Was Marx right

[Usui Takumi 1,562]

Let's take Marx's big critiques of industrial age capitalism, one by one (and with a grain of salt: since I'm far from a Marxist economist, it's entirely possible my quick, partial descriptions leave much to be desired).

Immiseration. Marx claimed that capitalism would immiserate workers: he meant that labor would be "exploited" — not just in a purely ethical sense, but in a narrower economic one: that real wages would fall, and working conditions would deteriorate. How was Marx doing on this score? I'd say middlingly: wages in many advanced economies — notably, the most purely capitalist in a financialized sense — have failed to keep pace with productivity; not for years, but for decades. (America's median wage has been stagnant for roughly 40 years.) In macro terms, labor's share of income has plummeted, while the lion's share of growth has accrued to those at the very top.

Crisis. As workers were paid less and less, capitalism would be prone to chronic, perpetual crises of overproduction — for they wouldn't have the means to purchase or invest in enough goods to keep the economy humming. As Marx put it, there was likely to be "poverty in the midst of plenty." How's Marx doing on this score? Not bad, I'd say: the last three decades have in fact been characterized by global crises of what you might crudely call overproduction (think: too little demand chasing too many disposable widgets, resulting in a massive global debt crisis, as vanishing middle classes took on more and more debt to compensate for stagnant real wages).

Stagnation. Here's Marx's most controversial — and most curious — prediction. That as economies stagnated, real rates of profit would fall. How does this one hold up? On first glance, it seems to have been totally discredited: corporate profits have broken through the roof and into the stratosphere. But think about it again, in economic terms: Marx's prediction concerned "real profit," not just the mystery-meat numbers served up by beancounters, and chewed over with gusto by "analysts." When seen in those terms, Marx might be said to have been onto something: though corporations book nominal profits, I'd suggest a significant component of that "profit" is artificial, earned by transferring value, rather than creating it (just ask mega-banks, Big Energy, or Big Food). I've termed this "thin value" and Michael Porter has described it as a failure to create "shared value." Replace "declining real profit" with "shrinking real value" and it's analogous to what Tyler Cowen and I have called a Great Stagnation (though our casus belli for it differs significantly from Marx's).

Alienation. As workers were divorced from the output of their labor, Marx claimed, their sense of self-determination dwindled, alienating them from a sense of meaning, purpose, and fulfillment. How's Marx doing on this score? I'd say quite well: even the most self-proclaimed humane modern workplaces, for all their creature comforts, are bastions of bone-crushing tedium and soul-sucking mediocrity, filled with dreary meetings, dismal tasks, and pointless objectives that are well, just a little bit alienating. If sweating over the font in a PowerPoint deck for the mega-leveraged buyout of a line of designer diapers is the portrait of modern "work," then call me — and I'd bet most of you — alienated: disengaged, demoralized, unmotivated, uninspired, and about as fulfilled as a stoic Zen Master forced to watch an endless loop of Cowboys and Aliens.

False consciousness. According to Marx, one of the most pernicious aspects of industrial age capitalism was that the proles wouldn't even know they were being exploited — and might even celebrate the very factors behind their exploitation, in a kind of ideological Stockholm Syndrome that concealed and misrepresented the relations of power between classes. How's Marx doing on this score? You tell me. I'll merely point out: America's largest private employer is Walmart. America's second largest employer is McDonald's.

Commodity fetishism. A fetishized object is one which is more than a symbol: it's believed to have actually the power the symbol represents (like an idol, or a totem with magical properties). Marx claimed that under industrial age capitalism's rules, commodities became revered talismans, worshipped through transactional exchanges, imbued with mystical powers that give them inherent value — and obscuring the value of and in the very people who've worked labored over them in the first place. It's one of Marx's most subtle and nuanced concepts. Does it hold water? Again, I'll merely pointing to societies in furious pursuit of more, bigger, faster, cheaper, nastier, now, whether it's the retail temples of America's mega-malls, or London rioters stealing, not bread, but video games.

Marx's critiques seem, today, more resonant than we might have guessed. Now, here's what I'm not suggesting: that Marx's prescriptions (you know the score: overthrow, communalize, high-five, live happily ever after) for what to do about the maladies above were desirable, good, or just. History, I'd argue, suggests they were anything but. Yet nothing's black or white — and while Marx's prescriptions were poor, perhaps, if we're prepared to think subtly, it's worthwhile separating his diagnoses from them.

Because the truth might just be that the global economy is in historic, generational trouble, plagued by problems the orthodoxy didn't expect, didn't see coming, and doesn't quite know what to do with. Hence, it might just be that if we're going to turn this crisis upside down, we're going to have to think outside the big-box store, the McMansion, the dead-end McJob, the bailout, the super-bonus, and the share price.

The future of plenitude probably won't be Marxian — but it won't look like the present. And if we're going to trace the beginnings of better, more enduring, more authentic, more meaningful, fundamentally more humane paradigm for prosperity, perhaps it's worthwhile exploring — even when we don't agree with them — the critiques and prophecies of those who already challenged yesterday's.

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

[luckytxn 2,264]

In before the lock.

[Usui Takumi 1,562]

In before the lock.

Is my post somehow a TOS violation? This is probably the 3rd thread I've started where people immediately say that..

Is it because Marx is a hot topic issue?

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

This is NOT a communism thread!

Okay. This:

Not this:

Edited September 7, 2011 by Crusty Old Perv

[luckytxn 2,264]

Is my post somehow a TOS violation? This is probably the 3rd thread I've started where people immediately say that..

Is it because Marx is a hot topic issue?

Should degenerate and quickly. Could be wrong though.

[SMR 368]

Not to respond to each point individually, I think we need to compare the quality of life today for the average person compared to 50 or 100 years ago. I don't know about the whole world but if we look at the US, it's incredible to consider the increases. Consider the increase in house sizes, cars and electronics, amount of clothing, food security, appliances, travel, amenities, and so forth. I'm not talking about comparing today's rich to today's poor or yesterday's rich to yesterday's poor. On that point Marx may have a point. I'm not sure. But if you were going to be an average person in 1911 or 2011, which would you choose? The average person has so much more today that it's just no comparison.

Of course, if keeping up with the Joneses is important to you, it may be a little more complicated. But life really is getting better.

[mawilson 2,133]

Is my post somehow a TOS violation? This is probably the 3rd thread I've started where people immediately say that..

Is it because Marx is a hot topic issue?

It's an interesting article.

Marx was right about many things - capitalism is far from perfect. The alternatives are much worse, however.

[Captain Oates 911]

Should degenerate and quickly. Could be wrong though.

Relax I am here to keep it cool

Marx (Not Groucho)had his whole program resting on the goodwill of people and them being able to reject their personal desires.

His program was therefore very similar to the Bible belt lot telling teenagers to abstain from sex before marriage

Both programs fail consistently for the same reason - they are over reliant on being able to bend human nature to a man made desired outcome.

Left of center politics goes some way towards that ideal, but stops when they get to the limits of human's goodwill to other humans and that is why every country in Europe subscribes to it and why ANYONE who tries to go far left of that and propose Marxism or go far right of it and propose Perryism, will fail miserably

Its not about OBAMA - its about YOMAMA !

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Relax I am here to keep it cool

Marx (Not Groucho)had his whole program resting on the goodwill of people and them being able to reject their personal desires.

His program was therefore very similar to the Bible belt lot telling teenagers to abstain from sex before marriage

Both programs fail consistently for the same reason - they are over reliant on being able to bend human nature to a man made desired outcome.

Left of center politics goes some way towards that ideal, but stops when they get to the limits of human's goodwill to other humans and that is why every country in Europe subscribes to it and why ANYONE who tries to go far left of that and propose Marxism or go far right of it and propose Perryism, will fail miserably

Its not about OBAMA - its about YOMAMA !

Drugs help. That was what made it all work until Herpes and HIV-AIDS stopped the momentum. Save the Planet meant so much more when it was about Sex, Drugs, and Rock'n Roll. The only thing left of the movement is the Greenies, and they are worse than parents. Too many rules! Bummer.

[Captain Oates 911]

Drugs help. That was what made it all work until Herpes and HIV-AIDS stopped the momentum. Save the Planet meant so much more when it was about Sex, Drugs, and Rock'n Roll. The only thing left of the movement is the Greenies, and they are worse than parents. Too many rules! Bummer.

I was 15 when the Rolling Stones were at the height of their popularity in the 60's and I never had any drugs (still haven't) and never had a g/f til I was 21.

I hate people talking about all the drugs and free sex in the 60's coz I was there and there wasn't any except at Jimmy Hendrix's casa

In the world wide revolution of 1968 which was meant to overthrow all western governments, I was a street soldier for the establishment and we won. I hated the dirty scruffy pampered students as I had left school with 3 GCE passes including woodwork.

Eight years later I was a student myself in Leeds and my hair was dyed blonde and I was pogoing to the sex pistols

I became a US Citizen last year and Johnny Rotten becomes a US Citizen this year

I have seen the Marxist revolution from both sides and I settled on the side of the big Mercedes I got 6 years later.

Alan 1 Marx nil

Edited September 8, 2011 by Alan the Red

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Hepatitis didn't help either. I lost a lot of friends from that. And cars. Cars and trucks seem to kill a lot of my friends, and Central American rebels. Lost a few that way. Now it seems to be cancer, liver, and heart disease.

Edited September 8, 2011 by Crusty Old Perv

[Captain Oates 911]

Hepatitis didn't help either. I lost a lot of friends from that. And cars. Cars and trucks seem to kill a lot of my friends, and Central American rebels. Lost a few that way. Now it seems to be cancer, liver, and heart disease.

Were your friends Armadillos ?

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Were your friends Armadillos ?

No, mainly hippies.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

I hate people talking about all the drugs and free sex in the 60's coz I was there and there wasn't any except at Jimmy Hendrix's casa

I have heard that about points east. We used to make fun of New Yorker's rolling pinner's. Drugs were always available, and usually is sufficient quantity from my high school years onward. California is drug central.

[Captain Oates 911]

No, mainly hippies.

I met 75 thousand hippies at the Bardney pop festival in 1972

In the mud

I was in the bad trip tent - not as trippee. I saw a 100lb kid throw 8 big detectives straight up in the air. Impressive.

I saw a police horse fall down an old well shaft

I saw Harry Krishna sleep in a cold wet ditch with a smile on his face

I saw the vampire jets at RAF Swinderby where I was sleeping. All the local hookers left us and ran for the pilots

I hate pilots

Hate Linconshire

Hate my wife's cat when it pukes in my shoes

So Marx (clevermove to on topic eh) and Rick Perry have no chance of gaining my affections

The filthiest dirtiest hippy who stunk of ganja and had mud platted dreadlocks and wore rags, introduced himself to me as a sergeant from the METROPOLITAN POLICE drug squad.

He was too

The Marxists can't win with that kind of dedication on t'other side

Edited September 8, 2011 by Alan the Red