Article - Was Marx Right?

[Shatner]

I came across this recently and thought I'd share. It's not a bad article once you get past the first three paragraphs of him emphatically stating "I am not a commie". There has been a lot of discussion on these boards about communism, capitalism and the misunderstandings surrounding them so I thought I'd add another source to the discourse.

http://blogs.hbr.org/haque/2011/09/was_marx_right.html

[tzor]

I think that Marx clearly did not get it right, but truth be told it isn't easy to predict the future and current conditions can drastically change resulting in whole new viable areas of ideology. No one would have predicted the sucessful rise of unions in the mid 19th century would have taken place but a half century later.

He also could not predict the rise of some capitalsts who believed that by generous compensation of employees they could make even better profits. (Henry Ford was a good example of a kind of capitalism that Marx would have never believed possible.)

There are in any history high points and low points. Marx's era was one of the low points, back when there were still "empires" on the earth. But he was also approaching a tipping point and much of the assumptions of the world he knew vanished as each tipping point fell over one by one.

[Psychic Robot]

no.

[K]

The circumstances that Marx predicted would occur did not happen because of flaws in capitalism, but because of the rise of technology.

If they were flaws in capitalism, we could simply correct them with things like labor unions and central planning.

Sadly, technology is what has reduced the value of the worker. I mean, there were once jobs in every factory for people that paint cars, and now we have robots doing that job because they can do it faster, better, and cheaper.

That being said, he's still one of the people you want to look at because he has thought about this situation. The problem is that he never understood the causes, so it's unlikely he can offer solutions.

[Juton]

Sadly, technology is what has reduced the value of the worker. I mean, there were once jobs in every factory for people that paint cars, and now we have robots doing that job because they can do it faster, better, and cheaper.

Technology shouldn't get all the blame. The moneyed class has employed a lot of different techniques to undercut the value of labour.

[Gx1080]

No, Marx wasn't right.

The failure of all the economies that implemented his ideas proves it.

[Josh_Kablack]

Was Marx right?

Heckz Yeah!

[Count Arioch the 28th]

No, Marx wasn't right.

The failure of all the economies that implemented his ideas proves it.

Indeed. Marxism relies on humans being altruistic, and actually WANTING a classless system where the workers have access to their own means of production. Most humans prefer to live in a society where the little dogs are crushed under the weight of the big dogs, even if they're the ones being crushed. That's all our ape brains can understand, the strong taking from the weak.

[K]

No, Marx wasn't right.

The failure of all the economies that implemented his ideas proves it.

Except China, who is experiencing massive growth while the rest of the world is in decline.

[Maj]

Except China, who is experiencing massive growth while the rest of the world is in decline.

Supposedly, Turkey's doing well.

[Gx1080]

@K
Dude, we already have that discussion on one thread. But since you insist:

Modern "socialist" goverments just give mostly token speeches to the old Marxists dinosaurs while giving tons of consessions to Capitalists approaches.

And, just for driving the point home, you can see here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_market_economy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99HNFCn5RP8

And the ephitaph of socialism here:

http://futurist.typepad.com/my_weblog/2 ... t_eve.html

Socialism died with the USSR. Get over it. I despise the Banksters too, but a regression to methods that were proven to not work isn't the answer.

[Koumei]

Was Marx right?

Heckz Yeah!

I was hoping someone would mention the Marx brothers, and you did not disappoint. Well done, good sir.

[Gx1080]

@K
Dude, we already have that discussion on one thread. But since you insist:

Modern "socialist" goverments just give mostly token speeches to the old Marxists dinosaurs while giving tons of consessions to Capitalists approaches.

And, just for driving the point home, you can see here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_market_economy

And also, the Chinese aren't doing so well, as seen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99HNFCn5RP8

And the ephitaph of socialism here:

http://futurist.typepad.com/my_weblog/2 ... t_eve.html

Socialism died with the USSR. Get over it. I despise the Banksters too, but a regression to methods that were proven to not work isn't the answer.

[K]

@K
Dude, we already have that discussion on one thread. But since you insist:

Modern "socialist" goverments just give mostly token speeches to the old Marxists dinosaurs while giving tons of consessions to Capitalists approaches.

And, just for driving the point home, you can see here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_market_economy

If you don't understand socialism and capitalism well enough to realize that the wiki page you posted makes you look like an ignorant retard because it supports my point and not yours, I think you should stop posting on this topic.

Seriously. Read the many Wiki pages on capitalism and socialism and stay out of the poorly-written and poorly-researched blogs and actually learn something.

[Gx1080]

Socialism play /ˈsoʊʃəlɪzəm/ is an economic system in which the means of production are either state owned or commonly owned and controlled cooperatively; or a political philosophy advocating such a system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism

Most of the economic growth in China is attributed to the private sector,[3] which grows at twice the official rate of increase and is continually expanding

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_market_economy

The major reform achievement has been in privatizing state enterprises. The private sector accounts for 70% of gross domestic product. There are 200 large state companies -- basically, they are in utilities, some in heavy industries, some in resource industries. Traditionally, this is where governments have invested.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/co ... 948478.htm

You are stupid.

[K]

You are stupid.

By 2005 the market-oriented reforms, including privatisation, was virtually halted and partially reversed.[9] In 2006, the Chinese government announced that the armaments, power generation and distribution, oil and petrochemicals, telecommunications, coal, aviation and shipping industries had to remain under "absolute state control" and public ownership by law.[10] The state retains indirect control in directing the non-state economy through the financial system, which lends according to state priorities.

If you don't understand the value in the banks being owned by the state and lending according to state priorities, I think you should really read a few books on economics.

I understand that your limited understanding of capitalism means "private corporations = capitalism!", but it makes you look like a child when you miss obvious facts about economics.

For example, the Soviet Union didn't start to fail until it introduced capitalist ideas into it's model to increase production of consumer goods. This led to a series of unsuccessful economic reforms over the next thirty years that eventually led to the widespread lack of confidence with Soviet economics.

The Chinese model is of a planned economy that uses indicative planning and allows the market to handle consumer goods production, leaving the state to control infrastructure and other economic multiplier projects like telecommunications, fuel, and shipping. This is pretty much a Stalinist system or the New Economic Policy proposed by Lenin, as the Wikipedia page you refuse to read (but insist on posting again) actually says.

See here:

Proponents of the socialist market economy compare it to the New Economic Policy in Soviet Russia that introduced market-oriented reforms while maintaining state-ownership of the 'commanding heights' of the economy. The reforms are justified through the belief that changing conditions necessitate new strategies for socialist development.[27] According to Li Rongrong in 2003, chairman of the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council,

Public ownership, as the foundation of the socialist economic system, is a basic force of the state to guide and promote economic and social development and a major guarantee for realising the fundamental interests and the common prosperity of the majority of the people… The state owned economy has taken a dominant place in major trades that have a close bearing on the country’s economic lifeline and key areas, and has propped-up, guided and brought along the development of the entire socio-economy. The influence and control capacity of SOEs have further increased. State owned economy has played an irreplaceable role in China’s socialist modernisation drive.[5]

[Starmaker]

links galore

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suck
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocks

[K]

links galore

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suck
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocks

Nicely done, sir.

On a side-note, I am pleasantly surprised to hear that there is a South African hard rock band named Suck that has a Wikipedia page.

[tzor]

Sadly, technology is what has reduced the value of the worker. I mean, there were once jobs in every factory for people that paint cars, and now we have robots doing that job because they can do it faster, better, and cheaper.

You know, I've never understood this argument. Perhaps I just have a different notion of "value." Clearly some technologies replaced worker type A with worker type B. The transition from horse to car, for example, put all the blacksmiths out of work but was real good for gas station mechanics.

Some technoligies did replace the most menial labor jobs in the market. But with the exception of the elevator opterator (I suppose you do meet the most interesting people in the elevator) the elimination of these jobs can only be a good thing. Repetitative work is not something that men and women find enjoyable, especially over long periods of the workday.

And truth be told, a lot of menial jobs were eliminated, not because of any "technology" but because the average person is so damn cheap they would rather do it themselves than pay for someone to do it for them. Gas station attendents were not eliminated by the creation of the self pumping gas pump, but the turning of gas pumps into "self serve."

One can even ague that technologies have improved the value of the worker. Freed by technology, workers are generally more responsible than they were when they were stuck in relatively no talent needed jobs. It's pretty easy to replace a mail clerk, or a gas station attendant or the guy who paints the hood again and again and again and again and ... It's harder to replace and train the new worker to all the various systems that the company uses and whose employees take at face value.

[Doom]

<<The state retains indirect control in directing the non-state economy through the financial system, which lends according to state priorities.>>

This is different from the US's indirect control of the non-state economy by the financial system only in that it's more honest.

[Psychic Robot]

china is free market autocratic capitalism, as in don't piss off the wrong folks and you're free to run your business. no wonder they're overtaking the west.

[K]

Technology has replaced a lot of high-end jobs as well.

Take lawyers. Doing research and document review used to mean that you needed lots of young lawyers doing that. Now, documents are searched electronically and research is done that way as well, so a firm that used to need thirty associates doing that now needs two.

[Orion]

Marx said a lot of things at different times, so when you throw out claims like "the Chinese aren't really Marxists any more" or "Marxism has always failed" you have to be specific about what kind of Marxism you're talking about.

For instance, from my recollection of Das Kapital, marx actually did make exactly the same prediction K is saying he didn't -- he said that unemployment would be caused by advancing technology and that what needed to be done was to combine industrial specialization with strict and ever-decreasing limits on hours worked.

In some of his other works he made the mistake K is attributing to him, but not in all of them.

[K]

Marx said a lot of things at different times, so when you throw out claims like "the Chinese aren't really Marxists any more" or "Marxism has always failed" you have to be specific about what kind of Marxism you're talking about.

For instance, from my recollection of Das Kapital, marx actually did make exactly the same prediction K is saying he didn't -- he said that unemployment would be caused by advancing technology and that what needed to be done was to combine industrial specialization with strict and ever-decreasing limits on hours worked.

In some of his other works he made the mistake K is attributing to him, but not in all of them.

I don't think Marx ever realized that technology would make entire industries obsolete and that nothing would replace them.

He seemed to focus more on the economic system that exploited workers being pushed to it's logical extreme and that technology that freed up skilled worker time would suppress wages by replacing it with unskilled worker time, and he did not realize that the absolute obsolescence of workers was the greater danger.

Take this analysis from Wikipedia:

In a capitalist economy, technological improvement and its consequent increased production augment the amount of material wealth (use value) in society, whilst simultaneously diminishing the economic value of the same wealth, thereby diminishing the rate of profit — a paradox characteristic of economic crisis in a capitalist economy; “poverty in the midst of plenty” consequent to over-production and under-consumption.

And this:

Marx describes the machine as the instrument of labor for the capitalists’ material mode of existence. The machine competes with the worker, diminishing the use-value of the worker’s labor-power. Marx also points out that with the advance in technology of machines led to the substitution of less skilled work for more skilled work which ultimately led to a change in wages. During the progression of machinery the numbers of skilled workers decreased, while child labor flourished, increasing profits for the capitalist.

So that's really saying that Marx thought that technology would decrease profits because it made things too cheap and no one would have money to buy things because if everything was cheap you can't pay workers a fair wage and then they don't have the money to keep demand for all these goods up.

The very idea that labor would be replaced seems an idea he did not consider. He seemed to think that there would be cycles of displaced workers moving into new fields who would then be replaced by new tech again, but the very idea that we wouldn't need workers to produce things isn't in his model.

[Username17]

So that's really saying that Marx thought that technology would decrease profits because it made things too cheap and no one would have money to buy things because if everything was cheap you can't pay workers a fair wage and then they don't have the money to keep demand for all these goods up.

You're mistaking Marx for Keynes. Marx emphatically did not think that a lack of wage earners led to a collapse in production, because the concept of aggregate demand was an insight that came several decades after Marx was dead. Marx believed in a crisis of overproduction, which is a similar concept that directly led to the discovery of same. Marx's theory of crises was based on the idea that the economy could only absorb a certain amount of wealth in a period of time, and that capitalist production would necessarily push to surpass that amount as improvements in technology and the competitive urge of different capitalists grew the pile. And that once that line was hit, that production would essentially stop - and that workers would be out of a job.

So Marx most definitely did believe that technology would drive everyone out of work. He just thought that people would be driven out of work for longer and longer periods of time as technology got more efficient. That's what the crisis of overproduction is. The prediction that people would be driven out of work more or less permanently by technological progress in the capitalist system is pretty derivable from the idea that crises of overproduction would happen more frequently and last longer over time.

The Keynesian patch was not something that Marx saw growing organically out of capitalism, but the Keynesian patch also didn't last - even now the governments of Europe and the United States are energetically tearing down their social safety networks in order to "balance budgets" in the face of grinding depressions and ever falling revenues.

-Username17