Re: Globalization and its Discontents

[Ted Winslow <egwinslow@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Barkley wrote:

> It is true that in _The End of Laissez Faire_ Keynes
> became the first person to suggest the possibility of indicative
> planning.  But, to my knowledge, that is the only place he
> suggested that and he clearly always opposed both command
> central planning of the Soviet type as well as general nationalization
> (he was actually politically a Liberal and not a Labor Socialist),
> although he supported nationalizing some industries such as
> utilities that he viewed as natural monopolies, along with the
> vague possibilities left by his famous remarks about
> "socializing investment."  But the idea that his views resembled
> those of either Marx or Lenin are fairly ridiculous in general,
> although much of his analytical framework can be found in
> Marx, not a point recognized openly by Keynes himself.

The frequently quoted letter Keynes wrote to Hayek congratulating him on The
Road to Serfdom makes the achievement of good planning conditional on
planning taking place in a "community which thinks and feels rightly" as
opposed to one which thinks and feels "wrongly" (XXVII, p. 388).  (How, by
the way, is it possible on Hayekian premises (or indeed on the premises
about "rationality" pretty much universally dominant in contemporary
economics) to make sense of the idea of a community thinking and feeling
"wrongly"?)

It seems to me that this points to one area where Keynes is much closer to
Marx than many Marxists (and, conversely, where Marx is much closer to
Keynes than many Post Keynesians).  Neither Keynes nor Marx is a positivist
and both hold that communities can vary significantly in the degree to which
they "think and feel rightly".

Both claim that it's possible to scientifically ground, by means of an
examination of "feelings", a conception of "the ideal social republic of the
future". Keynes makes this point explicitly in "The End of Laissez Faire" in
the context of a discussion of the desirability of "fostering, encouraging,
and protecting the money-motives of individuals" (IX, p. 293).  He claims
there that "a preference for arranging our affairs in such a way as to
appeal to the money-motive as little as possible, rather than as much as
possible, need not be entirely a priori, but may be based on the comparison
of experiences."  In particular, "we need by an effort of mind to elucidate
our own feelings.  ...  We need a new set of convictions which spring
naturally from a candid examination of our own inner feelings in relation to
the outside facts." (IX, p. 294)

Keynes's own conclusion about "the money-motive" is that it is "a somewhat
disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological
propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in
mental disease." (IX, p. 329) A community where it dominates is one which
both "thinks and feels wrongly".  In contrast, a community which thinks and
feels rightly will be one where we will be free

"to return to some of the most sure and certain principles of religion and
traditional virtue - that avarice is a vice, that the exaction of usury is a
misdemeanour, and the love of money is detestable, that those walk most
truly in the paths of virtue and sane wisdom who take least thought for the
morrow.  We shall once more value ends above means and prefer the good to
the useful.  We shall honour those who can teach us how to pluck the hour
and day virtuously and well, the delightful people who are capable to taking
direct enjoyment in things, the lilies of the field who toil not, neither do
they spin."  (X, pp. 330-1)

Marx too claims the the money-motive springs from irrational "passions".  A
will dominated by it is a form of "human self-estrangement".

"The propertied class and the class of the proletariat present the same
human self-estrangement. But the former class feels at ease and strengthened
in this self-estrangement, it recognizes estrangement as its own power and
has in it the semblance of a human existence. The class of the proletariat
feels annihilated in estrangement; it sees in it its own powerlessness and
the reality of an inhuman existence. It is, to use an expression of Hegel,
in its abasement the indignation at that abasement, an indignation to which
it is necessarily driven by the contradiction between its human nature and
its condition of life, which is the outright, resolute and comprehensive
negation of that nature." (Marx, The Holy Family,  Marx and Engels,
Collected Works, vol. 4, pp. 34-8)

"The self-valorization of capital ? the creation of surplus-value ? is
therefore the determining, dominating and overriding purpose of the
capitalist; it is the absolute motive and content of his activity.  And in
fact it is no more than the rationalized motive and aim of the hoarder ? a
highly impoverished and abstract content which makes it plain that the
capitalist is just as enslaved by the relationships of capitalism as is his
opposite pole, the worker, albeit in a quite different manner."  ("Results
of the Immediate Process of Production" 1863-1866 Marx, Capital, vol 1
[Penguin ed.], pp. 989-90)

Marx's account of "the ideal social republic of the future" is also very
like Keynes's.  It is a community of "universally developed individuals" who
"value ends above means and prefer the good to the useful" and have created
a "realm of freedom" (Capital, vol. 3, [Penguin ed.], pp. 958-9) where they
"pluck the hour and day virtuously and well", take "direct enjoyment in
things" and "toil not, neither do they spin."

The idea of a community which thinks and feels wrongly can be used to
explain the failure of Soviet planning.  I don't think the latter tells us
anything about the nature of planning in a "community which thinks and feels
rightly".  I believe this is as true for Marx's conception of such planning
as for Keynes's.

Ted