What the left gets wrong about economics that annoys the shit out of me

[Berkut]

But that response misses the real power of Marx's critique here - that reformism isn't really about concessions wrested from reluctant capitalists through ballots rather than bullets, but part-and-parcel of the bourgeois program itself.

Why, yes. The opposition of reformist vs revolutionary has somewhat of a long history...

That people are looking for labels to either identify with, or villify, is more indicative of a prolonged malaise than any command of Marxist (or Chicago school) theory. People who denounce "capitalism" are trying to issue a global diagnosis of today's ills, and trying to find some connector. Amongst those ills are some that we can link to what Marx identified long ago (commodity fetichism, alienation, etc.). Others are problems identified through very simple comparisons with a past that continues to exist in collective memory - about wealth transfers, access to property, etc. And others still are directly linked with environmentalism.

Given that, whatever the definition of capitalism that one operates under has wide-ranging, systemic components - from wealth accumulation, to work organization, to production and consumption - and that the last 30-40 years of political discourse have made economic concerns the prevalent organizing principles of our political and personal lives, it's not entirely surprising that "capitalism" becomes both the cause, and the disease.

I read denunciation of capitalism as a call for radical transformation as the only possible solution to the kinds of challenge we are confronted with. It is not fueled by a coherent alternative replacement ideology. It doesn't really have a good sense of what could replace it. How could it? Imagining possible future worlds is famously challenging, and we don't have any good sense of the future right now, including for the proponents of the status quo, who are basically arguing there is nothing wrong with the way the world is set up, and that the challenges of the future are the future's problems. The world I live in has many features I like. It also has many features I dislike. To say they are the product of capitalism is simply to say the world we live in is a product of capitalism. It's not false, but it's not super helpful either.

Denunciations of capitalism are fumbling in trying to assemble a critique of collective forces while being the product of a very individualistic world. Meanwhile, the ancient counter-argument of the reformists remains the same: it goes too far. Surely there must be some incremental transformation we can enact? And, of course, there always is. But it never truly addresses the sense of general malaise that fuels both the right and the left.

This is a great response to my post.

I am not sure what I have to add, except that..."general malaise" isn't necessarily evidence of an actual problem that is serious enough to warrant radical transformation.

I am not a reactionary - I am all for change. But I want that change to start from a place that at least acknowledges that there has in fact been a radical transformation in actual *outcomes* for the human condition in just the last 50 years or so.

I think that malaise you speak of is driven, at least in part, in a weird sort of perception that seems to have missed a lot of objective data around how the actual human condition has improved. This has been remarked upon before - the fact that the USA, as an example, saw a truly amazing decrease in violent crime from the 1970s until the 2010s - like an *amazing* decline in violent crime! This should be celebrated! We should be patting each other on the back and asking ourselves "Hey, that is freaking awesome! Uhhh.....what exactly was it that made that happen? Because lets do more of whatever that is!"

But during that time, the public perception in each year was that crime was a *greater* problem then in the past! Exactly the opposite of the reality.

That is alarming to me. I believe in outcomes. I want the human condition to improve for the greatest number of people. If that is straight out Leninist Communism, then sign me up. If that is Ayn Randian "let them eat cake" libertarian dreamworld Robber Barons, then by god bring it on.

But my worry is that we cannot possibly choose the right approach if we don't even know what success looks like. And it looks like we have been pretty astoundingly successful in real terms. If our "malaise" means that we throw out the very thing that has been so successful in an effort to treat how we feel, well...that would be bad, right?

[Oexmelin]

I don't think it would come as a great surprise that one of the major issue is the definition of what "success" is, and whether the cost of such success if too much. If success is material prosperity for the greater number, then you run into the problem that such material prosperity might actually be achieved today by a totalitarian regime such as China, and then you get somewhat robbed of the argument by apologists for totalitarianism like Mono. It may also be suggested that such material prosperity comes at the cost of terrible waste of natural resources, alongside worries that it may not be sustainable in the long run. Or perhaps success is crime decreasing - at the cost of overpolicing and state surveillance. Or perhaps success in the sentiment of personal validation and usefulness, and the cost is the sort of material luxury we have been brought up with.

That's the essence of the political struggle. The issue with capitalism is that it proposes - or perhaps imposes - a materialist view of the world. That view will indeed be concerned with levels of material comfort - but has very little to say (and often is quite dismissive) about feelings of dignity, emancipation, or identity. I don't think it is a big, controversial idea to say that capitalism eventually structured the sort of material abundance that the West has come to enjoy, and that - in the West, and increasingly, everywhere, it has succeeded in banishing the spectre of famine which plagued agricultural societies. This is no small feat. What is more controversial is, for example, whether or not this came at a cost for nomadic or pastoralist societies, or whether or not the accompanying political transformations were an inevitable byproduct of capitalism "in the long term".

But capitalism wasn't a political revolution, with founders, and declarations of intent. It didn't come with a manifesto, or with a clear set of ideas enshrined in a constitution. It was a long process in the making, one that isn't that great at generating ideas for the future. It continuously generates ideas for the past, and sometimes for the present.

[Berkut]

You are talking about tradeoffs between benefits - tradeoffs between crime decreasing and overpolicing, for example.

Clearly these need to be addressed in the specific - but if someone notes (for example) that material wealth has increased dramatically for the poor, and shows specifically that that is true, then it *could* be the case that that benefit came at a cost to something else that makes it less attractive then you might expect, or even potentially actually a negative. But observing that that *might* be the case is  inadequate. You have to show that it actually is the case, when weighed against an objective measure that shows it is in fact true.

I think the essence of the political struggle should include actual data and actual results. I contend that taken as a whole, the aggregate measures of the things we ought to consider objectively desirable are broadly radically better on nearly every measure. Note I say nearly every measure - not all. The damage being done to the environment is a massive problem - large enough that in the long run it could swamp all this progress I am pleased with.

I don't know what the complaint about capitalism lack in regards to "generating ideas for the future" weighs against several hundred million lives saved.

[Oexmelin]

I don't know what the complaint about capitalism lack in regards to "generating ideas for the future" weighs against several hundred million lives saved.

I am not saying it's a complaint. I am saying it's what it does.

"Capitalism" isn't a single agent. It's not a recipe that was applied deliberately and with care to an ailing, single "feudal world". You can't really evaluate it like some drug. It's basically a way to describe our world.

We can ascribe to it the transformations that "saved several hundred million lives", these lives were "saved" over the course of centuries. It says nothing about present conditions, nor about what it means today, nor if it would "save several hundred million lives" today - or indeed, how it would. The policy components of "capitalism" that one could even reasonably ascribe to those desirable effects were frequently not even data-driven. They were driven by political desires, articles of faith, protection of property...

In short: the people who "built" the foundations of capitalism were never motivated by capitalism. They were motivated by a certain vision of the future that relied on values, principles, and half-baked asumptions about human behavior. When capitalism became theorized, it was assessed as the already existing mode of economic organization. 

[Berkut]

I don't know what the complaint about capitalism lack in regards to "generating ideas for the future" weighs against several hundred million lives saved.

I am not saying it's a complaint. I am saying it's what it does.

"Capitalism" isn't a single agent. It's not a recipe that was applied deliberately and with care to an ailing, single "feudal world". You can't really evaluate it like some drug. It's basically a way to describe our world.

We can ascribe to it the transformations that "saved several hundred million lives", these lives were "saved" over the course of centuries. It says nothing about present conditions, nor about what it means today, nor if it would "save several hundred million lives" today - or indeed, how it would. The policy components of "capitalism" that one could even reasonably ascribe to those desirable effects were frequently not even data-driven. They were driven by political desires, articles of faith, protection of property...

In short: the people who "built" the foundations of capitalism were never motivated by capitalism. They were motivated by a certain vision of the future that relied on values, principles, and half-baked asumptions about human behavior. When capitalism became theorized, it was assessed as the already existing mode of economic organization. 

OK. But however it came about, that "existing mode of economic operation" has resulted (or it along with a bunch of other things coming out the Enlightenment) in an incredible outcome. You can say "Oh, that just describes the world!" but I don't know how that changes what I am saying. It's like we are running a car races, and the car we are in is winning by 5 laps and I say "Wow, this is a pretty great car!" and you respond with "The car is simply the thing we are in". I mean...yeah, ok - but if you are suggesting we should consider getting another car (or replacing the transmission or whatever) I would kind of hope you would also be making a compelling argument, with data, that shows that the new and better car would actually BE better.

And I am not a conservative - I am not arguing that we should not change just because change is bad. Just that we should recognize the things that are in fact working. I think the things that have worked, in fact, have been very much in spite of the efforts of conservatives of the world and history who have largely fought tooth and nail against the very things that have resulted in the incredible progress we have seen in the human condition.

I think, largely, that the forces of progressivism have mostly won. So much so that modern progressives don't even recognize them as progress at all anymore.

[Oexmelin]

I think, largely, that the forces of progressivism have mostly won. So much so that modern progressives don't even recognize  them as progress at all anymore.

I am going to use this analogy to help convey what I am saying.

We are wondering if the car we are in, that we have inherited, and that we've been repeatedly told used to win the Indianapolis 500, is still appropriate for winning the race we currently are in - especially as it's not quite clear whether we are still within the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Its past performance aren't at stake. It's whether or not it will continue to carry us in the present circumstances that is under question.

[Berkut]

I think, largely, that the forces of progressivism have mostly won. So much so that modern progressives don't even recognize  them as progress at all anymore.

I am going to use this analogy to help convey what I am saying.

We are wondering if the car we are in, that we have inherited, and that we've been repeatedly told used to win the Indianapolis 500, is still appropriate for winning the race we currently are in - especially as it's not quite clear whether we are still within the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Its past performance aren't at stake. It's whether or not it will continue to carry us in the present circumstances that is under question.

That is a perfectly fair question.


I will note that for this to work, part of my point is that all of us riding in the car who claim to want to win races, need to start acknowledging that we actually DID win races already.


Many seem to want to insist that no such race has even been won, and indeed, the public perception when you ask people, suggests that not only have we not won, we never have and in fact are considerably further behind then we were previously. When in fact you can point to a trophy case and see that there are a crapload of trophies in their for winning races.


In fact, sometimes this seems so obvious, it makes one wonder if perhaps the goal isn't actually to win races - the goal is to change the car regardless.

[grumbler]

I agree with this.  It says something about the dominance of capitalist paradigm that critiques of the system are mostly phrased in economic terms - stagnant wages, inequalities of income and wealth, sectors with monopolistic profits, and the seamy underbelly of finance. These are all real problems and in theory could be remedied through legislation and technical fixes.  But they are symptoms of a more fundamental political problem, which is inequality in effective power and influence.

Inequality in effective power and influence is a feature of every political system man has ever attempted, regardless of economic system.  Those inequalities allow the powerful to corrupt any economic system.

[grumbler]

I am going to use this analogy to help convey what I am saying.

We are wondering if the car we are in, that we have inherited, and that we've been repeatedly told used to win the Indianapolis 500, is still appropriate for winning the race we currently are in - especially as it's not quite clear whether we are still within the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Its past performance aren't at stake. It's whether or not it will continue to carry us in the present circumstances that is under question.

That analogy could be applied to virtually anything:  marriage, democracy, the internet, cities... anything that we don't know is best-suited for the future.

The analogy only helps supply understanding if there is some real-world issue that provides evidence that capitalism isn't an Indy Car on a F1 course, and there is a real-world F1 car equivalent.

[Oexmelin]

That analogy could be applied to virtually anything:  marriage, democracy, the internet, cities... anything that we don't know is best-suited for the future.

Yes. Anything can potentially be made into a political slogan, or be the object of political struggles. But not everything holds the central place that capitalism does in our understanding of the world, and of our place in it.

My analogy was simply to answer Berkut's concern that past performance really should be acknowledged whenever we discuss capitalism - because he seems to think current critics of capitalism don't acknowledge it enough. My analogy was to convey that whatever we assume the past performances were doesn't actually say much about the current challenges, especially as we don't even seem to agree, or to know what the challenges are, or even what the challenges were.

It's not a perfect analogy. It wasn't intended to be. It was intended to foster good faith dialogue with Berkut. Perhaps it has succeeded in that regard.

[grumbler]

Yes. Anything can potentially be made into a political slogan, or be the object of political struggles. But not everything holds the central place that capitalism does in our understanding of the world, and of our place in it.

My analogy was simply to answer Berkut's concern that past performance really should be acknowledged whenever we discuss capitalism - because he seems to think current critics of capitalism don't acknowledge it enough. My analogy was to convey that whatever we assume the past performances were doesn't actually say much about the current challenges, especially as we don't even seem to agree, or to know what the challenges are, or even what the challenges were.

It's not a perfect analogy. It wasn't intended to be. It was intended to foster good faith dialogue with Berkut. Perhaps it has succeeded in that regard.

I'd certainly argue that there are many things that hold an even more central place in our understanding of the world than capitalism does.

And I think that you are too blithe in dismissing past performance as an indicator of future performance; the entire science of physics, for instance, is built on the assumption that this cannot be dismissed.  Ditto for, say, economics, political science, anthropology... I could go on forever.  In order to assert that you believe that future performance will be different than past performance, you have to show that either past performance is heavily influenced by chance factors, or that the non-chance factors have changed (or will change).

If your point was only directed at Berkut and not intended as a general statement, then I will simply note that i certainly don't agree but that my agreement isn't a factor in a private conversation between you and Berkut.

[The Minsky Moment]

And I think that you are too blithe in dismissing past performance as an indicator of future performance; the entire science of physics, for instance, is built on the assumption that this cannot be dismissed.

True and yet the past also teaches us that every form of social and political organization is eventually supplanted. The questions are exactly when, how, and what?

[grumbler]

And I think that you are too blithe in dismissing past performance as an indicator of future performance; the entire science of physics, for instance, is built on the assumption that this cannot be dismissed.

True and yet the past also teaches us that every form of social and political organization is eventually supplanted. The questions are exactly when, how, and what?

Agreed, and yet we have to study the past to see the patterns that indicate how and when a given form of social and political organization fails and must be replaced.  Otherwise such failures will come upon us unawares.

[Berkut]

I don't agree with everything here, but this overall is good stuff. I actually like Robert Reich when he goes into some detail.

https://www.facebook.com/RBReich/videos/2085738621720886

I really like his point 1.5 - that the way we need to address inequality of wealth not AFTER the wealth has been distributed by the economic system, but in the initial distribution of wealth as an outcome of market activity.