Economics and China

[FireIceTalon]

I think your disparaging them is more a reflection on your prejudices, rather than their competency within the field.

This topic was already covered

I "disparage" them because they put ideology over scientific, real-world analysis. NCE resembles religion much more than it does economics, in that sense they are extremely competent. They are idealists. And idealism has almost no explanatory power compared to a materialist perspective. The problem isn't in their competency, Kandrathe, but in the very framework in which they are "competent".

Um, well, I hardly think I deserve to be compared to *real* economists who have both won the Nobel prize in economics.

And I think therein lies part of the problem. You are willing to take their analysis as gospel without challenging it even in the slightest, whereas I won't. I couldn't care less if they won a million Nobel Prizes. If their conclusions don't reflect real world circumstances, they can, and should be, called out on it. Saying one shouldn't be compared to them is just 'Great man theory' mumbo jumbo if you ask me.

On another note, did you just inadvertently admit that economists twist around facts and spew propaganda?

I only propose that if there were more merit to the ideology you espouse it would be more broadly embraced.

This is an appeal to nature/authority fallacy - based on a premise of: if it is widely accepted it must be good or have merit, therefore if something is unpopular, conceptually esoteric, or less known, it must have little or no merit. There was a time when slavery was widely embraced, mind you, while abolitionism was considered fringe and radical. The idea that the world was round instead of flat was also once a radical notion, that could result in imprisonment or even death if you embraced it. The point is, popularity or acceptance has little if any bearing on whether a particular idea/framework has merit.

A second problem with this, in a ironic sort of way, is that it helps to confirm Marx correct. Correct at least, when he said that the ruling ideas of society are always the ideas of the ruling class. Only ideas that are conducive to capitalisms' internal logic are socially acceptable, and anything that critiques or threatens the system must be either demonized/misconstrued or kept off the discussion table entirely so as to keep the debate within a certain framework. As I've said many times before, capitalism relies on specific ideologies and narratives for its every existence, in this sense it is literally fighting for its life every day. The moment these narratives become jeopardized or falsified entirely, the system becomes extremely vulnerable. So then it has to find new ideologies and narratives.

There is actually a 3rd problem, which is that Marxism isn't even an ideology to begin with, but more on that below.

But the fact remains that on everything that mattered most to Marx himself, he was wrong. The real power he claimed for his system was predictive, and his main predictions are hopeless failures. Concerning the outlook for capitalism, one can always argue that he was wrong only in his timing: in the end, when capitalism has run its course, he will be proved right. Put in such a form, this argument, like many other apologies for Marx, has the advantage of being impossible to falsify. But that does not make it plausible. The trouble is, it leaves out class. This is a wise omission, because class is an idea which has become blurred to the point of meaninglessness.

Oh yes, lets use the most blatant source of capitalist propaganda to discredit Marxism! The Economist, the Holy Bible of capitalism, says Marx was wrong, so it must be true! Aw, if only it were that simple...

Clearly, this Economist author views Marx as some sort of 'social historic Nostradamus' (a mistake many self-proclaimed Marxists also often make, at least ones newer to his theories), when he was nothing of the sort nor did he intend to be. So it follows logically, that Marxism as a system isn't to be used to make predictions, but rather to explain the larger historical processes and social forces that have shaped the material world, past and present. In this respect, it does a fine job. The author is trying to put a square peg in a round hole. The foundations of the argument are faulty, therefore this critique of Marx is w/o merit - Marxism isn't a predictive system of analysis, it is an explanatory one. Now, I will dismantle the rest of the authors points right before your very eyes.

Marxisms legitimacy does not hinge on whether or not it is falsifiable - that is irrelevant. The whole fetishism of Karl Popper's idea that something cannot be scientific if it isn't falsifiable has long been discredited, largely in part because he also called Darwins Theory unfalsifiable but then later retracted this statement; in effect admitting his whole theory of falsifiability in regards to whether or not something is scientific to be bogus.

But, even if that was a requirement, I still fail to see how this is incompatible with any science. Stuff being falsified or the changing of conclusions about a particular event or historical outcome generally help to make a framework more solid, not destroy it. One of the beauties of science, whether social or not, is that it is self-correcting. For instance, Marxism can account for why the Bolshevik Revolution didn't spread outside of Russia, or why revolution failed in Germany at the same time. Beyond snapshots of history, it is also useful in understanding larger, more broad concepts; such as the symbiotic relationship between institutionalized racism and the development/accumulation of private capital; and how this relationship is conducive to the profit system. This doesn't discredit Marxism, on the contrary, this makes it a solid theoretical and cohesive framework.

Your view, and that of The Economists, that Marxism is even an ideology to begin with is part of the problem and why the foundations for your dismissal of it lack merit. You see, Marxism isn't an ideology - it is in fact the RUTHLESS critique of ideology, and more importantly the ruthless critique of the present order of things - the current material conditions - which are foundational to ideology itself.

Class antagonism, though, is indispensable to the Marxist world-view. Without it, even if capitalism succumbs to stagnation or decline, the mechanism for its overthrow is missing.

But, the working class does in fact exist, and so to does class struggle. If it didn't, we wouldn't need a heavy handed state, police, military, welfare system, labor unions, or other institutions that enforce this social relation between classes. Just because capitalism hasn't been overthrown yet doesn't mean the mechanism for its demise doesn't exist, it simply means the working class hasn't turned itself into a conscious political force, yet. It's like saying the Earth hasn't been hit by a cataclysmic asteroid in over 65 million years, so there are no asteroids in space anymore and it can't or wont happen ever again. That is the same deterministic logic this author is using! The truth is, the working class is becoming more and more apprehensive about their existence under the current social order, as well as the future of their children under it. There is no scientific validity that social systems are unchangeable, as emperors and monarchs learned so harshly; and capitalism is no exception to this.

I guess if one wanted to discredit Marxism entirely, they would have to somehow undermine its explanatory power. But good luck with that. Climbing Mt. Everest is probably an easier task. For all the bourgeois talk of Marxism being dead, they sure feel the need to remind us of this supposed fact every day. Perhaps its not as dead as they would like to believe, and that its theoretical foundations are much more rock solid than they thought