[PEN-L:67] Re: Re: Fwd:Winning Socialism

[James Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 08:31 AM 9/10/98 -0700, I wrote:
Robin Hahnel writes:>Marx's prophesy of economic emiseration did not prove
true for the first
world. <

I wish leftists wouldn't imitate the right's labeling of Marx as a prophet
and his predictions as "prophecies." Marx's prediction of _relative_
immiseration was very abstract, being along the lines of an "everything
else equal" prediction. (Economists are always making these kinds of
predictions without being labeled "prophets." One thing that distinguished
Marx from the crowd is that he didn't limit his predictions to small
issues.) As Paul Sweezy pointed out in the first chapter of THE THEORY OF
CAPITALIST DEVELOPMENT, it's a prediction for abstract capitalism, ignoring
such matters as imperialism and trade unions which can counteract the
prediction's working out in specific countries. If capitalism DOESN'T fits
Marx's
abstract capitalism, the prediction doesn't work very well without bringing
in all of the complicating factors into the analysis. But if capitalism
fits Marx's abstract description, the prediction works better. It seems to
be working pretty well these days, even in the "first world."

I added the word "DOESN'T" because I forgot to put it in there the first
time.

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx &
http://clawww.lmu.edu/Departments/ECON/jdevine.html