Fundamentalist Marxism

Obviously, whenever you read a text which is thousands, or hundreds of years old -- or maybe even decades old when it comes to economics, or even years or months -- even if you rate the text very highly, you will also discard a lot. Because people -- some people, at least -- learn as time goes by.

Then there are fundamentalists: people who regard certain texts as perfect. Most well-known are religious fundamentalists, who are generally unbearable even to the other people in the same religion.

But Marxists are also accused of fundamentalism. I don't know whether it's true of most Marxists, but, Jesus, Lord from above -- so to speak -- it's true of a lot of them. There are a lot of dull-witted Marxists who spend what seems to be their entire lives denouncing anyone who claims to see any contradictions between what Marx wrote, and reality. 

And I don't think that Marx himself can be excused from blame for this. He uses terms like "inevitable" and "immutable" a lot.

It seems that people noticed this similarity to religious fundamentalism in Marx pretty early. In 1847 -- a year before the Communist Manifesto -- Marx published a "Communist Catechism," a satire of the questions and answers which children memorize in order to become members of the Catholic Church, but for Communists instead of Catholics. Ha-ha-ha, not as funny as you thought, Karl!

There's a lot of worthwhile stuff in what Marx wrote. There's a lot of worthwhile stuff in the Bible. There's also a certain amount of nonsense in both the Bible and in Marx. That in itself is unremarkable. Nobody's perfect. Compare the Bible and Marx to other writing done around the same times, and they're really not all that bad.

What is bad, and very unusual, in the case of the Bible and in the case of Marx, are the huge numbers of sheer idiots who cling fiercely, blindly, stupidly, to the worst parts.

Buy books by Karl Marx at Amazon: https://amzn.to/4fXCaip

Economics: Beyond Quantity

As I've mentioned several times already on this blog, there appear to me to be (at least) two different kinds of socialists: those whose primary enemy are wealthy people, who want to eradicate great personal fortunes; and then those like me, who would much rather eliminate poverty, and do not believe that eliminating wealth and eliminating poverty are one and the same thing.

It also occurs to me that there are (at least) two different kinds of entrepreneurs: those who feel that the way to become rich is to squeeze whatever money is left in the possession of poor people out of them; and those who do not. It could well be that the first kind of socialist is only able, for some reason, to perceive the first kind of entrepreneur. Michael Brooks, for example,

a left-wing American radio news-talk guy who often and flatly states his belief that billionaires are evil, and that the quantitative category of billionaire must be eradicated, may, for some reason, only be able to perceive billionaires to the extent that they resemble Donald Trump. Brooks lives in New York City, so if he wanted to, he could look around himself and see rich people doing all sorts of un-Trump-like things, from leaving decent tips to giving to charity to raising money for the Democratic Party... Maybe Brooks sees all of this every day, and he doesn't consider those people to be actually rich unless they're actually billionaires. I don't know, I don't know how Brooks thinks, except that I suspect he doesn't think very deeply or in great detail, at least not when it might contradict certain flatly-held beliefs. (You gotta hold those flatly-held beliefs way down low, out of the wind, they might get knocked over and you'd actually notice something for once.)

Conversely, some people, some of whom have studied Adam Smith and then ceased to think about economics (although in many cases continuing to write about it and win Nobel Prizes in economics), believe that rich people are morally better than poor people, and that everything entrepreneurs do is a blessing for mankind in general. It's hard for me to imagine how anyone can read Smith and not perceive that the world has changed beyond all recognition since he published The Wealth of Nations in 1776, but, quite obviously, for many businesspeople, Smith is still quite literally the last word. Just as, for many Medieval people, beyond a few miles from the coasts the oceans were full of dragons and death, so, for many economists right up to the present day, beyond Smith lies Marx, who is pure evil and has nothing to give to mankind except agony.

Although I believe it is possible for someone to become wealthy and to benefit mankind at the same time, ironically, the economics of Smith, who believed that to become wealthy was to benefit mankind and vice versa, have given ideological cover to entrepreneurs who thrive while behaving in ways which are utterly predatory, and much worse than useless for the common good.

Also, and this is very important in any meaningful discussion of economics: there are (at least) two different ways of measuring someone's well-being: the first simply adds up the monetary value of everything that person owns; and the second one, the one I use, recognizes that life is not nearly that simple: well-being is a matter of your health, where you live, the air you breathe, what you eat, what opportunities you have, and so forth. And these things are not always strictly measurable in monetary terms. Comparable good things can cost much more for one person than for another; or they can be free in some cases; or, in other cases, they may not be available for any amount of money. (I just mentioned the common good: quick now, what is the common good worth in dollars and cents?)

Economic discussions often focus much too narrowly on quantities of currency, and not nearly enough on qualities of existence. The latter, the quality, is really the only thing that matters. The only reason that the quantities of currency matter is that they can sometimes affect those qualities.

Quantities of currency can affect people's lives very much. You can improve people's lives very much by giving them cash, and, there's no doubt at all, you can kill a lot of people by depriving them of cash. But it isn't the actual cash or lack of it which helps or hurts someone, it's the things which cash can buy. And cash can't buy everything. It can buy exactly what a buyer and seller agree that it can buy. That's exactly how much it has always been able to buy. If someone owns a house and is calculating how much they might save buy installing solar panels, and they're really not thinking about saving human life on Earth, then their economic calculations are appallingly primitive. So, how much would you pay to save human life? Hopefully you can see how absurd the question is. We can't buy a clean atmosphere. We're going to have to actually clean it up, and cleaning it up may well involve putting much less emphasis and worth on quantities of cash, and much more on things like qualities of substances and of behaviors. It may be environmentalism which will finally force many people to confront the fact that money isn't really reality, it's just a tool we've been using for a while, which we can set down whenever we choose, and pick up a new one.

So, to Michael Brooks, I say (ha ha, just kidding, I know damn well Michael Brooks isn't listening to anyone saying anything resembling any of this), focus on the effect people have, and not on the size of their stack. No doubt, in many cases, billionaires actually are complete bastards, just like you say they are. So, in those cases, tell us, news-talk guy, tell us specifically, what bad things they are doing. If you happen to know what those bad things are. If not, maybe you should do some research before the next time you open your mouth. Be careful, though! Research, when diligently and earnestly done, has been known to upset long-cherished beliefs!

The Inevitable Victory of the Proletariat

"Die wesentliche Bedingung für die Existenz und für die Herrschaft der Bourgeoisklasse ist die Anhäufung des Reichtums in den Händen von Privaten, die Bildung und Vermehrung des Kapitals; die Bedingung des Kapitals ist die Lohnarbeit. Die Lohnarbeit beruht ausschließlich auf der Konkurrenz der Arbeiter unter sich. Der Fortschritt der Industrie, dessen willenloser und widerstandsloser Träger die Bourgeoisie ist, setzt an die Stelle der Isolierung der Arbeiter durch die Konkurrenz ihre revolutionäre Vereinigung durch die Assoziation. Mit der Entwicklung der großen Industrie wird also unter den Füßen der Bourgeoisie die Grundlage selbst hinweggezogen, worauf sie produziert und die Produkte sich aneignet. Sie produziert vor allem ihren eigenen Totengräber. Ihr Untergang und der Sieg des Proletariats sind gleich unvermeidlich."

("The essential condition for the existence and for the dominance of the capitalist class is the accumulation of wealth in private hands, the creation of ever-more captial, and capital relies upon wage-labor. Wage-labor rests exclusively on the competition of workers with each other. The progress of industry, whose involuntary and unresisting promoters the capitalists are, puts, in place of the isolation of the workers through their competition, their revolutionary unification through association. With the development of large-scale industry, therefore, the ground upon which the capitalists produce and take the profits of production will pulled out from beneath their feet. What they are producing, above all, are their own gravediggers. Their fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.")

That's the last paragraph of the first chapter, "Bourgeois und Proletarier" ("Capitalists and Proletariats") of the Communist Manifesto by Marx & Engels. That is some stirring prose, no doubt. And if you're wondering who wrote that excellent English translation -- it was me. You're welcome.

Marx was one of the followers of Hegel known as the Young Hegelians. Hegel stated that the development of the mind toward its ever-greater fulfillment was inevitable. The Young Hegelian Marx modified Hegel's prophecy inasmuch as he declared that what was inevitable was the victory of the working class.

I like much of what Marx says, but I would modify this remark of his inasmuch as I believe that what is inevitable is: -- cue Michael Corleone staring down the phony Senator from Nevada -- nothing. The Communist Manifesto was first published 170 years ago. Perhaps it's time to become more critical of Marxist predictions and less confident that any sort of economic justice is inevitable, without our working hard, first to achieve it, and then to hold on to it. The Marxist glass can be seen as half-empty or half-full in its startling relevancy to today' economic conditions. Is it half-full because Marxist works are still so relevant? Or are they still so relevant because this stirring but half-empty prose has changed the world so little in such a long time?

Marxists, don't get angry with me, I don't want to throw away the works of the Prophet. I want to improve upon them. There is much to work with here.

Trump, and Capitalism's Reputation in the US

It appears that John Kelly may have had enough of Donald Trump already, after just 5 weeks as his Chief of Staff. Anonymous sources say that after a recent Trump meltdown directed at Kelly, Kelly told other White House staffers that he had never been spoken to that way in 35 years of service to the US, and that he didn't intend to put up with more of the same. So, that might mean that Kelly is about to resign, or that he's about to look Trump in the eye and tell him to shut his pie-hole. Which might get him fired.

Well, that's our Donald, isn't it? Just making friends wherever he goes. A lot of people are paying close attention to Trump's behavior as President, and asking themselves how in the world he managed to have a career as a businessman for so long before becoming President. I think that the answer may be that his career up until January of this year was as a pure capitalist.

Now, many people are capitalists, but few are pure capitalists, in the sense that making money is honestly the only thing they care about. Most of us care a lot about money, because we live in a capitalist system, which means that only those with a lot of money can afford to pay little attention to it -- and even those, if they pay little enough attention to it, may run out of it, meaning that they will be forced to pay as much attention to it as us poor schlubs.

The thing is, though, very few of us care only about money. We may care quite a lot about our friendships and relationships, or music, or animals, or painting, or food or wine or mechanical watches or sunsets or trees, or some combination of those things and/or many others, without consideration of financial ramifications. An expert on pino grigio or Mexican food may make a living through that expertise, but there's very little chance that they study the wine or the food only for the money. In fact, it's just about guaranteed that they love the food or the wine passionately and would spend a lot of time on it even if they lost money on it rather than making money. Many people, probably most people, aren't lucky enough to be able to make a living at something they love, but they still spend a lot of time and energy on things that don't earn them money. Friends and family are a very common example, and then there all the other things I just listed off, and many more. It's very rare to come across someone who really only cares about making money.

And yet, the only thing rewarded by capitalism is a focus on money and money alone. Capitalism is only concerned with quantity. Quality -- of life, or of anything else -- is not capitalism's concern. We think of our society as a capitalist society, and yet almost all of us spend a lot of time behaving in ways which are contrary to the principles of capitalism -- excuse me, I should say say: contrary to the principle of capitalism, because there's only one: get yours, and then got more, and then repeat, and never stop.

Anybody who has thought about this a lot, and realized that capitalism by itself comes very short of fulfilling all of our wishes and ambitions, is already to some degree a socialist, whether he or she suffers from the typical American ignorance of what socialism is and horror of the term "socialism," or not. I was thinking here about pino grigio and Mexican food because, on the Food Network and the Cooking Channel, I've been struck by one particular sort of bio among highly-regarded chefs: they used to work in finance, and they gave that up to make the plunge into trying to cook for a living. Those people are a clear example of rejecting capitalism for socialism, at least partially. If they were really all about money, they'd just go back to their former jobs, done. They've realized -- even if they haven't realized it consciously, because they're constantly bombarded by American pro-capitalist myths in advertising and many other places -- that there's much more to life than how big your stack is.

And then there are horrible assholes like Donald Trump, and the AIDS medication douchebag, who really, truly care about very little except getting theirs, and then getting more, and repeat. This makes them horrible people, and, at the same time, very efficient capitalists, just by virtue of being distracted by so very little else except getting theirs, and then getting some more, and then repeat. The AIDS medication douchebag is so repulsively smug, even as he has been convicted of fraud and awaits sentencing, because he knows that all he has done is what our society says you should do: get yours, etc. He doesn't realize to what extent our society -- in most cases subconsciously -- rejects capitalism, because we -- usually subconsciously -- realize that pure capitalism results in people like our current President and the AIDS medication douchebag. People whom we reject with horror.

And so, I would suggest that those who are flabbergasted by the fact that Trump was able to survive for so long as a businessman, before beginning his spectacular failure as a politician, think more about money and capitalism, think more about what they are, and how horribly overrated they are in the US, how we give capitalism and horrible capitalist douchebags far too much power.

At least read some Marx before continuing to react with horror to what you think Marxism and socialism is. At least get some clue about what it is you're reacting against. For about half of the 68 years of the Federal Republic of Germany so far, the Chancellor, the Bundeskanzler, the closest equivalent they have to the US President, has been a member of the Social Democratic Party, the SPD. The SPD is the oldest currently-active political party in Germany, going back under different names to the 1860's. Karl Marx was a member. The SPD isn't very different from the Democratic Party in the US. They're somewhat more conscious of the nature of capitalism.

Perhaps the horrible catastrophe of the Trump administration will cause Americans in general to become more conscious of such things, and more critical of capitalism on a conscious level.

I Can't Find A Pope Francis Effect In The Book Market Yet

Rush called Francis a Marxist. Francis makes statements about the rich and the poor which certainly sound more Leftist than Rightist. Now he's said, "I know many Marxists who are good people." In angry opposition to Francis, or so he thinks, a rightwing freemarket laissez-faire rah-rah-siss-boom-bah capitalist has written: "Capitalism and many variants called Capitalism has raised the standard of living for more people around the world than any system every created by man. Capitalism has produced more wealth and increased production greater than any other system in the world." I replied to him: "That's very close to a direct quote from the first pages of the Communist Manifesto. Which you might want to read sometime. It's only 20, 30 pages or so. Maybe some people somewhere dispute what you say about capitalism's effect on the world's wealth and productivity. Marxists certainly don't."

So that's when I wondered whether perhaps many Americans had indeed read the Communist manifesto because of Francis. What with the economy and all, and now in top of that what with Francis infuriating rightwingers on such a regular basis in such a delightful way. Marx has been read very little in the US in proportion to how much he is dissed. People don't know what they're talking about when they diss him, they're just repeating the staggeringly-successful US capitalist talking points on Marx and Communism. So I thought, maybe now, after years of spectacular worldwide abuse of financial deregulation and now with Francis, and what with the economy and all -- maybe now, finally, Americans would start reading Marx. The Communist Manifesto at least. Capital and Critique of Political Economy, that could come a little later, and then pretty soon Jimmy Kimmel and Conan O'Brian could discuss Maoism versus New Left with their movie-star guests and everybody would get it and the Earth would be saved and we could all just really get on with it. Thanks to a Pope, sure, why not, who, if not History, doesn't love irony?

But no, I was getting a little ahead of myself. I couldn't find an edition of the Communist Manifesto higher than around #20,000 on Amazon's book bestseller list. Then I thought: maybe AD-AMAZON The Portable Karl Marx,but ouch: it's at #147,305.

Even Francis himself is not burning up the track: a book by him published in November is at #1348, and AD AMAZON Evangelii Gaudium,which caused such a fooferah in the headlines? It's at #661. Holy moly, pardon my French, Holy Father. Wouldn't something by John Paul II have been at #1 by now? And in Amazon's top 20 for books there are items by Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck. It's all horribly disappointing and surprising for me, except for the success of O'Reilly and Beck, which is merely horribly disappointing for me.

Then I thought: Maybe Kindle is here and it's passed me by because I'm old, and that's where the real bestsellers are, and Francis is way up high in the Kindle bestseller list, but no. Marx, also no.