Wolff talks about Marxism

Thanks, WV. Good video. You and I have talked about Wolff before. He’s so good at boiling down complicated Marxian and Marxist concepts and making them highly accessible.

And in this video — as in the vast majority of them — he was speaking my language. Democratizing the workplace, rotational direction, no more master/slave|employer/employee splits. I also liked his analogy of why it’s so important to include critics of X if we’re discussing X. It’s actually insane to study only the supporters of X, and then deal with the “nuances” of their support.

And there is no other “school” that understands capitalism as well as Marxian. Nothing comes close. Keynesian is the next best, but it supports capitalism, so it’s still coming from a direction of a cheerleader. Just a much better informed and far more logical cheerleader, etc.

The key for me is to just see capitalism for what it is and always will be: a machine whose internal logic generates mass inequality via anti-democratic and autocratic means.

It’s zero sum, by definition. You can’t accumulate Capital in one place without removing it from another. And you can’t accumulate a lot of Capital in one place without removing personal, or group, or societal autonomy elsewhere.

Even at its best — 1947-1973, roughly — capitalism was able to accumulate Capital at the top only through a centuries of primitive accumulation, domestically and internationally, wars, the rape of natural resources, genocide, slavery, and so on. And in the recent past, even during that Golden Age, it could not possibly accumulate Capital at the top, and the middle, and the bottom at the same time, so it had to screw people in the here and now as well. In America, this meant minorities and women, especially, and people overseas.

Capitalism has never, ever, not in its entire history, be able, no matter what reforms were/are in place, to avoid screwing over the masses or avoid polluting the planet, and it can’t possibly fix that and still BE capitalism in the future.

zn wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

All the rest is denial and window dressing.

My vote is different. I am not a purist and in fact almost out of instinct resist purism. I don’t believe anyone can arrive at a valid view of how where when why history will go a certain direction, or name what’s best for all of us, or what can will or should work. I apply that equally to pro- and anti-capitalists. Neoliberals are stuck so deeply in a particular theoretical model that they basically end up being what amounts to a religion. To me it’s no different. Left negative mirror images of that are no better, IMO,and have many of the same problems, just the left version of them. Which is fine…let a thousand flowers bloom…EXCEPT when it becomes divisive and therefore crippling (not saying that’s happening here.)

That’s my vote. True to my own convictions on this, I won’t try to “debate” anyone into accepting it, or offer it as the only possible rational view. Just expounding. Tossing my pennies in.

I am always an historian on these things, not a philosopher. By “historian” I don’t mean interest in the past. I mean that when things are complex and involve many moving parts and many kinds of responses, then what will happen will be much more organic, and that history shows us to expect that. To me philosophers deduce things from assumptions and principles on the basis of abstract reason, and, history also shows us that no human person sees enough for that kind of deductive reasoning to ever really be complete enough or nuanced enough or sensitive enough or dialectical enough to hold up.

Again, that’s just a vote. How I see it.

If others see it different than the real question to me is, well then what are our points of alliance now, in this time and place.

.

ZN,

As already mentioned, I’m not a “purist” either, nor are the vast majority of Marxians I’ve read. Nor is Professor Wolff.

And, again, the part about historical inevitability is a straw man AND red herring. No Marxian believes in that, and very few Marxists these days. Hell, Marx didn’t. He used it as metaphor, being one of the world’s most voracious readers of literature in his day.

This isn’t about “models.” This is about analyzing the history of capitalism, its internal logic, its structure, why it does what it does and what makes it unique. This is about math and logic, democracy and common sense.

Now, if you can show how capitalism has ever, in its entire history, been able to allocate resources in a fair and just way, be my guest. Much less that it could do this without destroying cultures in its way. Or that it was ever able to concentrate Capital at the top without wars, the expansion of empire, slavery, colonialism, etc.

You say you look at things from an historical point of view. Show me, then. Cuz that history doesn’t exist.

zn wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

As already mentioned, I’m not a “purist” either, nor are the vast majority of Marxians I’ve read. Nor is Professor Wolff.

Remember this is all my vote and how I see it. That’s the only approach I have to this (and the only one I personally want to have.) So to me, anyone who says there is only one valid belief about x, y, or z is being a purist.

Anyone who says the equivalent of “and if you don’t believe x or y or z you’re not real” is a purist.

I am not being philosophical about purism. Meaning, I don’t have a lengthy analytic rational take on it. I see it as occurring any time someone says “unless you accept doctrine x you’re lacking.” Or at least that kind of statement when they make it is purist.

I don’t believe in doctrinal purity in analysis in any way, shape, or form. I don;t think any human being is perceptive enough to make claims like that.

….

So, if I say 2+2=4, I’m a purist? Cuz that’s how I’m looking at capitalism. Mathematically, logically. It’s not “doctrine.” It’s saying the blue sky is blue.

Also, you’ve mentioned several times that we can’t discuss “class” without including X, Y and Z. You insist it can’t be done. Under your own definition of “purism,” you’re a purist.

All of us have certain things we see as just self-evidently the case. To me, I think it’s a waste of time and derails the conversation to trade accusations about things like “doctrine” or “purity” or to claim we’re above this or that, unlike others, etc.

Again, have you watched the video? If so, will you comment on what Wolff says?

Billy_T wrote:

So, if I say 2+2=4, I’m a purist?

No, because that’s an empirical issue.
To me rational, deductive constructs making utopian claims about human social and political conflicts are not empirical. Even if they say they are.

So if someone says (as did Edmund Burke) that because we are fallen creatures, weak and with limited perspectives and driven by only partially understood naked self-interest, we therefore need hierarchical societies–that is human beings must be ruled in a top-down scheme–he is making a universalizing claim based on particular a priori beliefs.

That’s not simple math. Burke remember also thought he was simply giving us the clear and direct, empirical truth based on reason and clear analysis. Well, he wasn’t. It was a series of deductions from beliefs he held. If we say to Burke, you’re wrong because of this or that factor, he would say the same to us. And there’s no truth god to sort it out for us.

Billy_T wrote:

See, ZN, this is why it helps to actually read what people are saying — or watch their videos — instead of repeating what you mistakenly assume they must be saying, even after you’ve been corrected several times on that already.

No one is making “utopian claims” here. Not Wolff. Not me. We ARE discussing this in rational, analytical terms, using empirically verifiable evidence to support our views. More than two centuries’ worth and counting.

And I have yet to see you counter any of that with evidence of your own. Instead, you just keep claiming to be above “purism” or “utopian claims” which aren’t in the picture here. At all.

So, again, have you watched the video, and if so, would you kindly comment ABOUT that video?

I didn’t say a word about the video either way. That;s not what I was addressing.

I was addressing your claim that there’s only one valid political end-deduction.

I was saying that to me that’s purism and to me it’s the old dream of universalizing reason. It’s vote casting time and I am speaking up for a different way to see that.

And on that, my best guess is, we will only end up differing. Which is fine.

.

Billy_T wrote:

ZN,

But what’s the point in responding to a thread in which Wolff’s video is central, essential, when you haven’t even bothered to watch it?

Well there’s no rule how threads are supposed to go (other than being civil and avoiding the usual stuff having to do with obscenity etc, which are givens).

In fact, we even (paradoxically) enshrined that in the board rules:

from Board Rules & Policies

link: http://theramshuddle.com/topic/board-rules-policies/

Develop your own voice, digress at will, bring all your talents, interests, knowledge, and opinions to the table, and encourage others to do the same.

I hope you see the humor in that. Our rules include digressing at will.

What’s the point? The point is to say what’s on my mind in response to any aspect of the thread that catches my eye. Same as everyone else. Fair enough?

Is this getting a little sensitive? Let’s crank it back a bit, if so. We’re allies, and any “along the way” conflicts of vision are just there to be acknowledged as we each then get on with the wonderful crazy business of each being ourselves, though ourselves (hopefully) in alliance.

Other aspects are extremely important too. Capitalism gives control over resources to the few. They dictate to the many how they’re allocated. Zero democracy in that mix. The few set prices, wages, decide what to produce, when, how, for whom. The few decide all of this for the many. The logical repercussions of that are pretty obvious. As are the anti-democratic, slave-like foundations of just such a system.

And, again, I’m talking just about capitalism at this point.

The best “reformist” capitalism on the planet right now is arguably in the Scandinavian countries. But they, too, have poverty, homelessness, hunger and they rely on slave labor from overseas for a great many of their commodities. No capitalist nation escapes from that. And they can’t.

Capitalism can’t function without kicking the can down the road, kicking pain down the road, somewhere else. Spatially, and into the future. Math and logic tell us we can’t have BOTH the concentration of wealth in a few hands AND take care of everyone’s needs in an adequate fashion as well. It’s literally impossible. You’d have to have well beyond 100% of a finite thing in order to do that.

It’s easy to distribute resources if we all share them. It’s impossible to distribute them in any way remotely adequate if a few people control everything and hoard the majority of that wealth and those resources. Math tells us there will never be enough left over once the top hoards what it can — and it can legally do that under capitalism.