didn't like that much now did they? See how the US gets rankled to economic pressure?
That gentlemen is the problem... if people live in fear and want they are going to revolt sooner or later and kill the people that enforce propertarianism because they have no time for themselves nor can get off the poverty treadmill.
Everyone is abstractly beholden to those who have most property, indirectly. Nobel laureates have written that to maintain the health of the polity wealth must be redistributed if you are to avoid economic and idealogical overthrow by those who live in wage slavery.
I'm pro capitalist for efficiency, but the effects of efficiency must be balanced against greed and the health of the society as a whole. Those who don't care about their fellow man are useless degenerates wasting space and resources of the planet that could be better spent creating a more peaceful and sane world for everyone.
Published: January 13, 2007 1:43 AM
Well I suppose Bob since we are mortal creatures who require food, water, clothing and shelter to survive, then we would therefore have 4 choices:
1. Find a plot of land and work hard to be self-sufficient.
2. If all usuable land is owned by someone then you have produce something that they will exchange for necessities.
3. If you can't produce anything or much at all then you can try begging for the necessities.
4. Dehydrate or starve.
Published: January 13, 2007 2:32 AM
The market could not exist if the state did not have the force to enforce contracts.
That is utter nonsense. Did trade take place between, for example, the U.S. and Great Britain in the 19th century? Who enforced the terms of the trade? Do individuals hire workers without the consent of any state today? Who enforces the terms of their employment? Does peaceful black market activity exist today? How can it, by your assertion?
Everyone is abstractly beholden to those who have most property, indirectly.
How so? How am I beholden to Bill Gates, Donald Trump, etc.? They have almost no power whatsoever over me. Who are these people with "most property"?
Nobel laureates have written...
I'm not interested in appeals to authority.
Extreme individualism and Propertarianism is nothing more then individual economic dictators, that get to dictate who gets what... Those who don't care about their fellow man are useless degenerates wasting space and resources of the planet...
Irony, straight from the would-be dictator's mouth.
Published: January 13, 2007 2:54 AM
...in a modern society almost every piece of land is owned by some government... I can lose that property through taxes and not working, if I chose to use my property to farm and feed myself, and not engage in trade I would eventually be forced off it due to forced taxes... Since the government would force me to pay taxes on that property...
I find it odd that you speak of the government as if it is a force for libertarianism. As if taxes have anything to do with the free market. I suppose it's understandable, if you really believe that tripe about the market being unable to exist without the government. But in reality, the only economic system that could possibly exist without government violence is the market. In what way is that not self-evidently clear?
Published: January 13, 2007 3:02 AM
Interestingly enough, sam, had there been no market, the number of choices you list would be reduced by one, leaving only three. Additionally. Choice #3 would have to have the introductory conditional snipped out of it.
For isolated individuals, there are only two choices, #1 or #4. That restriction of choice is the cost of living a lifestyle where "no one can [potentially] order me around."
Published: January 13, 2007 2:13 PM
Roy:
"Did trade take place between, for example, the U.S. and Great Britain in the 19th century? Who enforced the terms of the trade?"
The armies of both countries enforced the terms of the trade. In short, the government enforced terms of trade. You can't get around that.
"Do individuals hire workers without the consent of any state today? Who enforces the terms of their employment?"
Nice straw man, but nobody said that governments enforce the terms of every contract. He said that states enforce the overall rules of the game. If you didn't have governments, people would be more exploited by cheats at the Company Store.
"Does peaceful black market activity exist today? How can it, by your assertion?"
The black market is not peaceful, overall. It is ruled by violence and force. Drug dealers can not go to the police when they get robbed or have an associate killed in a drive-by shooting. You seem to be using another straw man argument.
"How am I beholden to Bill Gates, Donald Trump, etc.? They have almost no power whatsoever over me. Who are these people with "most property"?"
The people who own all the land, mines, buildings, houses, corporations, factories, and intellectual "property." (which would not exist without a state to enforce it.) Bill Gates and Donald Trump are 2 small examples, and lame ones, at that. Surely you can do better, Roy. Imagine you are born without the benefit of an inheritance or any cronites to set you up in business. Everything is owned, even ideas. Your choice is "find a master to employ you for wages, or else suffer grinding poverty." (to quote Robert Anton Wilson.)
http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/rawilson.html
"I'm not interested in appeals to authority."
Apparently, you're not interested in information which contradict your biased opinions. Regardless of where they come from. You're closed-minded and can't even argue intelligently. What authority do you appeal to? Yourself? Ayn Rand? Mises?
"Irony, straight from the would-be dictator's mouth."
Capitalism is a form of dictatorship. Those "born first" have an advantage over those not yet born. You have never refuted anything that Bob said. It is amazing that you can be confronted with truths and dismiss them with hollow rhetoric.
Published: April 30, 2007 7:16 PM
Roy:
"I find it odd that you speak of the government as if it is a force for libertarianism. As if taxes have anything to do with the free market."
Without a government, the market would be ruled by force. Might makes right. Refute that, if you can. Just show me one example where "free markets" have provided benefits to the masses. Capitalism's just a dictatorship by the capitalists. You fail to see that. Those who OWN (an arbitrary convention) the land, resources, real estate, and other capital in the world are able to exploit and coerce everyone else. Whether you want government or not, wealthy capitalists do. And they get more votes than you. One dollar, one vote.
"the only economic system that could possibly exist without government violence is the market."
Without government violence, we would be left with private violence, exploitation, and coercion. Your argument's naive. Do you expect intelligent people to believe that government is the root of all evil and violence? Whether you want governments or not, the capitalists DO want it. Their way of life just isn't possible without the police state. Guess who will get what they want. Capitalism is dictatorial and coercive. As Noam Chomsky stated, the one flaw in democracy (to capitalists) is, it's POTENTIALLY democratic. Large companies, rich capitalists, are NOT potentially democratic. They're dictatorships. They do what they please. Better to have a corrupt government that is potentially democratic than the bunch of corrupt companies (Enron) and individuals (Michael Milken) doing what they please with zero public accountability. Nobody can make capitalists share their toys (produced by the toil of others), unless they have an army behind them.
Published: April 30, 2007 7:42 PM
Sorry, I meant "the one flaw of GOVERNMENT is that it's POTENTIALLY democratic. Large companies, rich capitalists, are NOT potentially democratic." They are dictatorships. They do what they want.
Published: April 30, 2007 7:47 PM
I'd suppose (according to Capitalism) the difference between a govnerment and a large property baron/tycoon, all things being equal, would be that the Capitalist earned his way to power whereas the Politician would be classed as thieving his way to power. I'd also suppose that if Libertarianism took hold in a way that dissolved all governments and unfree markets and yet the new rich still used some force to secure their wealth and power, it'll still be honest inasmuchas they got there all by themselves without using government cronies. If you don't like private force then choose another private operator and stuff . . .
Published: April 30, 2007 8:36 PM