It seems that we will never be free of Marxism. Despite the violent history of the 20th century and all the blood and barbed wire that have resulted from this ideology, it keeps cropping up again and again in different forms generation after generation. Why is this? What appeal does Marxism have, particularly for the intellectual mind? Why, despite all the fallacies of Marxian socialism having long since been exploded by Ludwig von Mises, and the historical failure of the USSR along with other communist states, can’t we be rid of it?
The first question to answer is what exactly is Marxism? Marx wrote on a lot of different things, mostly capitalism. He wrote three huge volumes collectively called Capital. The funny thing about these is that the third volume, released posthumously, seems to contradict things he wrote in the first two. Marx never actually laid out any theory or vision for his socialist utopia. He did make some suggestions for preliminary steps to get there in the Communist Manifesto. These steps are a horror show and involve the state pretty much taking over absolutely everything.
So then what really is Marxism? Marxism is a variety of political economy. It is mixture of economic theories and political values that when put together form a coherent political philosophy. Marx’s political economy logically leads right to violent communist revolution as the only solution to the problems he creates, as we shall see.
The goal of Marx’s particular political economy is to develop a theory of exploitation of labor, thus justifying violent action by the working class to “re-appropriate” the means of production from the evil capitalists. Marx starts out with a new interpretation of the classical Labor Theory of Value (LTV). This theory states that the value of a product is determined by the labor time necessary to produce it. Marx adds in the caveat that labor must be “socially necessary” in order to produce value. While obviously false, and long since surpassed by the more sophisticated theory of Marginal Utility, this theory presents an irresistible attraction for those wanting to come up with an exploitation theory. Marx’s exploitation theory states that since the value of a product is bound up with the labor time necessary to produce it, any profit that the capitalist takes is necessarily taken out of the worker’s hide and is a form of exploitation. Essentially the profit of the capitalist represents unpaid labor time by the worker. This is called the theory of Surplus Value.
This theory ignores the time value of money, among other errors. Marx ignores the fact that the capitalist takes a risk and must wait to realize his profit. He may not even make a profit, yet the worker gets paid for his labor anyway, and he gets paid right away. The capitalist performs the service to the worker of waiting and risk-taking. The worker can do this too, yet he demonstrates by his actions that he would rather not. His time preference is higher, and he would rather collect a check now and play it safe.
The purpose of Marx’s political economy and all his theorizing is to come up with a reason for a so-called “worker’s” revolution. If the evil capitalists are stealing the value created by the workers, then the workers are justified in stealing it back. Thus we get Marx’s recommendations for state communism and violent action on the part of the working class.
So we can define Marxism as a variety of political economy that bases itself on a Labor Theory of Value, derives a theory of exploitation of labor and then recommends militant working class action and socialism or communism as the cure. The exploitation of labor comes from the fact that the capitalist, in order to realize profits must necessarily be taking for himself value created by a worker’s labor time.
This theory seems to have some kind of permanent grasp on the imagination of intellectuals. The most recent revival of Marxist political economy is actually being smuggled in under the guise of libertarianism. So-called “left-libertarian” theorist Kevin Carson has recently come up with a new economic theory based on a rather old and obscure left-anarchist system called “mutualism.” His theory is a synthesis of the ideas of 19th century anarchist thinkers like Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Benjamin Tucker. He also adds in a bit of Marx and even Murray Rothbard among other Austrians. While he takes from all these disparate, and even contradictory sources, his theory comes out to be yet another rehashing of the basics of Marxist political economy.
My suspicion is that Carson’s motivation for developing this system is a desire to come up with a theory to fit a preconceived conclusion. The conclusion being virtually identical to the Marxist conclusion that labor is exploited by capital, capitalists do not really own their property and militant working class action leading to socialism/communism is the answer. Interestingly Carson’s own critique of marginalist economists is that they are opportunists just seeking to find an apology for big business. I agree with Stephan Kinsella that left-libertarian ideology probably comes from an unwillingness to abandon certain sentimental left-wing prejudices like localism, wage-slavery, alienation of labor and romantic rhapsodizing over the plight of “the workers.”
Carson uses his own version of a LTV in designing his system, but he also endorses Marx’s defense of the objective LTV from it’s subjectivist and marginalist critics. Ultimately any LTV will have to propose an objective value to labor in order to get to an exploitation theory. Carson says Marx is correct that “socially necessary” labor time is a valid response to the marginalist criticism Marxist LTV, but Carson’s own subjective LTV takes a different approach. However, there is not really anything new in Carson’s formulation. It’s just a reversal of standard subjective, marginal value theory applied to a laborer’s view of his own labor. Carson’s theory is an attempt to to get from there to an objective value of labor, as we shall see. Carson says:
“A producer will continue to bring his goods to market only if he receives a price necessary, in his subjective evaluation, to compensate him for the disutility involved in producing them. And he will be unable to charge a price greater than this necessary amount, for a very long time, if market entry is free and supply is elastic, because competitors will enter the field until price equals the disutility of producing the final increment of the commodity.”
There is not much here that has not already been said by marginal utility theory. At a given price per hour a laborer will continue to bring his goods to market (work) until such time as the disutility of continuing becomes too much for him (he gets tired or fed up) or he physically collapses (or until the office runs out of coffee). The lower the hourly wage in this circumstance the quicker the disutility will cause the laborer to stop. One problem that jumps out immediately is that this theory does not seem to take into account the differences between individual laborers and instead views labor as an undifferentiated blob.
Another problem comes from the attempt to derive an exploitation theory from this formula. Carson says that disutility will continue to adjust the price of labor upward until an equilibrium price is reached. This price would then represent the objective exchange-value of labor. So the combination of all the subjective valuations by laborers of their own labor equals the objective value of labor. Commodity prices thus trend toward this equilibrium, a price where supply exactly meets demand and there is zero profit. Theoretically a capitalist cannot charge more for a commodity than this labor/disutility equilibrium price. So where does profit come from?
Fundamentally, the subjective LTV claims that the exchange value of commodities is determined by the opportunity cost of labor. Ultimately, all factors of production can be reduced to labor and thus can be valued according to this opportunity cost. Any profit the capitalist takes represents a difference between what is paid to labor and labor’s true value as determined by opportunity cost. So just like in classical Marxism we have arrived at the idea that the capitalist is stealing surplus value from workers.
From here Carson can now go where he wants to go and start in on his exploitation theory. Since prices tend toward equilibrium and zero profit on a free market, the only remaining source of disequilibrium is the disutility of labor. Thus labor is the source of profit, yet the profit is taken by the capitalist not the worker. And therefore we have exploitation. Profits are necessarily taken out of the hide of workers. Now Carson can conclude all that he wants to about the exploitative nature of capitalism, but he can also say that he advocates a free market. A free market where no one profits and everyone is organized into voluntary socialist communes and collectives, but still a free market.
There are a few problems with this. A free market is good because price signals organize resources as best as possible in regards to the subjective valuations of individuals, not because it avoids profit and exploitation. A market is dynamic and discovers how meet people’s desires on a daily basis, not something that is designed to meet equilibrium. Another problem is that this theory appears to argue that labor is exploited because it begins work at rates that are below what would be necessary to get labor to begin work. But those rates cannot be determined until labor starts working in the first place. This is a very confusing logical contradiction.
Carson argues that the state is the primary tool used by capitalists to create the disequilibrium that allows them to extract profits. Capitalists do this by using the state to limit competition from other capitalists and thus driving up prices. But this is really just a caveat that is added on later. There is no reason why the state is a necessary element in this exploitation theory at all. Why would the state be the only source of disequilibrium? Why would the state be the only reason that capitalists take the profits that are rightly due to the workers? This theory would seem to claim that the state is a huge conspiracy by capitalists to create disequilibrium, and thus create conditions for profit taking. This ignores the numerous other interest groups that the state serves, including big labor unions and including the state itself.
This theory would also seem to negate itself. The theory that disutility labor is the only remaining source of disequilibrium, and thus the source of profits is no longer valid once there is another source of disequilibrium: the state. The state’s limiting of competition from other capitalists would actually mean that profits can be realized in another way than by exploiting labor. Capitalists actually exploit other capitalists, create disequilibrium and thus profit (I would actually argue that this happens in reality, but from a different theoretical perspective). No need for labor to come into the equation. In fact, the state would seem to be the worker’s friend here because it sets the capitalists against each other and prevents them from being the ones that must be exploited for capitalists to profit. From here we can see the theory falling further and further into contradiction with it’s goal of proving capitalist exploitation.
Another standard left-libertarian exploitation theory is that workers do not really agree to be wage laborers and enter into voluntary contracts, as the “vulgar” Austrians would have it, because capitalists are privileged by the state. The workers have no chance to become capitalists themselves, and thus it is not an even playing field where all options are open to workers. It is certainly true that measures taken by the state to regulate, control and cartelize business do raise barriers to entry that make it harder for workers to start businesses and compete with established capitalists. This valid observation does not validate the LTV though, or necessarily mean that workers are exploited by anyone other than the state. It does not follow from this that workers do not voluntarily enter into contracts or that they take jobs for any reason other than that they prefer doing so to other options. This version of exploitation theory ignores the extent to which business owners themselves are exploited by the state and the fact that workers in state protected unions are themselves exploiters of capitalists along with virtually everyone else in society.
The state makes it hard to start a business, and we all suffer for it. No aspect of Marxist political economy is made true by this fact. Nothing follows from this other than the understanding that we ought to get rid of the state. Left-libertarians do not provide an adequate theory as to why this fact means that those capitalists that make it through the statist web are necessarily immoral or exploitative. It’s not that exploitation is not possible, just that there is no reason — and no argument provided — as to why it is necessarily a rule under state-regulated capitalism. If anyone and everyone that prospers under the state is guilty, then all of us have unclean hands and it really doesn’t mean anything to criticize anyone for immorality or exploitation. We are all just exploiting each other all the time by profiting while the sate exists. No one can be good, so whats the point?
While Carson disagrees with Marx on certain points, and I certainly cannot accuse him of being a statist, his method and motives follow the Marxist map. Carson does claim labor as the ultimate source of value. He does claim workers are exploited under capitalism. He does claim that profits are the result of capitalists seizing the value from unpaid labor time. He does claim that capitalists in a statist system are not legitimate property owners. And finally he does defend militant working class action and call for socialism as the solution. This is why I say that Carson is a Marxist at heart, if not necessarily an orthodox Marxist in his economics. Ultimately I think Carson’s ideas are potentially dangerous and run the risk of endorsing or excusing violence, as long as it is violence aimed at the proper class of victim: capitalists.
Pingback: Whither Libertarianism? – JumpSeek
Pingback: Whither Libertarianism? « Attack the System
Michael, at the time your wrote this in 2011, it is obvious you are not as well read or knowledgeable of the issues and identities involved attacking you, but you were right. Your general sense of the gist of things was correct.
Despite all denials and semantics and play on words, at heart the left libertarians are cultural marxists who want to square Libertarianism with the Marxist theory of exploitation and alienation. They want to deny property rights are justified (because of historical abuses), they want to deny rational criticism (using the Marxists class theory of logic i.e. we just do not get it because we are capitalists, or proprietarians or whatever). This is not to say the way things currently stand are justified and great. They are not, Kevin Carson and ilk have a lot of excellent things to say and contribute on this matter.
“I also think that Carsonites use the valid points about regulation, monopolization and cartelization to mount an unwarranted attack on marginalist economics in general, and accuse marginalists of being apologists for state power without reason. The existence of the state does not invalidate marginalist economics.”
“My belief is that he (Kevin Carson) is an opportunist that is writing leftist apologetics.”
“I also say that it seems to me that the purpose of a LTV is to derive an exploitation theory. I attribute this method of doing things to Marx, even though LTVs are common to classical economics. I have always thought that the method of coming up with an LTV, deriving an exploitation theory and then attacking capitalism as exploitative of the workers is fundamentally a Marxist undertaking. This also seems to be what Carson is doing even if he disagrees with this or that specific argument of Marx’s. This is why I think his method is fundamentally Marxist.”
All very insightful points, and correct.
Having said this, there was no need for you to throw the baby out with the bath water, and claim the Libertarians in general are all cultural leftists, and conflate Reason/CATO/BHL with the LvMI and Ron Paul, as you are doing now on TheRightStuff.
> there was no need for you to throw the baby out with the bath water, and claim the Libertarians in general are all cultural leftists, and conflate Reason/CATO/BHL with the LvMI and Ron Paul, as you are doing now on TheRightStuff
I am not doing that. I have other critiques of this tendency but I have not thrown out their economic insights at all. Nor do I equate them with left-libertarianism which I see as infinitely worse.
Just curious because you never actually replied to him… But you do realize that you got fucking owned – spectacularly and devastatingly owned – by Kevin Carson, right?
Just in case you- or anyone else who happens to be scrolling through- missed it, I have posted his response below.
——–
Kevin Carson
January 5, 2011 at 3:39 am
Interesing. Well, since it’s apparently open season to dig unfounded opinions about other people’s motivations out of our asses: I believe that you are someone who is too lazy to do any more than a slipshod reading of something you want to “refute,” or even to read the actual work of the people you believe have refuted me, and therefore makes an argument based entirely on second-hand summaries of both Marx and Bohm-Bawerk by people who have actually read them.
Your references to the LTV having “been refuted” remind me of James Taggart gassing about how “all the leading minds agree….”
In response to Rad Geek you say, in effect, that you’re not sure you understood my “tortured prose,” but in any case, it’s wrong (a priori, you presumably being a good Austrian).
The fact that you treat the labor theory as primarily “Marxist,” when it was common to pretty much the entire tradition of classical political economy from Smith to Mill, indicates just a touch of historical illiteracy.
And that you accuse me of ignoring time-preference when Chapter Three of Mutualist Political Economy is devoted entirely to it — well, what can I say?
You might take a look at the epigraph to my book, which is a quote from Bohm-Bawerk: “In future any one who thinks that he can maintain this law will first of all be obliged to supply what his predecessors have omitted–a proof that can be taken seriously. Not quotations from authorities; not protesting and dogmatising phrases; but a proof that earnestly and conscientiously goes into the essence of the matter. On such a basis no one will be more ready and willing to continue the discussion than myself.”
As the prophet Nathan said, “Thou art the man.”
I’ve actually read Profit and Interest, The Positive Theory of Capital, and Human Action, as well as Ricardo and Marx. I put a lot of work into understanding what Ricardo and Marx were saying, what the specific points of contention were that Jeavons, Bohm-
Bawerk and Mises raised against them, and the implications of the arguments. Unless you’re willing to do the same, perhaps y0u should scrap the project of a “more thorough refutation” based on your lecture notes from WCIV 101 and columns from Mises.org.
I actually did two fucking years of reading in the classical political economists, the Marxists, and the Austrians, because I was actually interested in what they had to say. And here you are, after presenting a “refutation” based on the Classic Comix version, presuming to judge MY motives?
I didn’t even think it was worth bothering to reply to you until you questioned my motives. So if my reply seems snotty, you should put it on your TS list and send it to the chaplain.
BTW, if you want to see what a refutation is supposed to look like, I suggest you read Bob Murphy’s review in the symposium issue of JLS. Hint: he’d actually read and understood the book before he reviewed it, and made that fact — which is impossible to fake — clear in his criticism. And he was actually courteous in the process of doing so.
Pingback: Whither Libertarianism? | The Libertarian Alliance: BLOG
Pingback: Whither Libertarianism? | The Right Stuff
Pingback: Marxismo e a Esquerda Libertária - Portal Libertarianismo
It seems that ‘exploitation’ is too subjective a phenomena to serve as a parameter in building a sound, socio-economic theorem. I get my boots shined by a little fellow for the equivalent of one dollar which some might see as exploitative (about $3/hr wage AND child labor) but the shoe-shiner feels very happy to earn an easy $1 by “exploiting” a “dumb gingo” who can’t even shine his own boots (and this gringo gets laughed at by the locals for paying more than the going rate). No need to artificially introduce any “disequilibrium.” It occurrs naturally and essentially as the principal driver of trade in the first place. The old adage: “it’s worth what you can sell if for” is untrue. Each party to any free trade necessarily assigns a different value to the exchange which serves as the potential (voltage if you will) that allows (or causes) the transfer of a good or service. It seems simple enough to me, though I’m merely a dumb engineer who understands that things don’t move unless some force is present to overcome the inertia of a static state (lower case s). Electric current will not flow without a voltage potential and fluids do not flow without a pressure differential (or gravity potential). Same with the liquid commodity called money: it does not flow unless there exists a value differential between the source and the target. To try to build a theory that focuses on exploitation seems pointless because who is to define when exploitation comes into play? LTV is little more than noise in the argument. Same goes for trying to introduce greed into the equation – too subjective to be relevant. Of course in the case of greed there is a more measurable parameter called risk which is its sole counter-force. But getting back to the State’s role in the introduction of artificial disequilibrium, it seems obvious that capitalist welfare policies do introduce disequilibrium that skews the market in favor of the capitalist who, in turn, symbiotically shares his profits with the State. As for organized labor vs capitalists: organized labor has an important feature that violates free market parameters, i.e. impunity from liability for any material damage that may result from a collective labor action. I realize I’ve drifted from the subject somewhat, but my point is that the whole premise of Carson’s argument seems nonsensical, i.e. a dead end to logical argument.
The impression I got from the Communist manifesto was something different to yours. Do keep in mind I’m not an apologist for Marx, I disagree with most of what he says and I’m no socialist or communist. Marx himself was aware of of the evolving dynamics of free markets and free trade which lead to higher productivity . He thought that these changes effect the “proletariat” disproportionately badly than the middle and upper classes and iot would lead to overproduction (I’d lookup Austrian business cycle for that explanation). In his examples this was of craftsman being displaced by more efficient processes with advent of mass production. This likely happened on some scale in Marx’s lifetime since this was a radical jump in productivity. Marx and Engels wanted society to not have this dynamism, they wanted it to stagnate and not change. He perceived the source of this dynamism to be the middle and upper classes, the “bourgeoisie.” Because of this dynamism these bourgeoisie will exploit you in the negative sense.
What put me off the most was the pedestrian and rather intellectually arrogant dismissals of a whole sections of philosophy, and sociology for being “bourgeoisie philosophy, bourgeoisie economics and bourgeoisie sociology.” I think it’s these dismissals which give many communists intellectual tunnel vision.
Edit: Correction! what put me off the most was the condoning of a oppressive totalitarian state as long as it achieved his ends of communism, he even admitted it would have to be so.
Yeah, one of the things that always annoyed me, and you still see socialists do this even today, is the dismissal of arguments based on the identity of the person proposing them. This seems to be almost instinctual for Marxists and leftists of all stripes. I am often dismissed as being an apologist for capitalism or white male privilege or whatever simply because of my identity as a white male.
NOTE: This version is a fairly significant rewrite of this piece in order to address some confusion in my language and what I considered to be the legitimate criticisms I received in the comments section. In particular my mistake in characterizing Kevin Carson as uncritically subscribing to Marx’s version of the Labor theory of Value. I still have a lot of problems with Carson, as you can see from the text, but I did make some mistakes in the original which were pointed to in the comments, so thanks to Roderick and Rad Geek for pointing them out. I want to write something that is true, not just attack a theory because I do not like it.
I find this Carsonian reading of the Classical Economists more than a bit troubling: “The fact that you treat the labor theory as primarily “Marxist,” when it was common to pretty much the entire tradition of classical political economy from Smith to Mill, indicates just a touch of historical illiteracy”
Of course the Classical Economists have been quoted profusely and abusively by all political camps to support their theories. The fact is that neither Mill nor Ricardo or Smith had a labor theory of value. They had a cost>price notion that was picked up and recognized as not incompatible with Mengerian utility notions by Bohm-Bawerk and Reisman. Although a bit heretic among Austrian cycles, I suscribe to that view miself, vulgar libertarian as I am. But I digress. the Classical Economists were not subscribers to any hippie coop workers-”really”-own things worldview of any sort (no offense intended to any LL’s, but really…). LTV is severely flawed of course and more Leftist propaganda than anything. It’s a narrow “workers” view to begin with. No recognition of the role of time or risk taking (uncertainty) whatsoever in it. I could concoct a Savings Theory of Value because if the Longs save more than the Carsons, in a couple of generations the Longs will be the exploiting class anyway under such light and careless parameters. Or let’s do something, let’s agree on a Value Theory of Value: if people value something (an action or product thereof) it’s valuable! No, wait, that’s the Subjective Theory of Value! STV is realistic, LTV is a rationalization of one’s station in life. Let’s talk to our inner child, grow up and accept it. Again, no offense intended. I mean it for any and all of us dealing with ideas and watching others make a kill in sales (hint: sales are the source of riches) and the resulting fortunes.
Juan! I’m shocked! SHOCKED! How vulgar of you!
OK, so a couple more things about the LTV.
I do think that labor theories of value can be dismissed a priori because value is subjective and not derived from labor. Carson’s own attempt at a “subjective” LTV seems to itself acknowledge this.
Marx’s response to the subjectivist critique was his thing about “socially necessary” labor time, which Carson seems to agree with and endorse by my reading of his text. This is what I criticized in the article. Perhaps this is not what Carson is saying in this passage. If so, I have made a mistake.
I also say that it seems to me that the purpose of a LTV is to derive an exploitation theory. I attribute this method of doing things to Marx, even though LTVs are common to classical economics. I have always thought that the method of coming up with an LTV, deriving an exploitation theory and then attacking capitalism as exploitative of the workers is fundamentally a Marxist undertaking. This also seems to be what Carson is doing even if he disagrees with this or that specific argument of Marx’s. This is why I think his method is fundamentally Marxist.
If I am wrong and others derived exploitation theories from LTVs before Marx, then I have made a mistake and I thank people for pointing it out.
Because LTVs can be dismissed a priori and that they have been shown to be fallacious by the subjectivist critique, I question the motivation of trying to revive them. I see it as an attempt to find a way to argue backwards from a conclusion rather than try to understand reality.
I understand I cannot prove my opinions about Carson’s motivations and that people that actually know him personally probably will not agree.
Perhaps this argument I have just made does not come out as clear in my text.
“In other words, when the worker becomes too lazy to do make [sic] any more at a given price.”
This is evidence of having read Carson’s book?
I have never heard laziness uses as a fill in for the disutility of labor. Besides the fact that they are not the same thing, it comes across as an attempt to crudify Carson’s arguments. What really gets me about this article is how Mike attempts to take down Carson, one of the few libertarians out there to bring something new to the table. All the people at the Mises institute do is rehash old Rothbard and Mises articles and then riff off of them. I have learned a lot from the Mises institute, but what Carson has done, IMO is poke point out the weak points in Austrian theory in order to present a more robust and lucid framework from which we can understand the world.
Hi Marc. Good point about disutility of labor not being the same as laziness. Forgive me for being so glib.
As far as the point about going after Carson, well, I disagree with him on a lot and I think a lot of what he says is potentially dangerous. Then when I see articles and blog posts on C4SS essentially defending violence and labor unions I feel like I have been confirmed in my feelings about him.
If I think something is wrong I am going to go after it. Now I freely admit I made some mistakes in the original version of this article and have significantly cleaned it up since then. I also toned down my usual sarcastic style because I think that led to some of the comments coming back to me in that way.
But I am going to go after ideas that I don’t agree with or that I think are flawed.
Incidentally I tend to agree with you about the content of mises.org recently. That is one reason why I have moved away from economics and tried to concentrate more on philosophy and ethics recently.
What is an example of Carson or anyone else at the C4SS advocating violence? Advocating unions is not the same thing as advocating violence. I understand that unions as they exist now sometimes rely on violence, but as you well know, it is not a necessary feature of unions. If capital is permited to bargin for lower wages, why is labor not permited to voluntarily assemble to bargin for higher wages. Being the market advocate that you are, you must understand that this will insure a rational market clearing price.
Well, I did not say they advocated it, I said that sometimes they defend it. But the theory they are working with could potentially lead to violence since it leads to the conclusion that big corporations are not legitimate property owners. I have many times read Carson argue that big corporations are overseers of masses of unowned capital. So then it follows from this that the capital can be seized or “re-homesteaded” by workers, or maybe just by someone that feels oppressed.
And quite often I have seen Carson in C4SS blog posts defend violent street actions by so called anarchist groups, strikes, which often include violence against scabs, and the British students rioting and so on. There are numerous examples of Carson coming up with reasons why vandalism and rioting are OK, or are at least partly based on his idea of libertarianism.
As far as unions, they are violent, monopolistic and exploitative. I would say that violence is a necessary feature unions. The main victim of a union is other, often poorer, workers. I am surprised that LLs favor them. I am surprised that the LLs cannot see the obvious problems with unions. I am going to address unions more fully in another article and explain why they really cannot operate without the threat of violence.
Mike P:
Well, stating a position is not the same thing as refuting it. Kevin actually hasn’t written much about this that I can recall (other C4SSers, like Brad Spangler, have leaned on it somewhat more), but the position is simply Rothbard’s position in “Confiscation and the Homestead Principle.” Which is certainly not that all corporate property is simply up for grabs. Rather, the position is that some corporations (and other organizations) that flourish in this statist society are so dependent on legal privilege and state expropriation that they are themselves morally equivalent to arms of the state. (Rothbard’s main example were military-industrial complex contractors, like General Dynamics or Northrop Grumman, and state-funded colleges and universities.)
If so, their property can be treated much like government property, and the Rothbardian position here is that government has no property rights which anyone is bound to respect, so it should either (a) be returned to the original owners, if such can be identified, or (b) failing that, go to non-state actors who gain an ownership claim in virtue of their homesteading labor. Maybe that seems like it’s opening the door to “violence” to you. But I’m not sure how you would conclude that without simply begging the question: taking property that belongs to someone else is an act of violence. But taking property that is free for you to take is not. Of course, you may reject the Rothbardian argument that the property is morally free to take; but then the problem is not that the left-libertarian is advocating violence as she understands it; it’s that she’s advocating a false theory about property rights. In which case it seems like you ought to address the question of whether or not Rothbard is wrong about property rights in these situations, rather than simply stating that the left-libertarian is defending violence.
Oh, come on. Kevin defends the propriety of labor strikes. I defy you to find even one quote where he has ever defended the use of violence against scabs.
If you can’t, then this is no different from saying, “Jefferson defended revolutions against repressive governments, which often led to reigns of terror” as if this provided evidence that Jefferson, in defending the legitimacy of revolution, also signed on for the reigns of terror. It is a calumny, and a sloppy argument, and you ought to be embarrassed that you engaged in it.
O.K., great. So you let me know what violence, say, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers has engaged in in the course of its penny-per-pound / Fair Food campaign. If it’s “a necessary feature [of] unions,” then it must be there, right?
You know, you’re talking as if left-libertarians had just sailed in out of some lemonade-ocean la-la land with this pro-union position, and had never heard of these objections before. In fact virtually everything Kevin or I has written on the topic of unions has been specifically responding to blanket charges like these (see, e.g. In reply to a reply, this comment, Kevin’s Ethics of Labor Struggle, etc.).
I might also mention that, given that labor unions were organized in the face of constant legal repression (through court injunctions against free association, local laws banning free speech on public streets, the use of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to break up unions, etc.), as well as really massive street-level violence inflicted on their members by government police, state militias, the U.S. Army, hired muscle and vigilantes — which included women and children being machine-gunned and burned alive in their tent city in Ludlow, mothers being ambushed and beaten while taking their children to the train in Lawrence, 1,186 suspected unionists being rounded up and shoved into cattle cars at gunpoint in Bisbee and then left in the middle of the New Mexico desert with no food or shelter, etc. — the one-sided presentation of unions as especially statist or especially violent in these conflicts is really quite an inversion of the historical truth. At the time labor disputes were very often violent, sometimes on one side and often on both. But there were plenty of unions and strikes which were nonviolent as a matter of principle; radical unions were very often the main activists (especially in the mining and logging towns of the West) standing up for freedom of speech, association, etc., against repressive laws that would restrict it; and simple honesty requires noting that union members were, in general, far more often the victims of legal and extralegal violence than the perpetrators.
Sure, I’ll grant that in theory you could have labor unions and labor strikes without the threat of violence, its just so unlikely that I don’t understand why a libertarian would even try to defend these institutions.
Of course any individual can strike on their own. But for a labor union to do so every individual would have to voluntarily agree to be a member of that union and every single other person on earth would have to voluntarily agree to not cross the picket line and work for the company at union busting rates.
The primary victim of labor unions is other workers, not capitalists. A labor union loses all power if individuals are able to work for a certain company or in a certain field without joining the union and if the union strikes individuals are allowed to quit the union and continue working or non-union individuals can come in and work at rates they negotiate for themselves. As long as there is no force threatened or used against other workers then I’ll grant that there is nothing violent going on, I just think that its so unlikely as to prove almost impossible.
I see that you have an advertisement for the IWW on your site. That’s nice. the IWW absolutely does resort to legal threats and threats of force from the state as we can see just by looking at their site. They make a point that people have a legal right to join a union and that a worker cannot legally be fired for attempting to organize. Why not? Because if a company fires a worker for attempting to organize then the state will initiate force. So the IWW could not exist without threats of force from the state, as is the case with most, if not all unions.
The IWW is pretty much a joke though. Its not really a union, more of a social club for leftist college kids. I’m not even sure if they have ever successfully organized a single workplace.
Mike P.:
Come on; this is silly. In a shopfloor strike, labor unions do not need universal participation to get the job done; they just need enough participation that it is more costly for the boss to replace all the striking workers and try to carry on with business (in spite of pickets, boycotts, etc.) than it is to come to terms with the union. Now, it may be the case that everyone in a shopfloor does agree to join the union (there’s no reason why this would be impossible; organizations of tens or hundreds of members can be formed voluntarily). But if not you don’t need everyone. You just need enough to make it costly and difficult on the margin for the boss to keep on going as before.
Perhaps you think that the transaction costs of replacing a striking shop are neglible, but I don’t think history bears you out on this. (See, for example, the victory in the Lawrence Textile Strike of 1912, which was won more than 20 years before the NLRB existed; the Delano grape strike in 1965, which the UFW won without NLRB assistance, as farmworkers aren’t eligible for NLRB recognition; and a lot of much less famous, much smaller-scale actions.)
In any case, I’m not sure why you think the only tactic available to a voluntarily organized union is a shopfloor strike. I already mentioned the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, for example, a union which operates primarily through mutual aid provision at home and secondary boycotts of retail purchasers. Other folks suggest tactics of direct action, “open mouth sabotage” (basically, airing the dirty laundry and rallying public pressure), work-to-rule and other forms of slow-downs, etc. The IWW is especially interested in “minority unionism,” which involves the use of tactics that don’t depend on having a voting majority or NLRB recognition; see Kevin’s “Ethics of Labor Struggle” for some general discussion of all these issues.
Look, I think this is false, and we could dick around about why. (*) But suppose I granted that this were true: that labor unions gain what they gain at the expense of non-unionized workers. Well, so what? Do you think that an association of workers needs to feel obliged to go out of its way to improve the wages and conditions of workers who aren’t members of the association? If so, do you also expect Ford to build cars for GM?
Well, it’s not an “advertisement.” It’s a union bug. It’s there because I’m a member of the union.
Some locals do this. Others do not (either because they cannot, or because they considered it and decided not to.) I certainly do not agree with the use of legal threats and NLRB actions in, e.g., the recent Jimmy Johns campaign or the occasional use of it in the Starbucks campaign. I think it sucks, and that it’s contrary to the historical spirit and principles of the union, and I tell my FWs so when it comes up. I’ve also worked for employers that I thought were doing things that were wrong (including accepting state money, state privileges, etc.). As for the union, this is hardly the only way the IWW operates. In fact, it’s pretty rarely how the IWW operates (I know, because as a member of the union I get pretty frequent reports and action alerts).
What’s rather more common is to do things like this or that or this.
This is nonsense. The IWW was founded in 1905. It existed — and enjoyed something like 100 times the membership it currently enjoys — for three decades without any state backing. In fact, it was rather frequently the victim of massive state violence (from the use of “criminal syndicalism” laws in the early 19-aughts, to the assaults on free speech in Spokane and other Western towns during the period of the free speech fights, to the mass “sedition” show trials, the Palmer Raids, and mass deportations during World War I and the Red Scare). Since the IWW existed for more than 20 years without the backing of state force, I conclude that it can exist without threats of force from the state. As for the threat of NLRB action against retaliatory firings, some IWWs try to use it. It mostly doesn’t work. Walk-outs and phone zaps have generally had a higher success rate at getting workers reinstated.
The IWW is certainly much smaller than it used to be, and certainly tiled towards leftist activists. You do know that, prior to the Palmer Raids and the Wagner Act, it was one of the largest unions in the United States, yes? (The primary base of support at the time being among Western miners, loggers and migrant farmworkers, with another significant base of support in the Eastern seaboard textile industries.)
Well, Christ, your ignorance on this is not really my problem, is it? Besides deliberately activist worker co-ops (like, say, Red and Black in Portland), which were “unionized” without any struggle because they were founded by people who were already in or favorable towards the union, there are also IWW “job shops” organized in a number of US cities. For examples, check the directory for the San Francisco Bay Area. The Starbucks Workers Union backed off of attempts to win NLRB recognition (a move which I applaud), but they have clear majorities at some individual Starbucks locations and they have enough general membership to have won a number of victories (including getting fired organizers reinstated through walk-outs, winning holiday pay increases for all Starbucks employees, etc.).
Of course, the organizing that is done now is nothing like the organizing that was done at the height of the union in the 1900s-1910s, when, to put it rather mildly, they did succeed in organizing a few shops here and there.
(* For one thing, my view is not that union’s long-term goals should be to strike deals with capitalists so as to increase wages or bennies, but rather that workers’ organizations should be moving towards nonviolently replacing capitalists with worker-controlled mutual aid funds, and worker-directed and worker-owned enterprises. For another, I think that hard bargaining under free market conditions serves an informational purpose, which improves economic calculation and thus benefits a lot more than just the unionized workers. Etc.)
This is an excellent article. Fortunately, I find that I would probably tend to agree with Kevin more frequently than I would not.
Thanks Andrea. I agree with Carson a lot too. I think his attempt to integrate Marxism and libertarianism is flawed. I also think he takes the valid point about state capitalism and pushes it too far into a general unclean hands theory that would seem to make it impossible for any company that exists under the state to be virtuous. I also think that Carsonites use the valid points about regulation, monopolization and cartelization to mount an unwarranted attack on marginalist economics in general, and accuse marginalists of being apologists for state power without reason. The existence of the state does not invalidate marginalist economics.
My first criticism is that the post trivialized the libertarian contribution to class theory from which Marx so heavily borrowed. In that context, Carson’s use of Marxist class theory would not seem out of place.
Mutualists and Marxists also disagree in one fundamental aspect, which should have been worth noting. Both are right in viewing the state as exploitative, but not because it upholds property rights (as Marx contended), but because the state exists only by systematically usurping natural property through the maintenance of artificial ownership claims.
I was not criticizing Carson’s use of Marxist class theory really, although I do have a problem with Marxist class theory. I don’t have a problem with theories of class exploitation in general as long as the exploiting and exploited classes are properly identified.
I agree with Hoppe’s analysis of the state as always and everywhere being an anti-property institution. I don’t really buy into some of the more esoteric property theories that would disallow absentee ownership, rent and interest. These rules seem like they would just require a state to enforce them. Anti-property rules require a state to enforce them much more than property rights themselves do.
Roderick, I have read a lot of the arguments back and forth between Block and Murphy and Carson. Perhaps I have missed some. I will go back and take a look.
I would take issue with several points here, but I’ll confine myself to one.
>The state makes it damned hard to start a business, and we all suffer for it. No aspect of >Marxist theory is made true by this fact. Carson does not provide an adequate theory >as to why this fact means that those that make it through the statist web are >necessarily immoral or exploitative.
This is backwards. The state makes it hard to start a business, not because it feels like it, or out of the pleasure of seeing businesses fail, but rather to prop up already existing firms. These firms start out immoral and exploitative. In a free market, doing immoral and exploitative things results not in profit but loss – you cannot get adequate labor, you can’t find customers, and so on, and eventually you go under. What an immoral and exploitative business needs is to find a way to protect itself from market discipline. So, it turns to the state, which responds with exactly the regulations that make it hard to start a business – to keep others from competing with the established firm.
>It’s not that exploitation is not possible, just that there is no reason — and no >argument provided — as to why it is necessarily a rule under state-regulated >capitalism.
Well, first, by saying its possible, you’ve turned it from a theory question into an empirical question. So please do review American history, and tell you don’t come to the conclusion that exploitation turns out to be the rule. It wouldn’t be in a free market, but we don’t live in one, and you know. Second, there actually is such a reason. Namely, state regulations are precisely geared towards punishing firms that are not exploitative and rewarding firms that are. Intervention is not some little thing added on after market forces operate. It fundamentally changes the shape of the market in ways that favor big business firms and harm both the worker and smaller firms. It’s also a large-scale fabric in that the economy is interconnected. We look not only at business regulation, but also at licensing laws and so on.
>If anyone that prospers under the state is guilty, then all of us have unclean hands >and it really doesn’t mean anything to criticize anyone for immorality or exploitation. >We are all just exploiting each other all the time by profiting in any way while the sate >exists. No one can be good, so whats the point?
No, not at all profit gotten while the state exists is immoral. Profit gotten by use of privilege granted by the state is.
>No, not at all profit gotten while the state exists is immoral. Profit gotten by use of privilege granted by the state is.
OK, fine. I agree. But you have not made any argument as to why this is necessarily a rule that applies to all firms. You statement that not all profit gotten while the state exists is immoral seems to contradict you earlier statement that firms start out immoral and exploitative. Which is it? And what is your argument? Not every firm that exists necessarily exists because of state privilege.
I haven’t made such an argument because I don’t think it’s true. As to “the firms start out immoral and exploitative” that’s a statement of historical fact about specific firms. Not every firm exists because of state privilege (although we should note that it is incredibly unlikely for a firm to grow to a certain level of success in our current situation without privilege.) This is true. But again, I was making a point about history, not theory, and about specific firms, not all firms. That is, there were specific firms which were immoral and exploitative, and it’s because their boards are interlinked with government (government essentially operating as an arm of business conglomerations) that government makes it hard for other firms to start out and succeed.
You are aware, aren’t you, that mutualism — which is commonly associated with the ideas of Josiah Warren in America and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in France, among many others — was written in the 1820s-1840s, and predates Marx? It certainly also predates Rothbard. If this is a “pastiche,” it must be one that was assembled with the aid of a time machine.
That said, if it were a combination of thoughts from widely-separated schools of thought, I don’t know why that would be an objection.
You mean like when Rothbard tried to piece together a radical approach to politics and economics by piecing together Misesian praxeology and monetary theory, individualist Anarchism, Randian ethical individualism, Nock’s and Oppenheimer’s analysis of the state as the “political means” of organized exploitation, historical revisionism in the school of Charles Beard and Harry Elmer Barnes, Kolko/Williams “Madison school” critiques of the Progressive era, New Left critiques of conservative militarism and “corporate liberalism,” and a Thomistic/Aristotelian account of natural rights?
Yeah, obviously doomed to failure from the start. Who ever thought of taking parts of some ideas and trying to integrate them with, or rearticulate them in light of, other ideas? What a maroon.
First of all, are you Kevin Carson? Just curious.
Yes, I am aware that mutualism is an old and obscure idea that Carson revived and tried to update with his new Marxist/Rothbardian synthesis. If this is not what you tried to do, forgive me for getting your motives and methods wrong.
The point is that this seems less an attempt to discover truth than to come up with an impressive academic theory that uses a lot of obscure references and impressive sounding names. It’s one thing to try to integrate some ideas. It’s quite another to just throw a bunch of crap on a pile and see what sticks.
What is your purpose? Do you want to understand people, or just design a system that pleases you? It seems to be the latter. Especially considering your dramatic failure to come up with a theory that matches the reality of human behavior. It is an impressive academic thesis that drops a lot of names though. And it manages to keep alive some old leftist fallacies that are sure to be a hit with the kids.
1. I’m not Kevin Carson. Kevin posts under his own name, as I see he has done here.
2. I don’t think that 170 years or so is really very “old,” as far as ideas go, and the works of Proudhon are not more “obscure” than the works of, say, Murray Rothbard. (Tucker and Warren are better candidates for obscurity, in that relatively few people know of them now except for people within the Anarchist movement. Lots of people outside the Anarchist scene know about Proudhon; probably more than know about Rothbard.)
However, in any case, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with old ideas, or obscure ones. Do you? Obscure ideas are sometimes right, and popular ideas are often wrong.
My point in mentioning the age of the original mutualist texts was to point out that it is ludicrous to present mutualism as a “pastische,” or an attempt at synthesizing, Marx’s ideas and Rothbard’s. As is the attempt to present Kevin’s work as such a synthesis, when it draws mainly from Tucker’s mutualism, with frequent mentions of more recent anarchists and libertarians (among them Rothbard and Colin Ward), and less frequent mentions of Marx (who is mentioned in Part 1 of SMPE mainly in order to attack his conception of the Labor Theory of Value).
3. The rest of your comment seems to be addressed to a “you” who you wrongly presume to be Kevin Carson. I’ll let him speak for himself as to your speculation as to his motives and methods. I will however say that I don’t know what you think makes for “an impressive academic theory” if it’s compatible with “[throwing] a bunch of crap on a pile and [seeing] what sticks.” Perhaps you are easy to impress; or perhaps you mean to suggest that academics are. In either case, if the claim is supposed to be that Kevin is more interested with showing off erudition or impressing academics than he is with getting to the truth or understanding people, then you are talking about something I am pretty sure you know nothing about, and making yourself ridiculous to those of us who have actually spent at least five minutes talking with him.
I think perhaps you misunderstood or I did not properly express my point. I am saying the theory that Carson comes up with in his book is a pastiche. It seems to me to be hodgepodge of disparate and even contradictory ideas.
I don’t necessarily think he is more interested in erudition and impressive academics than in getting to truth. I do think he is more interested in finding a way to show that workers are necessarily exploited than in getting to truth. I think his book is an attempt to design a system that he personally finds pleasing whether or not it has anything to do with reality or human behavior. I get that you disagree. That’s fine.
That’s fine, but again, if his acknowledged major influences (Tucker, Tucker’s understanding of Proudhon, etc.) aren’t a “pastiche,” why say that his work is? In general, it seems to me that you are completely ignoring the folks he most frequently cites and most directly identifies with, and focusing a great deal on the folks he least mentions and least approves of. (Perhaps because you are unaware of the fact that things like “the labor theory of value” or “exploitation theories” are not unique to Marx, and in fact predate Marx, and so you wrongly see him as drawing from Marx or adverting to Marx in places where he is actually drawing from quite different sources.)
O.K., great. So could you give me an example of two ideas that he endorses which you see as contradictory (*)? That might help me better understand where you’re coming from than once again repeating a general speculation about his purposes or strategy.
(* I don’t care whether or not they are “disparate.” Most good thinkers draw from disparate sources and make unexpected connections.)
It’s unclear how attacking Marx on points where Carson disagrees with Marx (such as those Manifesto planks) counts as a criticism of Carson.
It’s also unclear how attacking an objective version of the labor theory of value counts as a criticism of Carson’s subjectivised version of it.
And if finding some good in Marx makes one un-libertarian, then it’s odd that you’ve elsewhere said positive things about Rothbard and Hoppe. After all, Rothbard describes Marxism as a “relatively libertarian strand” within socialism, “interested in achieving the libertarian goals of liberalism … especially the smashing of the state.” And Hoppe says: “First to present the theses that constitute the hard core of the Marxist theory of history. I claim that all of them are essentially correct.”
Thanks for the comment Roderick. Glad my writing has attracted your notice and I am happy to have any criticisms.
I don’t see where I say that Carson in any way agrees with those manifesto planks. My point there is simply that these are often characterized by people as nice ideas, when they are not. A lot of non-Carsonian left-anarchist types have praised these planks. I address the problems with these kinds of left-anarchism in another article.
My criticism of Carson is what I see as his failed and misguided attempt to create a new economic theory that is a synthesis of Rothbard and Marx. I don’t see the point of this other than maybe as an intellectual exercise. Carson does more than say one or two good things about Marx, he integrates large parts of his theories into his new economic system and he defends long since refuted concepts like “socially necessary labor time”. I agree with Block’s criticism that any LTV must be an objective LTV, or else it is not actually an LTV, but something else. As block points out Carson DOES defend the concept of “socially necessary labor time” in his book.
I would not characterize what Hoppe says as finding good in Marxism. From what I remember he just says that Marxists have it right that a theory of history as a history of one class exploiting another can be found. He goes on to point out that Marxists get who these exploiting classes are totally wrong. I would disagree with Rothbard’s comments, but this does not mean I have to disagree with all of Rothbard. Neither one goes nearly as far as Carson in actually integrating flawed and refuted Marxist economic concepts into their own theories.
Just out of curiosity, have you ever read one of Kevin Carson’s books (such as Studies in Mutualist Political Economy), where he gives the arguments in favor of the economic claims that he makes? (I mean actually read it, from cover to cover.)
Or are you just taking it for granted that the conclusions he draws have been pre-refuted, since some part of those conclusions are, in some sense or another, shared by Marxists?
In particular, have you ever read Part 1 of Studies of Mutualist Political Economy, wherein (among other things), Carson discusses several different versions of the Labor Theory of Value, including but not limited to Marx’s version (Marx did not invent the idea, and there were many rival versions of the LTV at the time he wrote), explains why he finds Marx’s version severely lacking, and why the specific Labor Theory that he intends to defend (a version which he identifies with Tucker and radical interpreters of Ricardo) is not susceptible to the same counter-arguments that Marx’s version is?
It’s also worth pointing out that another economist who attempted to incorporate aspects of the classical cost-of-production theory of value into the Austrian subjective theory was Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk.
But probably he was motivated by an opportunistic desire to be popular and come up with something new?
Here’s a shorter summary of the Böhm-Bawerk piece.
P.S. – Have you read the JLS exchange between Murphy and Carson? Or Carson’s reply to Block, also in the JLS? I’m not a proponent of the LTV, but in light of those, Carson’s version surely deserves a fairer hearing than you’ve given it.
Yes I have read this. I was not very impressed.
If I can make sense out of the mangled prose of the text Carson’s new and unique LTV has something to do with a market price being reached by the time disutility of labor comes into effect. In other words, when the worker becomes too lazy to do make any more at a given price.
Even if this is not exactly what you are saying, the attempt is still flawed and wrong. Why do you even want to do this other than to rescue some kind LTV so you can fit it into your exploitation theory? Again it seems more like an attempt to create a theory to fit a desired conclusion than the other way around. That was the impression I got from the entire book. The whole thing seemed rather dishonest and downright mischievous to me. I understand that this is just my opinion.
Perhaps because he thinks that the Labor Theory of Value, properly understood, is true?
Of course, you might disagree with him. But then you ought to give some kind of response that at least indicates you’ve understood the theory he’s advancing and that you have reasons for rejecting it. As it stands you don’t seem to be able to distinguish it from Marx’s at all (hence your repeated claims that Kevin is drawing on Marxist ideas, when he’s actually criticizing Marx), and now your complaint seems to be that even if it is a different claim from the claim Marx makes, the very attempt to articulate and defend a labor theory can be tossed out as “flawed and wrong” sight-unseen. Why?
The fact that a theory of value, if true, would lend some support to an exploitation theory about wage-labor (or ground-rents or interest) is certainly not an argument for that theory of value. But it’s not an argument against that theory of value, either. Whether an exploitation theory about wage-labor (or ground rents or interest) is true or false is something to be decided by the facts about society as it exists, not a first principle that you accept or reject ex ante and then try to pick a value-theory according to your choice.
As for why Kevin would believe in an exploitation theory, well, he gives his arguments for believing it in Part 2 of SMPE. (*) If you have some response to those arguments (beyond “I am not sure I understood them, but I am sure they are wrong,” which seems to be what you’re saying about his writing on the LTV), then I’d be interested to hear them. An intelligent critique of arguments is always interesting. Throwing up your hands at a conclusion and shouting “This vaguely resembles a conclusion also endorsed by Marx! Marx sucks, so this too must suck!” is not.
(*) For what it’s worth, his version of the LTV fits nicely with his version of exploitation theory, but is probably not necessary for it: the arguments he gives in Part 2 could generally be accepted independently of the discussion of the LTV in Part 1.
What do you mean you don’t see the point? Kevin sees that some elements of what Rothbard says are true, and that some elements of what Marx says are true, and wants a theory that captures as much of the truth as possible, so he integrates them in a non-contradictory way. If you disagree with his findings, dispute them directly, in a manner befitting scholarly inquiry. Smears by association, vague appeals to authority, and long lists of things Kevin doesn’t agree with don’t fit that description.
I just don’t believe that he does want to do that. My belief is that he is an opportunist that is writing leftist apologetics. It was not the purpose of this article to do a thorough refutation of Carson, but that may be a good idea for a future project. The purpose of this article was to attack Marxist apologetics in general, Carson being a specific case. Perhaps a more thorough refutation of Carson is in order.
Interesing. Well, since it’s apparently open season to dig unfounded opinions about other people’s motivations out of our asses: I believe that you are someone who is too lazy to do any more than a slipshod reading of something you want to “refute,” or even to read the actual work of the people you believe have refuted me, and therefore makes an argument based entirely on second-hand summaries of both Marx and Bohm-Bawerk by people who have actually read them.
Your references to the LTV having “been refuted” remind me of James Taggart gassing about how “all the leading minds agree….”
In response to Rad Geek you say, in effect, that you’re not sure you understood my “tortured prose,” but in any case, it’s wrong (a priori, you presumably being a good Austrian).
The fact that you treat the labor theory as primarily “Marxist,” when it was common to pretty much the entire tradition of classical political economy from Smith to Mill, indicates just a touch of historical illiteracy.
And that you accuse me of ignoring time-preference when Chapter Three of Mutualist Political Economy is devoted entirely to it — well, what can I say?
You might take a look at the epigraph to my book, which is a quote from Bohm-Bawerk: “In future any one who thinks that he can maintain this law will first of all be obliged to supply what his predecessors have omitted–a proof that can be taken seriously. Not quotations from authorities; not protesting and dogmatising phrases; but a proof that earnestly and conscientiously goes into the essence of the matter. On such a basis no one will be more ready and willing to continue the discussion than myself.”
As the prophet Nathan said, “Thou art the man.”
I’ve actually read Profit and Interest, The Positive Theory of Capital, and Human Action, as well as Ricardo and Marx. I put a lot of work into understanding what Ricardo and Marx were saying, what the specific points of contention were that Jeavons, Bohm-
Bawerk and Mises raised against them, and the implications of the arguments. Unless you’re willing to do the same, perhaps y0u should scrap the project of a “more thorough refutation” based on your lecture notes from WCIV 101 and columns from Mises.org.
I actually did two fucking years of reading in the classical political economists, the Marxists, and the Austrians, because I was actually interested in what they had to say. And here you are, after presenting a “refutation” based on the Classic Comix version, presuming to judge MY motives?
I didn’t even think it was worth bothering to reply to you until you questioned my motives. So if my reply seems snotty, you should put it on your TS list and send it to the chaplain.
BTW, if you want to see what a refutation is supposed to look like, I suggest you read Bob Murphy’s review in the symposium issue of JLS. Hint: he’d actually read and understood the book before he reviewed it, and made that fact — which is impossible to fake — clear in his criticism. And he was actually courteous in the process of doing so.
My mouth hangs agape in horror. I don’t remember the last time I actually read the planks, and I am stunned. But apart from the downright vile evil of it all, a couple actually tickled my funny bone with their utter outrageousness.
9 makes me laugh with the absurdity of the image of an agrarian army. No longer is it “I drive traktor for kollektiv,” but “I drive tank for Potato Pickers Union 231.”
10 is horrifying (as if the others weren’t horrifying enough). I put it to you folks who prate on about child labor being the fault of the evil capitalist machine, put this in your pipe and smoke it. Marx wanted to abolish children’s factory labor “in its present form” (not EVERY form), and simply turn the factory into a school. What better way to combine industrial production with education. Sounds like he still wanted to put the kids to work. Let’s just call it education while they’re adding screws to toasters.
Do you actually read what Marx AND Engels in context (you talked as if ONLY Marx devised sucks planks even though the Manifesto is clearly a joint work)? Those 10 “planks” are from Chapter 2 of the Manifesto, and there they had explicitly described the “State” NOT as the government, but the “the proletariat organised as the ruling class.” Do know what would this “dictatorship of the proletariat” (this term was coined by Weydemeyer, not Marx) be called in Aristotlean terminology? “Democracy,” when the poor rule against the rich without any vision of a so-called “common good” with for both rich & poor (if you get rich by making others poor? What “common good” do they share with you?).
Combination of education with industrial production? No need. Capitalist indoctrination is TRAINING kids DAILY to become future subservient, obedient drones to their future capitalist bosses. AS it was in the Manifesto written: “all the family ties among the proletarians are torn asunder, and their children transformed into simple articles of commerce and instruments of labour.”
What’s wrong with kids working by the way? I remember when I was young I liked to go into the kitchen & help my Mom cook foods. If my Mom weren’t been not cooking at home but at the restaurant where she works, & I were to go in to help her, sentimentalist philistines like you will cry out against the horrors of “child labour” put my Mom into prison & me into “school,” & force me to study the stuffs I actually have no need of for a “GED,” so that capitalists & the corporate state who fund those “schools” would train me into a multi-purpose automaton, ready to work for them & get paid at bare subsistence, while those bosses take away any kind of surplus I myself make. My many thanks for ruining my childhood! And all the while you’re defending sweatshops where foreign children must desperately work or starve to death because capitalists had colluded with governments to make sure that those children must go to sweatshops by robbing them of all productive means with which they can work to keep themselves alive even without working for exploitative capitalists.
So I actually like Marx & Engels’ 10th plank. If education is free, then my children can freely whichever subjects they like best, & devote themselves to those studies, & I won’t if they will become cooks, miners, fishermen, engineers, or even linguists. Even better is the combination of industrial production with education, because then precocious children can make their own stuffs, all of which they will keep for themselves rather than giving most away to sweatshop owners while keeping a bare minimum so they won’t starve to death.
Lastly, paid private schools will still exist in a stateless, classless “communist” society, side-by-side with public schools; similarly non-exploitative private businesses will be existing side-by-side with workers’ coop: “Hard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property! Do you mean the property of petty artisan and of the small peasant, a form of property that preceded the bourgeois form? There is no need to abolish that.” (Manifesto, Chapter 2). If any child prefer to attend a paid private school & their parents can pay for their tuition (which would be predictably much lower without “intellectual property”laws which inflated textbooks’ costs & allow teachers to charge exorbitant price without fearing competitions), then let them go.
No one care.
“9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.”
It actually makes more economic sense if fields & mills are near each other or even combined, because that greatly eliminates unnecessary costs, such as transportation of raw materials from the countryside to urban factories. Similarly walking to a store near my house makes more economical sense to driving to a faraway mall situated besides highway. But thanks to governmental zoning laws backed by corporations, no such mixed-use neighbourhoods is allowed so that the highway-automobile complex had the perfect pretext to help themselves on taxpayers’ money (in the form of “infrastructure subsidies”). Thanks to zoning laws also, no store can be opened near my house, forcing me to either wasting my time walking so that I can’t do nothing else, or buy a car to save some times while giving away my money to the car company. My many thanks for having your friend knocking my teeth out & then you come to sell me gold teeth, which I must buy or I can’t chew my foods at all.