Wednesday
Do libertarians have anything useful to learn from Karl Marx?
Has anyone anything useful to learn from Karl Marx?
Perhaps. But not from his theories: from his shameless self-promotion, singleminded egotism, and unremitting energy. I'm not sure they are admirable, but they are certainly instructive for those who want to change the world.
Posted by guy herbert at February 28, 2007 12:34 AM
Sure. We've learned from Marx that poorly reasoned ideology isn't just fodder for intellectual debate; it can also kill millions. Conversely, morally sound ideology is a great benefit for human society, as the freer countries are relatively peaceful and safe.
Posted by Walter at February 28, 2007 12:53 AM
Yep. We've learnt plenty.
What not to do. What doesn't work.
Posted by Jono at February 28, 2007 12:56 AM
Sure. We've learned from Marx that poorly reasoned ideology isn't just fodder for intellectual debate; it can also kill millions. Conversely, morally sound ideology is a great benefit for human society, as the freer countries are relatively peaceful and safe.
Posted by Walter at February 28, 2007 01:01 AM
We've learned exactly how not to do things. And how to commit a particularly painful form of suicide. And how to really poison a debate.
The man's ideas were neither particularly unique nor particularly successful.
Posted by gattsuru at February 28, 2007 01:15 AM
Absolutely!
The problems that Marx saw and described in early industrial society were very real, and needed solving. That his solutions were wrongheaded and unworkable doesn't detract from that.
Posted by Bruce Hoult at February 28, 2007 01:18 AM
Perhaps. Consider this: http://agorism.info/AgoristClassTheory.pdf
Posted by J.E. Andreasen at February 28, 2007 01:19 AM
If you want to build capital capitalism is the way to go.
Marx said that.
Posted by M. Simon at February 28, 2007 01:28 AM
How to grow beards which are truly epic in scope.
What Che and Marx can teach us is how to coopt symbols of what we oppose (namely, statism) into something we support (capitalism in the form of making money from the symbols of what we find abhorrent).
Seriously, everyone should consider support their local independent capitalist by buying a shirt featuring a communist figure that is only possible because of a free market.
Posted by Lokon at February 28, 2007 02:54 AM
We learn that any ideas can lead to unexpected results.
What was called Marxism in last century didn't have much to do with what he wrote.
And was called Marxism in this century won't either; we just can't read about it for another hundred years.
Posted by K at February 28, 2007 03:55 AM
Not only were the problems Marx identified real (hence the massive support for his ideas in the early 1900s), they are currently resurgent after a lull through the middle to latter part of the 20th Century. Wealth and control of the means of production are once more becoming highly concentrated into the hands of the few. Money is being restored as the only means of access to the services essential for future success in the capitalist system (health, education, transport, communications, information), creating a self-perpetuating cycle of privilege and power (i.e., feudalism mixed with laissez-faire capitalism).
Personally I have also learned from Marx that a great many fools will never be able to distinguish between an economic and social model (Communism) and a form of government (totalitarianism), or indeed between a political theorist (Marx) and a ruthless, power hungry ideologue (Lenin, Stalin, Mao).
What I find particularly interesting is that many libertarians are unable to see the clear similarities between the ultimate objectives of Communism as a philosophy and the goals of libertarianism. Both seek to establish a system whereby centralised control is replaced by autonomous, independent groups who control their own economic and political destinies. Marx envisaged a society which would reach a point where the role of government would simply fade into irrelevance and people would effectively self-govern at a local level: isn't this what you want?
Posted by Patrick Bateman at February 28, 2007 04:04 AM
Even if Karl correctly described society in his day, his prescription was wrong. We know this because many societies have tried Communism, and none of them were/are societies that people think of as Paradise a la Terre (I utter my first and only apology to the french for the way I misuse their language).
The only part that he seems to have gotten right was that part about repetitions being farcical. The first time we had Marx the philosopher and revolutionary, then history repeated with the Marx brothers. Seriously, did any of his 'scientific' iron-laws-of-history prophecies work out as he predicted?
Posted by nick g. at February 28, 2007 04:05 AM
Not only were the problems Marx identified real (hence the massive support for his ideas in the early 1900s), they are currently resurgent after a lull through the middle to latter part of the 20th Century. Wealth and control of the means of production are once more becoming highly concentrated into the hands of the few. Money is being restored as the only means of access to the services essential for future success in the capitalist system (health, education, transport, communications, information), creating a self-perpetuating cycle of privilege and power (i.e., feudalism mixed with laissez-faire capitalism).
Personally I have also learned from Marx that a great many fools will never be able to distinguish between an economic and social model (Communism) and a form of government (totalitarianism), or indeed between a political theorist (Marx) and a ruthless, power hungry ideologue (Lenin, Stalin, Mao).
What I find particularly interesting is that many libertarians are unable to see the clear similarities between the ultimate objectives of Communism as a philosophy and the goals of libertarianism. Both seek to establish a system whereby centralised control is replaced by autonomous, independent groups who control their own economic and political destinies. Marx envisaged a society which would reach a point where the role of government would simply fade into irrelevance and people would effectively self-govern at a local level: isn't this what you want?
Posted by Patrick Bateman at February 28, 2007 04:12 AM
Life long mooching?
Really awful prose?
Bad facial hair?
Posted by Tex at February 28, 2007 04:32 AM
Marx envisaged a society which would reach a point where the role of government would simply fade into irrelevance and people would effectively self-govern at a local level: isn't this what you want?
That depends: will I be able to self-govern by owning my own business and hiring or not hiring and firing or not firing whoever I want, and making whatever goods I want to make, or providing whatever services I want to provide, however I like best, without regard to what the rest of the community wants?
Personally I have also learned from Marx that a great many fools will never be able to distinguish between an economic and social model (Communism) and a form of government (totalitarianism),
Either people own themselves, their labor, and their fruits, to do with and dispose of as they will, or they don't. If the community owns what I make and what I do, then I don't own my own actions.
It's that simple: do you approve of my ability to own myself and my productivity, or do you consider me a slave?
Posted by Sunfish at February 28, 2007 04:52 AM
They can learn that what Marx said was not what was called Marxism in the last century.
And in a hundred years the same sentence will apply.
Posted by K at February 28, 2007 05:02 AM
His analysis of some social problems and social structures wasn't bad, occasionally really good.
His model for what to do about it was fatally flawed in that assumed that human nature could/should/would change and is/will be unworkable in the real world (not unlike libertarianism in that respect which also tends to assume things about human nature that aren't observable in the real world).
And the governments that actually invoked him were nothing like anything he envisioned (which was closer to the welfare states of western europe).
In other words he wasn't a bad descriptivist but he was a terrible prescriptivist.
Posted by michael farris at February 28, 2007 07:53 AM
Marx envisaged a society ....
On the contrary, he didn't. There's next to nothing in Marx about what communism would be like. Which is why it is also wrong to describe it as "an economic and social model". The economic and social models that Marx did make were of historical and contemporary systems, and frequently hopelessly wrong. Occasionally good, as michael farris says, but very occasionally. (And rather marred by Marx's apparent instistence he had never been wrong, even when his position was self-contradictory - in the usual, non-Marxian, sense of inconsistent.) It may not have been obvious at the time they were, but it certainly ought to be now.
Posted by guy herbert at February 28, 2007 08:19 AM
Walter,
Conversely, morally sound ideology is a great benefit for human society, as the freer countries are relatively peaceful and safe.
We couldn't have learned that from Marx, if your premise (like mine) is that he was wrong, and his followers did great evil.
In what way, apart from the insertion of the rah-word "morally" is that assertion about "sound ideology" different from that of the Marxians and others who claim to have the key to improving society? Is this an example of how you have learned from Marx how to leapfrog reason and evidence?
Posted by guy herbert at February 28, 2007 08:26 AM
The Labour theory of value, nope.
The shaping of society from the bottom up, i.e. Dialectical Materialism, nope.
The inevitable political and economic failure of Capitalism via recurrent and increasingly destructive recessions/depressions and monopoly, nope.
I think a better question would be: what did Marx get right.
Posted by Brian Naughton at February 28, 2007 09:12 AM
"I think a better question would be: what did Marx get right."
His stuff on Ideology wasn't too bad. Although I am not sure how original that was as I haven't read many of his predecessors.
In fact, his ideas can quite usefully explain how many terrible things are happening in society now. The expansion of bureaucracy through the jobs section of the ideological powerhouse of the Guardian, for example! There the convergence of so many ideals such as equality, multiculturalism and environmentalism create the perfect cover for a class of a new elite of powerful civil servants. It is ideology, rather than a simple "scam", because the people who are most deluded are the class that generate it and benefit, in the short term, from it.
So that part of his thesis is good. But today it is better applied to marxists themselves, who Marx himself wouldn't approve of.
As an economist, he was terrible. As a prototype sociologist... well there have been a lot worse since!
Posted by nic at February 28, 2007 10:02 AM
Sunfish, you asked;
That depends: will I be able to self-govern by owning my own business and hiring or not hiring and firing or not firing whoever I want, and making whatever goods I want to make, or providing whatever services I want to provide, however I like best, without regard to what the rest of the community wants?
You couldn't do that regardless of what the community wants. If you make something there is no market for you're never going to sell it. You can only provide products and services which there is a market for if you want to be profitable, otherwise you'll spend so much on marketing (telling people that they really want what you've made when actually they don't) that you won't make any money. And you will want to be profitable so that you can buy the goods and services which you need to keep body and soul together.
One thing I learned from marx:
Religion is the opiate of the masses.
You can replace religion with anything which serves to distract 'the masses' from what's really going on. Currently its reality TV, celebrity worship, the various bugbears of the Daily Mail *spit*, and the use of politica as a personality contest. Give a populace any excuse not to face up to reality and they will take it and let the world go to hell around them.
Posted by mandrill at February 28, 2007 12:16 PM
What Guy Herbert and Michael Farris said, with additions from Kojeve in the 50s.
What Marx is good at is the lead up to capitalism, and even getting better forms of capitalism once you're there. Where he went wrong was that he thought that you would see the working class, as the largest class, overthrow the middle class as the middle class had overthrown the upper, the upper class the nobility, and the nobility the king.
Instead, the way forward is to grow the middle class until it becomes the largest class. Anyway, yeah, the forward looking stuff was lousy. What we want Marx for is understanding the development models leading up to capitalism. We've still got places that aren't capitalist, and his development of the theory of class consciousness is often very helpful for understanding why feudal and other pre-capitalist structures are that way. I often find him invaluable in understanding why the Palestinians put up with their awful leadership, for instance.
Also, Marx wrote about hope and relatively inevitable progress. Libertarians often talk about how important it is to be vigilant and watch out for the bad things coming our way (dictatorship et. al.) Fear of the future seems to be a better tool of the state than of its enemies, though. A belief that we will overcome all odds, that our children will have a brighter world than we do, is vital to people's confidence and we are much more likely to be free if we are confident. Marx reminds us why Malthus was wrong, why the Club of Rome was wrong, and why Gore is wrong today.
Posted by James of England at February 28, 2007 12:44 PM
Manifestos are best written after several stiff drinks!
Posted by Keith Erskine at February 28, 2007 12:55 PM
You couldn't do that regardless of what the community wants.Under Libertarianism, you could; you would be allowed to test the market, you would be allowed to make mistakes, would be allowed to try and fail. Under Marx, you wouldn't even be allowed to try.
Posted by Ian Bennett at February 28, 2007 01:10 PM
He certainly knew how to make an untested idea popular. Even in the face of massive socialist failure in the 20th century his ideas are still more popular than, say , Friedman's.
Philosophically there is nothing to learn from him.
I can't think of a single instance where Marx had any worthwhile answers. His ideas have concentrated power amongst the few and impoverished almost everybody else.
Posted by hardatwork at February 28, 2007 01:17 PM
Perhaps a good way of approaching the question would be to look at what modern-day sympathisers, preferably un-dogmatic ones say about Marx, then to ask: does this offer any important lessons for libertarians?
Jon Elster's Making Sense of Marx is a good example. He starts with the question: what is living and what is dead in Marx? From the synopsis:
Professor Elster insists on the need for microfoundations in social science and provides a systematic criticism of functionalism and teleological thinking in Marx. He argues that Marx's economic theories are largely wrong or irrelevant; historical materialism is seen to have only limited plausibility (and is not even consistently applied by Marx); Marx's most lasting achievements are the criticism of capitalism in terms of alienation and exploitation and the theory of class struggle, politics and ideology under capitalism, though in these areas too Elster enters substantial qualifications.
So, even from someone pre-disposed to be sympathetic to Marx, but resolutely undogmatic, what we can learn from Marx is mainly (not wholly) restricted to:
1. The criticism of capitalism in terms of alienation and exploitation.
2. The theory of class struggle, politics and ideology under capitalism
I am sure other Marxian sympathisers would add items to this list, but it is at least a good starting point. May I suggest that (in terms of 1) many libertarians have defined away these problems, or blamed them on 'statism' or whatever. Sunfish's answer may be close to that of most libertarians I have met
It's that simple: do you approve of my ability to own myself and my productivity, or do you consider me a slave?
Marx's point is that in industrial societies it is not that simple, because people who own nothing but their own labour-power are not much different from slaves. I think libertarians could learn something by taking Marxian aguments seriously, and debating Marx and his successors on this issue.
On 2, others have made some good comments in the discussion above. I agree with some of the things nic said.
Posted by Lindsay at February 28, 2007 02:17 PM
The Marx that sought to overthrow superstition, the Marx that sought to define human action in terms of a plain material world, and the Marx who sought to end the old order of class privilege, that's the Marx I agreed with. So the first 70% of his analyses made sense. It was the turn left at "ownership" of the means of production that we parted ways. It has to be accepted that someone has to dictate why, when, how, who, and where. There is no escaping this. It is choosing who (and the rest follows), by market forces protected by a minarchic state or by the State and its functionaries (the inevitable consequence if the market is shunned). But is it surprising that Marx took the leftward turn as he sponged off the wealth created by another (Engel's father)? It never fails that those philosophers who have never produced anything always take the leftward turn.
But Jefferson needs to be brought in at this juncture, the left or the right turn, because no matter what initial form the economic structure has, and no matter how basic the State is at at the beginning, it will eventually become self serving. Via the left turn, the means of production will be controlled directly, via the right, if we aren't vigilant, indirectly by taxes, regulation, and intimidation. Is there really much difference?
To sum up what was learned form Marx (or the attempts to practically implement his ideas) is that believing that private ownership, and the State protection of those rights are the seeds of tyranny, is true, but the alternative of no private ownership is a much more direct route. But the seeds HAVE BEEN sown, it is up to us to keep it in check.
And over the last 80 years we've failed miserably.
Posted by Brad at February 28, 2007 02:45 PM
Thaddeus,
Cat
+
Pigeons
= Well actually quite reasoned thoughts.
I'm surprised.
Posted by Nick M at February 28, 2007 02:58 PM
Personally I have also learned from Marx that a great many fools will never be able to distinguish between an economic and social model (Communism) and a form of government (totalitarianism),
Well, there is no distinction.
You can't have the "economic and social" model of communism without totalitarian government. The one necessarily creates the other.
Could we add to Marx's many failures his inability to make the connection between the two, his inability to understand that there can be no abolition of private property without totalitarianism. Or maybe he undestood this but choose not to write about it so as not to hurt his popularity ?
My late father used to say that Marx was a power hungry charlatan, not unlike most of his followers to this day.
Another lesson to be learned: beware of German philosophies.
Posted by Jacob at February 28, 2007 02:59 PM
the Marx that sought to define human action in terms of a plain material world
Indeed, he did. The "materialist interpretation of history".
And he was dead wrong here too.
You can't reduce history, or interpret it using only material arguments.
Many factors affect history, many of them are irrational, random or obscure. Material factors are one set among many factors, and not even a very important set.
We don't really undestand exactly what drives history, it's too complicated.
What is fairly obvious is that Marx's interpretation is over simplistic and dead wrong.
Posted by Jacob at February 28, 2007 03:08 PM
Lindsay,
"Marx's point is that in industrial societies it is not that simple, because people who own nothing but their own labour-power are not much different from slaves. "
Balls. Complete balls.
Slaves cannot accrue wealth through their own hard work, either to earn more money or to improve themselves through education.
Slaves cannot improve their own lot by being prudent and forgoing quality of life in the short term in order to save either for their own future or, critically, to give their children a better chance in life.
Slaves cannot improve the lot of their children.
In short, slaves have no positive incentives.
All this "future time orientation" clearly makes a racist, but you get the point.
Posted by Cleanthes at February 28, 2007 03:18 PM
Jacob,
Regardless of the internal experience native to each individual, the fact remains that the individual interacts with a material world. And it is complicated to be sure. That's why a market allocates material resources best, as tastes are in conflict, wants unlimited, and resources scarce. To reduce it to a simple dialectic was wrong.
It is the inability of many (statists all) to understand scarcity. It is the immaterialists, the romantics, the economically ignorant that live in a world of limitless resources. And if they do happen to comprehend a concept of a finite material world, they seek to superimpose their sense of value over it.
In the end, a person is his actions in a material world (naked and without possessions as the day one was born certainly isn't the objective of life). The question is how all of us interrelate with each other, given our inate inconsistencies of taste. The practical applications of Marxism was to drive out inconsistencies. The market simply accepts it and is the function by which material resources are best allocated. Those who best serve the wants and needs are rewarded and, if there is to be an application of some function of "best for society", their capital surplus is protected from pillaging so that they can continue on their course. Of course when the those appointed to be the protector become the biggest pillager of all, we have gone off course.
So Marx's understanding of mans' interrelationship with the material world is what starts him out on the right track. But he then reinvents a new romantic notion that, via guidance from he, the Philosopher King, man could be shifted away from his desire to prolong his life by creating a pile of goods and protecting it with a sharp stick. This will never happen.
Posted by Brad at February 28, 2007 04:31 PM
Guy, I mean that Marxism is a counterexample, and that moral (I mean that to purposefully vague) government is a great good. Marxism being profoundly immoral, although not necessarily ill-intentioned, causes great harm. Isn't that a lesson well learned?
Posted by Walter at February 28, 2007 04:32 PM
Marx clearly was good at getting his ideas out there in a form that was easily understood by the biggest nitwit on the planet. That is something libertarians need to learn as they too often over intelletualise their message.
Posted by Andrew Ian Dodge at February 28, 2007 04:35 PM
Regardless of the internal experience native to each individual, the fact remains that the individual interacts with a material world. And it is complicated to be sure.
Ok. It is complicated.
The complication is that his interactions aren't determined or guided solely by material factors as Marx postulated. Individuals' actions are guided by many factors, of which the material ones are perhaps in the minority.
Marx recognized no other factors, and even the materialist factor he interpreted in a wrong way - as depending on class, whereas individuals care for their own material goods, regardless of class theory.
Posted by Jacob at February 28, 2007 05:40 PM
So what makes up the majority of non-material considerations?
I'd assert that EVERYTHING we do has a material basis. Whatever that organo-chemical process of the brain that has us recognize (and value) ourselves certainly is ultimately meaningless without a material reality around it, and interaction with it. Every philosophical notion, no matter how removed it seems, or flowerily defined, ultimately speaks to mans behavior relative to the material world. Perhaps some merely add a superstitious element to explain the Big Why, but certainly isn't necessary. But it is certain that those who purport to know the Big Why are more apt to force their perception of correct behavior on others, usually by force.
So Marx was on the right track initially, as he endeavored to strip away superstitions and began to define the World in a rational sense in which man interacted with the material around him, not based on fear mondering by the then Leaders of Men. He merely decided that self-interest would disappear of its own accord or be forced out of one. And he based this on his own misperceptions and axiomatic definitions about history. That, coupled with his subsidized existence, led him to his faulty conclusions. He simply didn't carry his analysis forward enough. His philosophy was still anchored in the era of absolutes, he merely traded the existing versions for his own.
So I grant that all this reaches back to epistomlogical roots, but that's where I find agreement with Marx unlike other absolute systems mired in superstition. Our differences arise with his definition of labor, exploitation, lack of understanding (or allowing for) specialization and division of labor, labor as a commodity, capital, voluntary association, etc etc. He was mired in the era of guilds and craftsmen and such. He perceived a world in which artisans worked in consort with each other. His system worked so long as everyone was in agreement. But when one man looks at a tree and sees firewood, and another man sees a set of table and chairs, disagreement starts, and someone has to decide.
His base analysis was on the right track, his simplified description of history as a dialectic was faulty, which pointed him in completely the wrong direction.
Posted by Brad at February 28, 2007 06:51 PM
My dear friend Cleanthes,
You wrote:
Slaves cannot accrue wealth through their own hard work, either to earn more money or to improve themselves through education.
Slaves cannot improve their own lot by being prudent and forgoing quality of life in the short term in order to save either for their own future or, critically, to give their children a better chance in life.
Slaves are for the most part (there are historically exceptions) both legally prevented from and deprived of the opportunity to do all these things. Non-slaves are legally permitted to do these things, but for a Nineteenth century industrial worker, what opportunities were there?
If (as Marx did) you apply to Labour markets Ricardian-esque theory of rent with the assumption that jobs were scarcer than workers*, then where does that leave the 'surplus value' (if I may call it that on this board) which workers were supposed to assign to investment versus consumption? Captured by capitalists, that's where, competed away by workers. For the first half a century of the industrial revolution (to 1870) wages barely rose, while productivity expanded hugely. How do you explain that?
Of course there were at that time some workers who did well enough to be able to invest in their (and their childrens') future. Is it your vew, Cleanthes, that all the others were mostly simply profligate?
To repeat myself a little, if there is anything for libertarians to learn from Marx, they might best do so by engaging with these arguments, however they so do. As a response, "Balls" won't really teach us much.
*Certainly not an assumption you would want to make these days, except for the most un-skilled jobs. Marx's argument was that this situation was a deliberate product of public policy
Posted by Lindsay at February 28, 2007 06:52 PM
You couldn't do that regardless of what the community wants. If you make something there is no market for you're never going to sell it.
That's not what I was asking. If I start selling MP3 players with built-in cupholders pre-loaded with the Hank Williams Jr. canon and nobody buys them, then I go broke. My problem. If I offer MP3 players with blah blah blah and the state comes and tells me to knock that shit off because society actually needs me to produce fluffy green sweaters, that's a different matter.
Will I be threatened with force for producing MP3 players pre-loaded with Hank Jr. and with cupholders installed if someone wants me to make something else?
Marx's point is that in industrial societies it is not that simple, because people who own nothing but their own labour-power are not much different from slaves.
Are they free to walk away and do whatever they want, when the needs of the community suggest that they should stay at the fluffy green sweater factory?
Put another way, let's say that, tonight, I'm in the middle of citing someone for failing to stop at a steady red signal. In the middle of the contact, I say to myself "Screw this, I'm tired of being the bad guy" and I leave my shield and my ID in the ashtray and leave the car sitting there and go home. Here, I'd almost certainly be fired. Fine, okay, whatever. After Marx, what penalties would I face for not doing the work that the commune thinks that it wants me to do? If your answer contains any form of "Anything worse than being fired," then we have a problem.
People don't own other people's stuff. Confusion about that leads to stolen car stereos, neighbors borrowing my snow shovels and never returning them, and the county assessor's office.
People also don't own other people. Confusion about that leads to millions of Africans being stuffed into boats and shipped across the Atlantic, and thousands of people being sent to southeast Asian countries that nobody had ever heard of.
Any person who cannot say "Fuck you, I don't want to play" is not free.
Posted by Sunfish at February 28, 2007 07:03 PM
Any person who cannot say "Fuck you, I don't want to play" is not free.
Agreed, but where jobs are scarcer than workers, it is unlikely that someone in marginal employment (an industrial worker in the 1850s for example), the fact that one may say it, doesn't imply that one can say it. Real freedom requires something more.
Posted by Lindsay at February 28, 2007 07:29 PM
Do libertarians have anything useful to learn from Karl Marx
Remember to buy razors.
Or a little less fatuously, his analysis of the path to Capitalism wasn't that bad likewise is analysis of some of it's imperfections has merit.
However his predictions where wrong, as most are. From this we can learn that trying to predict future of something as complex as human society isn't that useful as you will be wrong so often. Best not try and just let people freely find their own paths with a system that lets them try as many different ones as needed till they find theirs. Currently a market based society is best for this. But of course something better might be found in future.
Posted by chris strange at February 28, 2007 08:57 PM
Freedom is not the same as power, Lindsay, nor does it (or could it) entail an absence of consequences.
Even if I had a 5 million estate and complete security, I would still have to accept that the consequences of saying 'fuck you, I don't want to play' would include some stony expressions at the pub. Freedom is having to take respsonsibility for choosing between the choices available even, perhaps especially, when none of them are attractive. That's why a lt of people don't like it.
Personally I believe that, as a general rule, people are better at making their decisions than the government, but very often worse than their parents, for example.
Marx recognized no other factorsTo be fair this was a flaw of many classical political economists. Indeed, you could claim it was a legitimate assumption of economic discourse as long as you then accept the collary that economics thus constituted can only provide a model of an accuracy such that it couldn't serve as a basis for detailed economic prediction and planning.
Posted by Gabriel at February 28, 2007 09:40 PM
I'd assert that EVERYTHING we do has a material basis. Whatever that organo-chemical process of the brain ....
That is true on some abstract, philosophical level.
But that's not what Marx spoke of. He said that men are driven solely by material considerations - here material meaning not your "organo-chemical process of the brain" but plain simple material goods (food, clothes, stuff). Marx said that men, and history - is driven solely by the wish to acquire more goods and live better.
This is a gross oversimplification. There are a lot of other factors that drive men, many of them irrational. Like religion, pride, love, national pride, prejudices, etc.
That men also strive for a better life and more material goods - that goes without saying, that is trivial. It is a gross error to claim that this is the only thing that drives men. It is even more stupid to rewrite history and ignore all other factors that are plainly discernible in the past, and try to find a material (economic) reason for everything. Take for example two major events of the past: WW1 and the Crusades. Economics played a negligible part in setting these events in motion !
Posted by Jacob at February 28, 2007 10:23 PM
Do libertarians have anything useful to learn from Karl Marx?
Yes, of course.
Don't succumb to the danger of building abstract ideological structures - devoid of any relation to reality.
Many libertarians do this - for example: the anarchist libertarians.
Posted by Jacob at February 28, 2007 10:30 PM
>>Has anyone anything useful to learn from Karl Marx?
Karl Popper learned that Marxism/Socialism was not scientific, and went on to solve the problem of induction with falsification with this observation. Well done Karl! (Popper that is)
Posted by sean at February 28, 2007 10:52 PM
You can't have the "economic and social" model of communism without totalitarian government. The one necessarily creates the other.
I would be interested to hear some justification for this line of argument. We currently live (loosely) in a democracy which nevertheless imposes a large number of extremely rigid social and economic rules on the way we live, which, cumulatively, add up to the present capitalist-socialist hybrid in the West. For example: I must pay tax if I earn money; there are rules about investment in companies; there is only one legal form of currency; and so on.
How do you differentiate this system from Communism? Our present arrangement still dictates who may own what, who may earn what, who may receive what from the government. Just because the sliders controlling it are in slightly different places does not mean that this system is any more inherently compatible with democracy, or any less dependent on a modified form of 'totalitarian' government, than Communism.
I also suggest that the argument that no Communist country was ever democratic mixes up cause and effect to a certain extent - the only way Communism could be tried in the environment of the 20th century was through revolution or violent imposition from outside (i.e. the Soviets conquering Eastern Europe), as any democratic attempts to establish it were ruthlessly suppressed by the fascists and old world elites (see for instance: Italy; Germany; Greece; much of South America). Revolution naturally leads to dicatorship in many historical scenarios (see: France; Britain) so it's not surprising that the countries in which it was established were also totalitarian.
It's a great shame no democracy was ever able (allowed?) to vote in a Communist government. Then we might truly understand the flaws of the system, rather than merely observing the horrors of totalitarianism through a Communist lens and calling them the same thing.
Posted by Patrick Bateman at February 28, 2007 11:43 PM
The state is not "abolished". It dies out. (Engels: Anti-Duhring, Part III)
The Marxist equation contains a number of variables. One of them is the raising of consciousness. Unfortunately Marxists generally have a limited going on negative understanding of levels of consciousness, which is perhaps the primary reason why the revolution hasn't happened and will not happen and why attempts to make it happen have ended in tears.Notes towards a C21st non-statist Marxism (1)(Link)Where reality conflicts with ideology, ideology must cede, instantly.
There are other tensions directing humanity besides capital, tensions inside people. 'Green-water man' Marxism, dictating that if you change people's external circumstances you change them inside, is a preposterous and vicious naivety, humanity as an empty vessel - fill it with green water, you get green-water man.
....
Marxism says there has to be a history of change before the state can wither away. Certain conditions have to be brought into existence.
Some libertarians could perhaps usefully take on board that not everyone is a mover and shaker and people need encouragement to think they can change things, opportunity to organize their own lives and develop themselves, find their inner resources, before a stateless society is feasible.
Learn from Marx that the Left is at root a rationaist, humanist, atheist construct and any supposed Leftist who surrenders to a world-view based on fantasies about a sky-fairy is by definition a fake. Pointing out to the kitsch Left that to real Marxists religion is the opium of the people and that consequently the CPGB conducts atheist propaganda is one of the small pleasures of modern life, preferably after they have confidently declared that anyone who fails to succumb to Islam is a neo-con and probably BNP
The Communist Party says that the state should consider religion a private matter. However, from the point of view of the Party, itself religion - whether it be an established cult or a residual belief in the supernatural - is nor a private matter. Our Party cannot be indifferent to the ignorance, gullibility and irrationality religion engenders in the minds of the masses. The CPGB therefore conducts atheist propaganda.
Draft Programme of the CPGB(Link)
Posted by Ysabel Howard at March 1, 2007 12:17 AM
Any person who cannot say "Fuck you, I don't want to play" is not free.Agreed, but where jobs are scarcer than workers, it is unlikely that someone in marginal employment (an industrial worker in the 1850s for example), the fact that one may say it, doesn't imply that one can say it. Real freedom requires something more.
For some values of freedom, anyway.
Freedom is freedom to take the consequences of your own acts, be they positive or negative. Freedom means that if you quit your job, your boss will stop paying you.
Or, are you arguing that it's now my obligation to subsidize other people's choices? Does that mean that, if someone else chooses unwisely, he has a right to dip into my property?
Here's what we'll do. I'll quit my job tonight. As a result, I'll be unable to make my house payment and definitely won't be able to afford nachos and beer. If you would, please post your address and I'll come sleep on your couch and raid your fridge.
Charity is good. I like charity. There are a few that I support liberally with my time and my money. But that's voluntary. And you need to understand something about the state: nothing that it mandates is voluntary. And every law is backed by the threat of force in its implementation.
You can't have the "economic and social" model of communism without totalitarian government. The one necessarily creates the other.I would be interested to hear some justification for this line of argument.
Try this: I presently own about ten acres of fruit trees, mixed pines, vegetable patches, a small brewery, and a decent home shop. In other words, if I decided to not be a cop anymore, I could probably produce some food and do contract welding. I believe these are the means of production, no? And yet, they're mine. I bought them, I paid for them, and I own them. It's that simple.
Collective ownership of the means of production means stealing my property. How else do you plan to make it produce for the benefit of society as a while, depriving me of my rights of ownership and whatever profit I might have coming? And how do you plan to take it? Let's say that you produce some sort of court order or eminent domain condemnation. What will you do when I refuse to leave?
Let me let you in on a little clue: At the end of this chain of events your hired goons shoot me. I can spell it out for me if your grasp of history is so poor that you can't visualize it for yourself.
So, how do you plan to get around the fact that I worked hard for the life I have and don't propose to be bullied out of it at the demand of someone who talks gooey platitudes about "production for need instead of profit" or similar nonsense?
Posted by Sunfish at March 1, 2007 12:41 AM
For the first half a century of the industrial revolution (to 1870) wages barely rose, while productivity expanded hugely. How do you explain that?
Very easy to explain and it has in fact been explained many times by many people: Technology. The capitalist investor invested in more advanced tool and techniques, which act as a multiplier on productivity.
This process of harnessing technology and innovation (the two are related but not the same thing) to create addition value is exactly what capitalist system are so vastly better at than politically directed systems because both the motivations and (above all) the location of the capitalist is close to the means of production, organisationally, emotionally, intellectually and often literally (as opposed a political director, who is by necessity closer to the political structures of coercion than the means of production).
Pretty obvious really.
Posted by Perry de Havilland at March 1, 2007 02:28 AM
Collective ownership of the means of production means stealing my property. How else do you plan to make it produce for the benefit of society as a while, depriving me of my rights of ownership and whatever profit I might have coming? And how do you plan to take it? Let's say that you produce some sort of court order or eminent domain condemnation. What will you do when I refuse to leave?
I think you'll find that your property is already "stolen" in the form of taxation. My point was that you cannot necessarily ideologically differentiate between the two, and both require coercive mechanisms to enforce whether they involve taking your real property or just your money, ergo, capitalism in its current implementation is no less prone on that basis to totalitarianism than communism. Which led to my ultimate point, which was that the connection between communism and totalitarianism in the 20th century was the violent and revolutionary environment in which communism was implemented, not the philosophy itself.
You're obviously fond of hypothetical examples, so how about this one. The entire world consists of one farm and, next to the farm, a single village with no other industry of any kind. You happen to have inherited (or received inter vivos, if you prefer) the whole of the farm from your father, and he from his, as far back as anyone can remember. Please tell me which of the following is a valid exercise of your 'freedom':
- you offer to give a bare minimum amount of food to the villagers if they come to your land to work slave-like hours to improve it for your personal benefit
- you gift the whole of the land to your firstborn child
- the starving villagers reject your offer in the first example and instead offer you the choice of sharing the farm or having your ass kicked
- you burn the farm to the ground, rendering it unusable for the foreseeable future and guaranteeing that everyone will starve to death
Your version of 'freedom' works if there are unlimited opportunities, everyone starts from zero at birth, and you believe in a pure meritocracy in which the less able or 'wise' deserve, and receive, a lower quality of life. Otherwise it is just as inherently unworkable as anything Karl Marx wrote.
Let me let you in on a little clue: At the end of this chain of events your hired goons shoot me. I can spell it out for me if your grasp of history is so poor that you can't visualize it for yourself.
I note with interest that you are a cop. That would involve my taxes paying your salary while you march around enforcing society's intrusions into my freedom to behave as I wish whether I agree to those intrusions or not: true/false? Let me let you in on a little clue: you are the hired goon with the gun.
Posted by Patrick Bateman at March 1, 2007 03:26 AM
Yeah, Ysabel. The CPGB is all so rationalist and atheistic it worships dialectic materialism rather than God. I'm not even sure outright atheism is rational and even if it were I wouldn't embrace it just because a mooching, Hegel quoting, razor-dodging kraut git says so. Fundamentally Communism is believing in Das Kapital the same way a muslim believes in the Koran or a scientologist believes in Battlefield Earth.
I have said this before and I'll say it again. There is no profit in German philosophers. You start off doing a bit of Kant and think you can handle it and before long you're past your first antinomy and you're reading Nietszche (what is it with Hun "thinkers" and facial hair?) or that appalling bullshit-meister Martin-fucking-Heidegger (who also had a 'stache).
There is a coke in it for anybody who can come up with an explanation of anything in "Being and Time". I couldn't even disagree with Heidegger because I had not the slightest idea what he was going on about.
And I do mean "German" in the national rather than linguistic sense. There have been some rather good Austrians.
Sean,
Popper didn't quite entirely solve the problem because there are always auxiliary hypotheses! I always preferred Neurath's approach:
We are like sailors who on the open sea must reconstruct their ship but are never able to start afresh from the bottom. Where a beam is taken away a new one must at once be put there, and for this the rest of the ship is used as support. In this way, by using the old beams and driftwood the ship can be shaped entirely anew, but only by gradual reconstruction.
Oddly enough Otto Neurath was also a Marxist but then nobody is perfect. I also always thought that there might be something in Quine but he's a bugger to read being somewhat technical. That's logicians for you.
PS. I'm aware previous commentators on this thread characterized Marx as "razor-dodging" and a "moocher". I steal from them unashamedly. From each according to their ability to each according to their needs and all that.
Posted by Nick M at March 1, 2007 03:54 AM
Religion is the opium of the people
That's useful to remember, and then remember that Marxism-Leninism was the most successful religion of the 20th Century...
Marx has also led some people to libertarianism, admittedly because they view libertarianism as the best way to advance capitalism to its ultimate end and then bring about communism...
Posted by Tristan at March 1, 2007 09:07 AM
Round where I live, opium is the opium of the masses.
Well, crack anyway.
Marxism is a religion. Apart from anything it's very teleological and promises something akin to salvation. Not quite 72 virgins, mind which is why, along with Sov cash drying-up the malcontents of the mid-east have canned pan-arabism with all it's vaguely commie overtones for back-to-basics Islam.
The end of the Cold War dumped us out of the Marxist frying pan and into the Islamist fire.
Posted by Nick M at March 1, 2007 10:01 AM
Hernando de Soto, evangelist of capitalism for the poor and downtrodden, insists that he learnt loads from Marx. I'm willing to take his word for it.
Posted by Squander Two at March 1, 2007 10:41 AM
Patrick,
Your hypotherical scenario: "The entire world consists of one farm and, next to the farm, a single village with no other industry of any kind. You happen to have inherited (or received inter vivos, if you prefer) the whole of the farm from your father, and he from his, as far back as anyone can remember."
That's North Korea.
Posted by hardatwork at March 1, 2007 11:25 AM
I should have mentioned that I was referring to P Bateman's post.
Posted by hardatwork at March 1, 2007 11:29 AM
Nick M SAid >>>>> Sean,
Popper didn't quite entirely solve the problem because there are always auxiliary hypotheses! I always preferred Neurath's approach:
We are like sailors who on the open sea must reconstruct their ship but are never able to start afresh from the bottom. Where a beam is taken away a new one must at once be put there, and for this the rest of the ship is used as support. In this way, by using the old beams and driftwood the ship can be shaped entirely anew, but only by gradual reconstruction.Ill let Dr. Sanity fill you in(Link)
Posted by sean at March 1, 2007 12:05 PM
SORRY ABOUT THE LAST POST, STRANGE THINGS ARE HAPPENING ON THIS SITE!
Nick M said >>>>> Sean,
Popper didn't quite entirely solve the problem because there are always auxiliary hypotheses! I always preferred Neurath's approach:
We are like sailors who on the open sea must reconstruct their ship but are never able to start afresh from the bottom. Where a beam is taken away a new one must at once be put there, and for this the rest of the ship is used as support. In this way, by using the old beams and driftwood the ship can be shaped entirely anew, but only by gradual reconstruction.
Twaddle, We can OBJECTIVELY say that the sun will rise tomorrow, based on the available evidence at this time of writing. Problem solved, No more post-modernism please!!
Just a note on Marx and Democracy. Human civilization roughly works on a trial and error basis.
Being a democracy does not follow that you are a "open Society", though it does follow to be a "open society" you will have to be a democracy... (Venezuela come to mind at this time)
Marxism cannot ever be compatible with an open society because it represent a blueprint of the perfect society. If you believe in the false promise of a Marxist or even Islamist paradise on earth through this given blueprint, you have rejected the central pillars of liberalism (classical philosophical liberalism).
Marx is yesterdays problem, Todays problem is Thomas Kuhn and post-modernism or Neo-Marxism as i prefer to call it.
Ill let Dr. Sanity fill you in(Link)
Posted by sean at March 1, 2007 12:08 PM
Slaves are for the most part (there are historically exceptions) both legally prevented from and deprived of the opportunity to do all these things. Non-slaves are legally permitted to do these things, but for a Nineteenth century industrial worker, what opportunities were there?
Quite a few. By the middle of the 19th Century, workers already formed things like Friendly Societies - the precursors of the modern insurance industry - and had built their own modest, but vital stock of capital. And capital is not just about physical stuff, it is about the knowledge and skills people can and do carry in their heads.
Let's confront the slavery issue head-on. When a Marxist says that the labourer with no capital or reserve money is "exploited" by the man who employs him, one might as well say that anyone who has something that another wants can exploit people. But so long as there is more than one employer, and the possibility of more employers coming along, then no labourer is enslaved in the way that say, people can be enslaved by a totalitarian government with a monopoly on all job allocations.
Marxists make the huge error of confusing freedom and power. For libertarians and classical liberals, freedom is negative, it is the absence of coercion. For socialists of various sorts, it is the capacity to a thing, like the ability to have a three-course meal, get medical care or whatever. The lack of such things is not the lack of freedom, but a material lack.
This confusion of freedom and power was one of the most deadly errors in Marx.
His labour theory of value was also bunk although he was and is not the only person to make that error. To this day, people assume that wealth is something physical, and do not understand how entrepreneurship, inventiveness, swiftness to exploit ideas, etc, creates real value. This is at the core of the current furore over private equity buyouts, etc. It was not until the marginal revolution in economics that people realised that value and therefore wealth is a subjective thing.
We can learn a lot from Marx, though. First, he praised production. The modern post-modernist left does not praise it, and seems to regard wealth as something that just happens. Marx was also a fan of science, and I have no idea what he would have made of those spoilt upper class twits in the Green movement. Marx, remember, wrote of the "idiocy of rural life".
Marxism and libertarianism share a utopian element. We are both not happy with the current state of affairs and want something better. We also tend to write, argue and read thick books with lots of references in them, and tend to encourage eccentrics and oddballs. Nothing to be ashamed of. I can much more easily enjoy a chat with an old-style socialist than some NuLab robot.
For a superb demolition job on Marx, but a scholarly and temperate one, read David Conway's "A Farewell to Marx." Highly recommended.
Posted by Johnathan Pearce at March 1, 2007 01:15 PM
sean,
No we can't. Not about everything. Do you want me to bring up Australian swans? Hume demolished naive induction as an entirely rational basis for science. Induction is essentially a circular argument.
Unfortunately, it is pretty much the best we've got because Popper's attempt to cut the Gordian knot was a brave attempt but ultimately failed because any scientific hypothesis can't be taken and entirely tested purely on it's own merits. That's not post-modern dogma - that's just my personal experience of several years being a physicist.
Science can't be proved to be entirely rational because it relies inevitably on the unprovable principle of empirical induction. That doesn't mean that science hasn't pulled off some stunning coups in it's time. That doesn't mean I believe the existence of atoms or the germ theory of disease is in any significant sense a matter for personal choice.
What it means is that I can't prove these ideas with the same rigour that I can prove that the square-root of 2 is irrational. Instead I choose to believe them not because they can be followed back to some single "firm principle" but because I know these ideas are so interwoven with so many other theories for which there is much interlocking evidence.
Science isn't top-down or bottom-up, it's centre-out. It's a web of self-supporting theories and structures. Ultimately it isn't provable by appeal to an external principle but it is made plausible by it's internal consistency and it's capacity to answer significant questions about the real world in a much more compelling and useful way than earlier modes of knowledge.
The web-concept also goes some way towards explaining the fact that some scientific ideas are vastly more securely held than others.
I love science. I just don't pretend it's math.
Posted by Nick M at March 1, 2007 01:44 PM
Twaddle, We can OBJECTIVELY say that the sun will rise tomorrow, based on the available evidence at this time of writing. Problem solved, No more post-modernism please!!
Ok, now prove to me that the sun rising, and indeed everything, is not an illusion. Can you prove you are in fact living in virtual reality or that the world is not just a delusion in your own mind?
I cannot 'prove' that is not the case and neither can you, however I have better theories to explain reality than "reality is all in my head". I form a critical preference for the theory that the sun will indeed rise tomorrow because if x, y and z rather than accept I am just dreaming the sun exists. My preferred theory is a bloody good theory and I would be more than a tad surprised if it gets falsified (to say the least) but it is just a theory.
Reality may be objective but as we cannot perceive more than a small fraction of it with our imperfect senses, our understanding of reality is always going to be conjectural and based on theories (some extremely robust and others less so).
Posted by Perry de Havilland at March 1, 2007 01:56 PM
Actually, Perry. Some of our theories are almost certainly perfectly true. Statistical Mechanics is to a very large extent a mathematical (and therefore a priori) structure which enables the gross features of collectives to be predicted from the properties of the constituents. You can't argue with Gibbs and Boltzmann. Of course the properties of those constituents and the tractability of the resulting equations is another matter...
Posted by Nick M at March 1, 2007 02:19 PM
>>Ok, now prove to me that the sun rising, and indeed everything, is not an illusion. Can you prove you are in fact living in virtual reality or that the world is not just a delusion in your own mind?
Well, You could be right of course, I could be a bot living in some supercomputer thats taken to reading up on Karl Popper (who may or may not have existed in the first place, but could just be a program running somewhere in cyberspace) , or I really could be a real person with a real computer, writing on these boards on what I as a human see and belive to be real?
Place your bet Perry, based upon your objective knowledge.
What do you say Perry, all theories are equal and relative, or some are likely to be more true than false and better than others?
Posted by sean at March 1, 2007 02:50 PM
>>I love science. I just don't pretend it's math.
Thus its a social science? both the logical positives and popper agreed that science was value free, ie, on its sole merits alone. sadly like Lee Smolin you have come to the wrong conclusion.
Falsification is a bit like taking a lump of stone and smashing what is false out of it, to be left a close an image as possible to the truth, but some images we have are near certain to be the truth, they are that clear. (note I said NEAR certain)
btw, Ive been to Perth, WA and I have seen the black swans and i can objectively say, with a high degree of certainty, all swans are not white
Posted by sean at March 1, 2007 03:02 PM
Ultimately it isn't provable by appeal to an external principle but it is made plausible by it's internal consistency and it's capacity to answer significant questions about the real world ...
Who cares about proving ? At least about that ideal (and therefore impossible) absolute proof ?
Science is valid and important not mainly because of it's "capacity to answer significant questions about the real world", but because it PRODUCES results - via technology, and production processes.
Science is important and proven by the tangible results whose production depends on it.
Posted by Jacob at March 1, 2007 03:19 PM
sean,
"Social science" is an oxymoron. Part of Kuhn's SSR examines why the physical sciences have made vastly more progress than the social sciences. He comes to the conclusion that it's because different schools of social science can't even come to an agreement about the meaning of basic terms. I think he's got a point. I've seen some vicious arguments in physics but generally not over what "adiabatic" means or what a "Lorenz Gauge" is.
I honestly don't think a Marxist economist and one of the Chicago boys could probably agree on basic terms of their discipline sufficiently to even have a rational debate. Similarly, I've seen some muslim forums/blogs where it has seriously been put forward that you can only be "free" by submitting to Allah. I happen to think that's a load of pony. I think that because my definition of "free" involves beer, bacon and my bird not wearing a tent in public.
Where Kuhn almost goes wrong is in not addressing why this convergence of terminology has occurred in the physical sciences but not in the social ones. I say "almost" because this question is not really central to his thesis so I can understand why he glossed over it.
My personal feeling is that the physical sciences essentially deal with more permanent (and frankly more important) phenomena than the social sciences do. If you look back to the start of this thread then you'll see a few non-Marxists stating that Marx provided a pretty reasonable description/analysis of the state of the working-class in the early C19th. I'm not going to argue that one way or the other. That may be true but what is tacitly acknowledged by these commentators is that that analysis is fixed in the aspic of the 1850s and is utterly irrelevant to the modern age. Somehow, I suspect the mass of an electron or the permeability of free-space hasn't changed over the same time frame. This is not really a criticism of Marx per se. It is a criticism of all social scientists who believe their observations are timeless verities.
In physics (especially astrophysics - my bit) you pretty much have to presuppose that the laws of physics are immutable through space-time (to what extent they are entirely knowable is another matter) otherwise you get into all sorts of problems. Yes, I have read papers which have postulated physical law or physical constants changing over time (in particular in order to explain an apparent periodicity in large scale cosmological structure) but you ought to look very hard before you pull that communication cord. Very hard indeed.
BTW I include many aspects of biology and some parts of medicine in my definition of "physical sciences".
Posted by Nick M at March 1, 2007 03:45 PM
>>Who cares about proving ?
I do.
I am off to make a cuppa, I am very sure that if I add heat to the water it will vaporise and turn to steam. If it does not work, I will not assume that the theory has been falsified, but will head down to Argos to get a new kettle, at once. But I will be honest with you, I am optimistic on this one.
Science is about predictability, its central to human progress, as when we have a bad idea we need to replace it with a good idea.
Marx claimed his ideology was science, He made predictions about the course of human history. He was proved false.
1, His theory of prices, did not include risk, thus the workers did not own all profit except that off their labor. so no need to murder the capitalists, and everyone else who disagreed with them, which was quite a lot of people.
2, Game theory proved that capitalism/free trade was not a zero sum game and as such was highly unlikely to play itself out (late capitalism) or destroy itself.
3, Popper before all this was widely known, He through his theory of science proved Marxism was not science, he also made a prediction based upon it.
In Open Society 2, the fate of socialism "In the end they must become mystics, hostile to reasonable argument" He scientifically predicted that this ideology would mutate into faith, or as we know it "post-modernism"
I would also add Max Weber to this list, in "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" he refutes Marx and his Historicism theory
So as you can see, Proving is very important in order for the human race to avoid the perils (and they are mighty big perils) of both National and International Socialism, and other statist models of society.
Posted by sean at March 1, 2007 03:59 PM
Jacob,
To a large extent that's what I meant. The sort of significant questions are often things like technology. The sort of stuff the boys and girls at Boeing and Airbus are asking themselves every day.
And yes, you guessed it. When met with virulent anti-science type I always ask 'em why they haven't chucked out their CD player or heart medicine.
But, there is another aspect. Science provides arrows of explanation (to use TH Huxley's phrase). Genesis states what happened (or at least it's own claim to what happened), Darwinism (especially when combined with modern knowledge of genetics) explains what happened. Many Arabs don't think much beyond the idea that their oil is a special gift from Allah for the founders of Islam, end of explanation. I suspect most geologists would disagree. Not only are those geologists vital to solving the technological problems of exploiting that oil, they are also capable of providing a vastly more compelling narrative as to how it got there in the first place. "A gift from Allah" is an assertion. The geologists provide an explanation.
Posted by Nick M at March 1, 2007 04:04 PM
Nick, With respect, I think you should go back and read Logic of scientific discovery again.
The general assumption held is that Popper divided things up into science and non-science, I think he did not.
Imo, He divided things up into three, science, non-science and pseudo-science, He states although something is not science, that does not mean it does not have merit, for example he was a Cartesian dualist, of which he admits there is no basis for this in science, but he sees merit within it to believe it. ( I could use the same arguments for super string theory, which gives the best possible story to explain the currently available facts)
Popper main concern was Pseudo-science off which Marxism was central but not only argument, he rightly Imo, saw this type of thesis as uniquely dangerous, as proved the case.
Now take our era, and Islamism, they are making the same claims as the National and International socialists did before them, they claim to have certainty (science) and as such have special rights to setting the world order, just as Marx did.
What we have is a non-science, a faith that has through the claim of certainty mutated into an ideology, into pseudo-science.
The demarcation is of these issues is central to our progress.
Science has to be something that is testable in an open and free environment, where everyone has access to the facts. If not its not science.
Scientists like yourself have special responsibility in protecting the lines of demarcation, for all our sakes.
Math is pure science btw, and social sciences do have merit, but not the same merit as physical sciences, which I think we both agree upon.
Posted by sean at March 1, 2007 04:32 PM
Well, You could be right of course, I could be a bot living in some supercomputer thats taken to reading up on Karl Popper
Indeed... but I have formed critical preference for the
theory that you are not.
Place your bet Perry, based upon your objective knowledge.
A critical preference is, after all, an informed bet based on what acknowledge is currently available.
What do you say Perry, all theories are equal
A ludicrous notion. If a theory is falsified, it cannot be equal to a theory that has withstood attempts to falsify it.
and relative
Relative to what?
or some are likely to be more true than false and better than others?
Some theories are clearly better than others... when we conclude which is which, that is what we called 'forming a critical preference'... (i.e. "that theory sucks but this one seems a better explanation").
When you drop a tea cup, an invisible genie grabs it and smashes it into the floor. That is certainly a theory which could indeed explains what just happened. Personally I think the theory of gravity does a far better job and so I have formed a critical preference for theories that do not involved invisible genies breaking my tea cups.
Just because reality is objective that does not make our understanding of it any less conjectural.
Posted by Perry de Havilland at March 1, 2007 04:45 PM
When a Marxist says that the labourer with no capital or reserve money is "exploited" by the man who employs him, one might as well say that anyone who has something that another wants can exploit people.
No, no, no. Of course 'exploitation' is a loaded word, and I am trying to be positive, not normative.* Would it make any difference if I said that the 'rent'--the surplus from the transaction accruing from the employment transaction--was mostly captured by employers? And note I have not (yet) made any claim about the desirability or otherwise of this. And I am talking about the first fifty years or so of industrialisation in Britain only.
Very easy to explain and it has in fact been explained many times by many people: Technology. The capitalist investor invested in more advanced tool and techniques, which act as a multiplier on productivity
That technology was increasing productivity is understood, Perry. The thing that requires also to be understood was that until about 1870, workers were not able to capture much of the benefit, but rather it accrued to capitalists in the form of higher profits. Remember also, demand for industrial labour was increasing during this time. **
*Hence, I think the point Sunfish made in response to me above: "Or, are you arguing that it's now my obligation to subsidize other people's choices?" is trying to impute to me an 'ought' derived from an 'is', which was no part of my intention--By the way, Sunfish, I would be happy for you to come and sleep on my couch, but I would expect you to show the courtesy due from any house guest ; )
**For the answer, I am still a big fan of W. Arthur Lewis's "Economic Development with Unlimited Supplies of Labour." Manchester School 22 (May 1954): 139-91. Athough regarded by most as a 'left-wing' economist, Lewis was a student of Lionel Robbins, and learned Robbins's emphasis on rigourous analysis.
Posted by Lindsay at March 1, 2007 05:00 PM
>>critical preference
Yes I will assimilate that into the ongoing program of the Matrix :0)
But does not preference imply that there is a choice to be made? if reality is indeed objective then the choice you or I make is irrelevant as reality is separate to your or my experience or interpretation of it. (as opposed to the post-modernist view that only "real" is the one that we impose) if you are only making a choice as to see the truth or not, then by default reality must have proved itself. Which I think was your original conjecture that It could not be proved.
>>Just because reality is objective that does not make our understanding of it any less conjectural.
Was it not objective reason that put a man on the moon, or is there still an on going debate as to its validity? all I know is that I stood watching the moon landings on TV in my nappy wondering when it would be my turn.
I think we agree more than we disagree.
Posted by sean at March 1, 2007 06:11 PM
sean,
There are many things which are valuable and aren't science. I like Blondie and Bach and defy anybody to come up with a scientific (or indeed pseudo-scientific) reason for either preference.
I'm actually an ex-scientist. I'm now a self-employed IT type. When I was a scientist I had a responsibility to do science in my field. I have zero tolerance of pseudo science and have frequently said so to a great many people (including my mother-in-law(!) who faffs about with all manner of new-age crap).
I don't regard math as science as such. It is logic, science is something else. Science is connecting induction and deduction. Math just is. I agree with you on strings. It's a beautiful theory that makes a number of compelling post-predictions such as gravity but it is not empirically testable with any currently conceivable technology. To the extent that sting theory is math it's all true. Whether the physical postulates its derivation is started from are true is another matter entirely. As is the question of its relevance. I can construct and solve differential equations that have absolutely no relevance that I know of to the physical universe. If I can do that, I sure as hell know Ed Witten can.
Perry,
Why precisely don't you believe in the tea-cup genie. I've got my reason why that pesky little blighter is barred from my thinking. I'm curious why you're not a fan.
Posted by Nick M at March 1, 2007 06:18 PM
Sorry Nick, Math is more than logic.
As ive pointed out in previous posts, science is about being able to predict the course of a future event or events.
2 + 2 predicts the future or end to this experiment, as does boiling a kettle for a cuppa :0)
This is how it relates to the rest of the world and in this case Marx, who claimed falsley his ideology was science.
btw, Bach and Blondie is Art, art unlike science is value driven. Lets not let science become art. they are opposites
Posted by sm at March 1, 2007 07:52 PM
sm,
I think that's pretty much what I said about my musical tastes. I said they had nothing to do with science. That was my point. "Art" & "Science" aren't opposites. They're just different in the way that a kettle isn't a vacuum cleaner - they both have different roles in life.
You're wrong. 2+2=4 isn't predictable. It just is, by definition. It can be demonstrated from set theory. It may be true as an empirical observation that two apples and two apples make four apples but that is not why 2+2=4. I think all the major schools of mathematical philosophy: formalist, Platonist and constructivist would concur. Maths is not a generalisation from counting fruit, it's a priori.
Posted by Nick M at March 1, 2007 08:34 PM
No, no, no. Of course 'exploitation' is a loaded word, and I am trying to be positive, not normative.*
Lindsay, I thought you were using it the derogatory sense. Apologies. Perhaps we need to be a bit clearer.
Actually, it interesting how the word "exploit" has taken on a negative meaning. For example, Miles Davis "exploits" my love of jazz when I listen to him, or George Best "exploited" my admiration for football brilliance, or a farmer "exploits" my hunger by his cleverness at growing crops, etc. The word exploit did not start out that way.
As for the actual history of the Industrial Revolution, the baleful impact of Marxian historiography has only recently worn off. EP Thompson, Christopher Hill, and many others influenced how people viewed the industrial era. The usual cliche has it that lots of happy peasants who owned their own land and gambolled like lambs in the woods were cruelly kicked out by enclosure in the 18th century, "forced" to work in black satanic mills, until they were saved due to unions, legislation and the Welfare State. This view of history ignores how the population of Britain grew fast from about 1750 through to the end of the 19th Century and would have starved without a, mass industrialisation and improvements in agricultural output due to modern tech, and b, mass emigration to Canada, Australia, South Africa, etc.
I am that rarity, a libertarian pro-free marketeer who despises a lot about Marx - he was a terrible liar - but who can recognise some of the boldness, curiosity and impact of that rather grumpy Rhinelander.
Posted by Johnathan Pearce at March 1, 2007 09:59 PM
I can assure you with A high degree of certainty, that I will be adding up 2+2 next Tuesday morning and it will as usual or priori, once again equate to 4 (a predictable event, if i get up of course)
be it prior or not, we still went through the scientific method to discover and formulate what was already there, ditto water vaporising at boiling point. (experience) I did not have an inborn expectation of either, did you?
For all I know between now and next Tuesday there may be a unknown shift in nature and the laws of physics might have evolved or changed and the answer might be different? is this not what Smolin proposes?
Art and science are exact opposites, science is value free pursuit of knowledge, Art is value driven expression of our existence. they work in fundamental different ways, a bird may be a living thing but its nothing like a whale, they are quantitatively different things.
Both are Human or sentient pursuits, both are what define us as Humans, science is the discovery of truth, truth allows us to plan better for tomorrow. It gives us a little more predictability in a sea of uncertainty
The sting in the tail, and I think the bit that is smoking your bacon, is the more we know, the more we become aware of what we don't know, and as a basic human reaction we don't like to think that we might never know.
We hate uncertainty, those like Marx and all the other statists know this and offer us certainty in the exchange for our freedom. "ID cars are just the trick for defeating the terrorist foe" , "hand us more of your taxes and we will care for you from cradle to grave" sadly too many off us are lazy and let them get away with it.
Posted by SEAN MORRIS at March 1, 2007 10:20 PM
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This is only plausable if one knows nothing of 19th Century history. The number of oportunities was equal to or greater than the oportunities now. Think of all the regulations that choke off business oportunites today. For example in any boom town getting into the hotel-bording house business involved renting a property and subletting and cooking a meal or two for the subletters, all free of regulation. Think of the fact that labor was cheaper and employment really at will, so a budding entrepuer could easily hire labor and dismiss the unsatisfacory. Even if you read the critical literature of the period with an open mind you will be shocked at the oportunities then available, which now are illegal or impractical due increases in the living standard.
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In Re Ricardo, Marx took the worst parts of Ricardian theory (which even Ricardo had realized was in error and over simplified) and then made it worse. The idea that jobs are scarser than workers is childish.
Re wages, do you mean real wages or nominal wages?
Posted by Steph at March 1, 2007 10:53 PM
>
This is only plausable if one knows nothing of 19th Century history. The number of oportunities was equal to or greater than the oportunities now. Think of all the regul