Hand grenade... remove pin... Marx and Smith were on the same

[nadinbrzezinski]

wave length.

But, but, how could you say that Karl Marx and Adam Smith are actually intellectual allies?

Well kiddies, there is more agreement than one might think, not that our current "capitalists" even know what Smith wrote.

Here are some major points of agreement.

The means of production, after the specialization of labor, are owned by one class and used by another... yep, I am on purpose using Marxist language... alas Smith wrote that too. He also wrote that in a state of nature, aka before specialization, the worker owned both the productive means and the fruits of his labor.

Both also realized that we needed to have a living wage. For Smith a well compensated work force leads to a well fed, and happy workforce and the increase in the wealth of the nation.

It is kind of amazing to see the actual continuity of thought. It is also quite scary to have this conformed (again)... we do not live in a capitalist nation. Europeans do... but we don't. And next time I hear a Right Winger extol the joys of the Wealth, it is time to shove the Wealth on their faces. (By the way I already have, nothing funnier than asking any of these idiots... to actually point IN THE BOOK OF THEIR LOVE, to what they want...

So yes, removing the pin because the points of division between these two are more into Hegel, and of course a far more preachy style from Marx.

But they have far more in common... oh wow...

So next time I also hear round these parts, but we must destroy capitalism. Nope you got it wrong. What we need to destroy is faux capitalism... this monster that ONLY PAYS LIP SERVICE to classical economics. And who knew? Marx, at least in my mind, is about to join THAT pentheon... together with Ricardo and of course Malthus.

[provis99]

1. we don't have capitalism. It's corporate fascism.

Not much different than Fascist Italy, except labor unions haven't been banned yet.

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. The point is that every time we have people going

the problem is capitalism... well that's not the problem, and we need to use the correct language.

Fascism is exactly what we have... mixed with quite a bit of mercantilism.

Back to the future, the 17th century future.

[blindpig]

13. Fascist Italy and Germany were capitalists.

Fascism is a way of organizing a capitalist economy. Capitalists seem to like it, very organized, no strikes and good profits.

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. nominally like ours

but the fact that in name they supposedly took elements of it, does not mean that it passes muster just because they say it was.

By the way, here is a happy thought for you. OUR economic system has a lot in common with Italian fascism.

[nemo137]

2. Yeah, Smith and Marx came from similar places, although I think Marx had more of a philosophcal bent

Although Smith wrote heavily on morals, something that has been long since forgotten.

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. I know but due to that research into

the history of labor, I am slugging through both... as well as Malthus essay on population and will do Ricardo too...

And to my mind we need to start seeing the trees in this damn forest and stop falling for that ideological divide.

Also Smith never really went into class consciousness, what two generations can do. He saw this as a given. Marx spelled it out, thanks to .. Hegel.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

4. Rec.

[The Magistrate]

6. Quite True, Ma'am

Mr. Smith is actually more on our side than not, and in his own day was something of a revolutionary....

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. The book will take over two years to write

oy the research, it hurts.

But I was thinking send a proposal to the Nation... time to recapture these guys, all of them.

And he was. His critique, as well as Locke and Hume, was against Mercantilism.

[Odin2005]

8. Smith, Ricardo, and Marx all subscribed to the Labor Theory of Value.

Which was quickly deep-sixed by "mainstream economuists" when the PTB realized that it was a threat to the Investor Class. If you try to support the Labor Theory of Value in "polite company" today the Establishment will come down on your head, attacking you for "believing primitive, naive, unscientific folk economics", with "unscientific" being code for "being a bleeding heart leftist that can't accept the cold, sociopathic "truth" of mainstream economics".

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Add Keynes to that list

why they are so damn hard on Keynseian economics.

That said, we know it works... and there are actual capitalist economies out there... just not ours.

In fact, I'd day ours has regressed to Mercantilism in some forms... and of course our love for the "private property" and it's rights, which goes back to Mercantilism.

[murdoch]

10. Absolutely - modern neo-classical economics is the divergence, not Marx

Whether you agree with his additions to Smith/Ricardo/Say/Malthus or not, it is a fact that Marx built his work on the those classical economists.

Some of the subjects those early economists were interested in - value, economic cycles, labor, capital etc., Marx took an interest in and went into in great detail.

The response to Marx from the neo-classicals, which continues today, was not to just to throw out Marx, but to throw out what *all* of the classical economists said on a variety of topics. Not only was Marx chucked out, much of Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Say, Malthus - much of what *all* the economists before Marx said was chucked out, and economists went on this path of marginalism, neoclassical economics, and subjective theory of value.

I've already said it, but its important to restate. Modern economics throws out not just Marx, but throws out much of what *all* of the economists before Marx believed.

This point is not made often enough. Economists attacking "Marxist ideas" are often attacking ideas which people like Adam Smith had put forward, which Marx simply echoed.

[Odin2005]

11. Exactly.

[blindpig]

12. Marx was the completion of 'Classical Economics'

That's why we got 'neo-classical economics', they didn't like Marx's conclusions.

It's just capitalism.

[Lilith Velkor]

14. kicky wicky

[William Z. Foster]

15. the myth of "pure capitalism"

We are now hearing the last line of defense for capitalism, as the evidence accumulates and becomes more and more obvious that it is destroying us. People would have us believe that it is a particular type of capitalism that is the problem, and that there is a possibility of some sport of "pure" capitalism that we should imagine or hope for. But when they describe this "pure" capitalism - just, inclusive, sustainable - they are either not describing capitalism at all but rather pre-capitalist reality, or else they are imagining something that is impossible - regulating capitalism until it no longer is capitalism.

The destruction of the environment, the control of all wealth by Wall Street, the corruption of the government, the depressing of wages and elimination of jobs, the perversion of all social relationships to serve the needs and desires of the greedy few, are not merely minor side effects of capitalism, unfortunate by-products that could be regulated away or something, they are rather what capitalism is, they are a description of what capitalism actually is. There isn't anything else to it, except in the imaginations of ill-informed and misled people. This is so obvious now, so pervasive and undeniable, so self-evident, that it is requiring more and more convoluted arguments and lines of reasoning in order to get people to ignore or deny what is right under their nose and in plain view - capitalism is destroying us.

It is not "greedy capitalism" that is the problem - capitalism is a system for rewarding the greedy. It is not "corrupt capitalism" that is the problem - capitalism will always cause corruption. Every corporation has armies of lawyers working night and day figuring out how to game the law, the government and the system, and those who do that best will be the winners. They will always win, because they control the wealth and wealth equals power. It is not "unregulated capitalism" either - regulation will always be smashed and circumvented through sooner or later. It is not "corporate capitalism" that is the problem. Corporations are but one thing exploited by the capitalists, as all things are and always will be.

Might as well try to stop a fish from swimming or a bird from flying. It is a juggernaut destroying the earth. Nothing will tame it or restrict it for long. It smashes through all barriers. Smashing through all barriers is the whole point of capitalism, its very nature and essence, the only thing it can do.

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. I recoomend you pick up a copy of the Wealth of Nations

and chiefly read it.

I am not kidding. What passes today for Capitalism in the ideological wars is not capitalism. If it were it woudl be highly regulated... and monopolies woudl be broken right and left.

Oh never mind. Me going back to some Smith, and Marx... there is so much in common and I am all for going back to the future if we are to survive as a species. By the way the "free marketeers" of today usually balk when it is pointed to them that all they oppose, labor unions, living wages, regulations, breaking up monopolies is not Marxist, but Capitalist...

Go ahead, after you read the book try the experiment. I have, recently, with business students who pray at the church of Smith, but have never written the words of the Great Lord and Savior, and we all say Amen.

It is, not kidding, like talking the old time religion with fundies. And I have lots of fun doing that.

[Hannah Bell]

18. "thank god it passed!"

[William Z. Foster]

19. you agree that it is a myth, then

You are agreeing that capitalism as you are describing it and using the word is an idea, and not a historical phenomenon, then. That is why I said "pure capitalism is a myth."

To say that "labor unions, living wages, regulations, breaking up monopolies is not Marxist, but Capitalist" is to debate word definitions rather than talk about reality, to analyze beliefs rather than observations of objective reality. You are describing both Marxism and Capitalism as though they were merely belief systems, and then debating what those belief systems "really" mean or should mean. Capitalism is a historic phenomenon, and Marx observed, described, analyzed that phenomenon. Neither the phenomenon nor the description of it is a belief system, although people use those words as though they were. That causes a lot of confusion.

In the real world, as a matter of historic fact, the battle for labor unions, living wages, regulations, and breaking up of monopolies was a battle against Capitalism. To then say that the successes of those who battled against the capitalists is "real" capitalism seems foolish, and not very useful. I guess it could be argued that regulating Capitalism keeps it going longer, prolongs the suffering, and so in that way battles against Capitalism that end in compromises, that leave the fox in the hen house, actually help Capitalism to survive longer than it otherwise would.

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. That my friend is ideology speaking

not what the actual words are.

In fact, Marx was in line with Smith and Ricardo, and a little leery of Malthus. Admittedly I am also leery of Malthus... but I suspect he was right... and in the coming decades that population bomb will go off.

What we have seen over the last 200 years or so is quite a bit of propaganda on all concerned and that includes labor.

but if people actually START readying the actual words, not just of Smith, but of Marx, and others, you will realize that the masters of capital, have rejected the critics of business as usual.

So we need to call a spade a spade. Today we are not living in a Capitalist system... nor in a Marxist one. the closet actual definition is Fascism, pure and simple. No, not the German kind you silly, somewhere close to Italian Fascism, but using soft means of control And those include a strong dose of... propaganda. Free markets my ass... but hey let's defend the free market, which has become code for something else. Which is rape, pillage and none government regs.

So I say, let's recapture the language and call a spade a spade.

By the way the other element in our economic system is truly a new form of Mercantilism, that I like to call Consumerism.