Marxism and contemporary society.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Actually, we're assuming that things will keep changing, according to you

I'm not saying things will stop changing, just that the rate of change will diminish to a point that will cause a crisis.

[Kuciwalker]

So you're the one making the claim...

[Alexander's Horse]

Marx was a very good sociologist but a terrible economist and dreadful political theorist.

There's no escaping the fact that the political and economic movements his writings helped spawn were all a dismal failure.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
So you're the one making the claim...

Yeah, I claim that it's silly to assume that the rate of change will increase or stay the same forever.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
Marx was a very good sociologist but a terrible economist and dreadful political theorist.

And the Austrians are better?

[Kuciwalker]

What do Austrians have to do with anything?

[Dracon II]

Say what you like about Marx's philosophy, but I think historical materialism is one of the best models of historical change we have. Simply describing historical change in terms of changes in ideas ignore why and how new ideas gain force and momentum in society. Scientific ideas may have their exceptions... but political ideas fit into this schema perfectly.
To assert, like postmodernists, that culture is the driving force ignores the fact that we can only ever have the culture that we can afford to produce. Culture seems ubiquitous now because it has been seamlessly integrated into the system of production. Marx in fact predicted something resembling postmodernity, in that he warned that capitalism would transform all social relations and come to mediate them... by breaking down all barriers to exchange (even morality) and melting all that is solid into air.

Gross oversimplification of society into "classes" so the math of analysis is much easier. However, this causes the model to be faulty and ignores many 2nd order and 3rd order terms that are necessary to correctly model dynamic environments

Name these terms and we'll examine them, shall we? I agree that Marx's breakdown of classes and his predictions for them have not eventuated, but I think his definition of what constitutes a class has not changed.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
What do Austrians have to do with anything?

Austrian School economists have their own theory of the business cycle.

[DanS]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
forget about Marx

If you want to know who was the most influential economic thinker of our time look at this guy, Friedrich Hayek

http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/hayek.htm

He inspired Milton Friedman and the Chicago school

This program is an excellent primer on some of the economic forces moving the world today

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/lo/index.html

Yup yup. Excellent series, by the way. Done by Daniel Yergin, whose history of oil is a powerful book.

[Alexander's Horse]

I haven't read the oil book - but I think I might now with all the dire predictions of what is going to happen to supply over the next 10-20 years.

[DanS]

Not sure whether somebody who is not deep in this stuff otherwise might enjoy the book. YMMV.

[DanS]

Here's a snippet to tide you over...

Eventually prices will come down. ''Every boom sows the seeds for the next bust," said Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a consulting firm.

http://www.cera.com/home/

[Agathon]

I think that Marx is more relevant now than ever. I find it funny that people would treat him the same way as the founder of a religion. After all, most contemporary economists like Smith, but don't buy everything he said.

The right hate Marx because he was one of the first people to see through the elaborate cultural constructions that exist to retrospectively justify capitalism. In that respect he's more relevant than ever. It's about time a new generation of thinkers attempted to brush up Marxism for the times.

I think that Marx will undergo a renaissance in the next few years. The climate is certainly right for it - reading the communist manifesto now, I realize that it is much more accurate now than it was 20 years ago when I first read it, and the idea of machines eliminating the need for human labour is now more credible than ever.

[Agathon]

Hayek is funny. I tried to read some once. I found him intellectually dull. He's like Ayn Rand - people say he is some sort of genius because he provides some sort of theoretical justification for their desire to plunder the human race.

In fact, he's just a cretin.

Actually, apart from Aristotle (and his inclusion is debatable), it's hard to find a right wing theorist who isn't a simpleton, a fraud or a ******.

[Alexander's Horse]

tee hee