[OPE-L:5177] Re: was Marx an economist?

[Steve Keen <s.keen@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Jerry,

You were closer to the point in your first paragraph when you say that
you wonder sometimes whether I am joking; I am very aware that Marx was
much more than just an economist, and in fact my appreciation of his
economics emanates very much from an appreciation of his dialectical
philosophy--a far stronger appreciation than most 'economists' have,
including I would argue most Marxist economists.

I do not lose sight of his political beliefs when I question whether his
political, economic and philosophical beliefs were consistent.

On your specific points:

To get closer to your critique, I want you
to
think some more about the above and recall
that Marx considered his theory of surplus-value
to be one of his two greatest "discoveries" in 
political economy. From that perspective, his
position that wage-labor is the sole source of
value and surplus-value is  more than a
theoretical position -- it is an _expression_ of his
politics. It is his explanation for the exploitation
of the working-class and it has truly revolutionary
implications about what is required to end that
exploitation. It is not just another part of his 
theory -- it is a cornerstone.
 
That statement is clearly an _expression_ of his politics, no doubt; what I
argue is that it is *not* an _expression_ of his philosophy, but a
contradiction of it. I might also point out that one of the cites on
which most Marxists base that statement about the source of surplus value
is somewhat ambiguous:

"At first sight a commodity presented itself to
us as a complex of two things--use-value and exchange value.
Later on, we saw that labour too, possesses the same two-fold
nature; for, so far as it finds its _expression_ in value, it does
not possess the same characteristics that belong to it as a
creator of use-values. I was the first to point out and to
examine critically this two-fold nature of the labour contained
in commodities. As this point is the pivot on which a clear
comprehension of political economy turns, we must go more into
detail."(Capital I,  pp. 48-49.)

Note that there are *two* statements preceding Marx's boast (a justified
one, of course!): the twofold nature of labour (which he doesn't spell
out in this statement) and the twofold nature of the commodity (which he
does spell out). I have stated in print that Marxists are, in the context
of this ambiguous statement, justified to take the line they have that
Marx regarded the twofold nature of labour as the key discovery, and the
source of surplus value. However, in the context of the overall analysis
in Capital and elsewhere post the Grundrisse, the
use-value/exchange-value duality is the key concept: the
labour/labour-power analysis is derivative from it (though it predates
the use-value/exchange-value analysis in time). On this point, with the
exceptions of myself, Hilferding, Rosdolsky himself and Groll, no
scholars of Marx have yet lived up to Rosdolsky's challenge:

"How often has the thesis of the
`contradiction between use-value and exchange value' been
repeated? On the other hand, how often has anyone really taken
the trouble to develop this thesis or regard it as something more
than a survival of the time when Marx `coquetted with the
Hegelian manner of _expression_'? In reality we are dealing here
with one of the most fundamental discoveries of Marx's economics,
the neglect of which makes his conclusions in the theory of value
and money appear utterly distorted". (*Rosdolsky*, , p 133.)


You write:

I wonder if you can imagine the disdain with
which
Marx would view the proposition that means of 
production create new value? One does not have
to read a whole lot of the _Theories of Surplus
Value_ to get an answer. On the one hand, he 
viewed such perspectives as fetishistic to the
extent that it attributes to things (means of
production) an ability that only labor (and a
particular social form of labor at that) can do.
It turns the world upside down where the illusion
appears that the commodities produced by labor
are themselves creative of value (thus it is an
example of commodity fetishism). Moreover, it 
has pernicious political implications to the extent
that it leads towards the bourgeois conception
that land, labor, *and capital* create value. Marx
treated such theories, you will recall, with great
scorn. 

I am quite aware of the disdain with which Marx treated most such
statements. But what do you and other Marxists make of this
statement:

"It also has to be postulated (which was not
done above) that the use-value of the machine significantly
greater than its value; i.e. that its devaluation in the service
of production is not proportional to its increasing effect on
production."(Footnote: *Grundrisse*, op. cit., p. 383.)

That is *precisely* my interpretation of Marx's theory of value: that the
use-value of machinery is significantly greater than its exchange-value.
Note that I am quoting Marx here. With that one statement, *Marx*
contemplates that "means of production create new value". This
contemplation is a direct *and accurate* implication of his philosophy. I
have yet to have any Marxist economist provide an interpretation of this
statement which is consistent with the labour theory of value.

You write:

> The above
> is not intended as a critique of your
> perspective. Rather, it is intended to
> focus
> attention on how your perspective of
> the
> implications of Marx's theory is so
> completely
> are at variance not only with Marx's
> intent
> in writing _Capital_ but his entire adult
> life.

Marx himself contemplated the possibility that a philosopher's beliefs
may be at variance with his own philosophy, because his political
beliefs--however passionately held--are at variance with his philosphy,
when he wrote his PhD thesis:

"It is conceivable that a philosopher should be guilty of this
or
that inconsistency because of this or that compromise; he may
himself be conscious of it. But what he is not conscious of is that
in the last analysis this apparent compromise is made possible by
the deficiency of his principles or an inadequate grasp of them.
So if a philosopher really has compromised it is the job of his
followers to use the inner core of his thought to illuminate
his own superficial _expression_ of it." (McLennan, p. 14)

This of course was a comment on Hegel--someone whom Marx was inspired by
but in whom he also saw clear limitations. My belief is that Marx himself
fell foul of what he also perceived in Hegel: as Hegel compromised his
dialectical philosophy to subjugate it to his political support for the
Prussian state, so Marx compromised his philosophy to make it consistent
with his belief in the inevitability of socialism.

However, there is no doubt that Marx felt he was a worthy successor to
Hegel, because he was willing "to use the inner core of his thought
to illuminate his own superficial _expression_ of it". My feeling is
that Marx's own followers are unworthy successors to Marx, because they
have followed the maxim, as Arun Bose put it, `where logic contradicts
Marx's words, go by his words' (Bose 1980: p x.)

You write:

And, by the way, the revolution will come!
And,  
I hope that the members of this list will live long
enough to see that day. Indeed, I hope to stand
shoulder-to-shoulder with many of them some day
at the barricades. And then, in the words of the
poet J. Bruce Glasier, "We'll turn things upside
down".

Well, good luck. I am rather a cynic of the prospects for
revolutionary change, and the possibility of the resultant society
bearing any resemblance to the hopes of those who fought for revolution.
This attitude emanates not just from my reading of Marx, but also my
knowledge of complex dynamics: I can hardly meld a knowledge of
'sensitive dependence in intial conditions' with a belief that
revolutionary change will have the eventual outcome which revolutionaries
desire.

So I doubt the occurrence of outright revolution in western capitalist
nations (though not so third world ones), and I dispute that such change,
if it occurred, would result in the sort of society you desire.

However, of more immediate relevance, I believe that advanced capitalism
(specifically, the economies of the USA, Japan and England) are about to
experience their most severe crisis since the Great Depression. I might
be wrong about this, but if I am correct, it will be an easy matter to
show that there has been *no* analytic discussion on this list of how
this crisis came about. This is because understanding this crisis
involves an appreciation of the role of credit money and debt, and this
requires a non-commodity theory of money which is antithetic to the
commodity approach to money derived from a labour theory of value. So in
that sense, following on from your post which inspired my somewhat
flippant comment, forthcoming events may well leave this list as
"kind of Marxist equivalent to Nero's playing the fiddle while Rome
was burning".

Steve

At 10:39 PM 3/14/01 -0500, you wrote:
> Dear
> Steve (K):
>  
> Sometimes when you refer to Marx being an
> economist I think you are joking, sometimes
> I
> think you are serious or only
> half-joking.
>  
> I don't know if you _fully_ appreciate that
> Marx
> was a revolutionary, a communist. He was
> not
> an economist. Indeed, he would have viewed
> such a designation as an insult.
>  
> Writing _Capital_ was not only an intellectual
> task -- it was a political act that he viewed
> as
> essential. Indeed, it is worthwhile noting that
> in 1865 he resigned from a sub-committee
> of
> the [First] International so that he would
> have
> more time to write _Capital_ (see
> 7/31/65
> latter to Engels). 
>  
> Here was a person who was banished
> from
> many European countries and had spent
> his
> time in jail. For his beliefs, he spent his
> lifetime
> in abject poverty and had to rely to a great
> extent
> on the financial generosity of Engels
> (which
> certainly must have been hard for a very
> proud
> man). This also meant that his wife and
> children 
> lived in poverty. Ultimately his lifestyle --
> caused
> by his unending and lifelong dedication as a
> revolutionary and a spokesperson for the
> working-
> class movement -- led to his death ... while
> still 
> basically a young man.
>  
> To lose sight of his political beliefs is to
> thus lose
> sight of the man. Everything that he did in his
> adult life was an _expression_ of his political
> convictions.
>  
> To get closer to your critique, I want you
> to
> think some more about the above and
> recall
> that Marx considered his theory of
> surplus-value
> to be one of his two greatest
> "discoveries" in 
> political economy. From that perspective,
> his
> position that wage-labor is the sole source
> of
> value and surplus-value is  more than
> a
> theoretical position -- it is an _expression_ of
> his
> politics. It is his explanation for the
> exploitation
> of the working-class and it has truly
> revolutionary
> implications about what is required to end
> that
> exploitation. It is not just another part of
> his 
> theory -- it is a cornerstone.
>  
> I wonder if you can imagine the disdain with
> which
> Marx would view the proposition that means of
> production create new value? One does not
> have
> to read a whole lot of the _Theories of
> Surplus
> Value_ to get an answer. On the one hand, he
> viewed such perspectives as fetishistic to
> the
> extent that it attributes to things (means
> of
> production) an ability that only labor (and
> a
> particular social form of labor at that) can
> do.
> It turns the world upside down where the
> illusion
> appears that the commodities produced by
> labor
> are themselves creative of value (thus it is
> an
> example of commodity fetishism). Moreover, it
> has pernicious political implications to the
> extent
> that it leads towards the bourgeois
> conception
> that land, labor, *and capital* create value.
> Marx
> treated such theories, you will recall, with
> great
> scorn. 
>  
> The above is not intended as a critique of
> your
> perspective. Rather, it is intended to
> focus
> attention on how your perspective of
> the
> implications of Marx's theory is so
> completely
> are at variance not only with Marx's
> intent
> in writing _Capital_ but his entire adult
> life.
>  
> Marx was not an economist -- never forget
> that
> fact.
>  
> And, by the way, the revolution will come!
> And,  
> I hope that the members of this list will live
> long
> enough to see that day. Indeed, I hope to
> stand
> shoulder-to-shoulder with many of them some
> day
> at the barricades. And then, in the words of
> the
> poet J. Bruce Glasier, "We'll turn things
> upside
> down".
>  
> Venceremos!
>  
> In solidarity, Jerry
>  
>

Home Page: http://bus.macarthur.uws.edu.au/steve-keen/