From: thant@horus.esd.sgi.com (Thant Tessman)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,sci.econ
Subject: Re: Wage Slavery (Was: BIG LIE about the market)
Date: 6 Apr 92 17:40:24 GMT
Organization: sgi

In article <1992Apr5.182340.6518@newshost.anu.edu.au>, cmf851@huxley.anu.edu.au (Albert Langer) writes:

> The "Communist Manifesto" is not an economic or philosophical treatise,
> but it is certainly representative of Marx's position and if your
> understanding of it was so limited as to dismiss it as "silly", you
> are unlikely to gain much from Marx's more difficult works.

The Communist_Manifesto lays out the central blueprint for every 
so-called 'Marxist' revolution.  As Peter Nelson points out, the 
lack of sucessful examples of Marxist societies is not for lack of 
trying.  When confronted with both the theoretical and empirical 
economic failures of the Communist_Manifesto, Marxists usually argue 
that political systems calling themselves 'Marxist' aren't
really Marxist, despite strict adherence to Marx's 10 point plan
or any amount of proletariat insight.  The 'Manifesto' talks about 
rule of the proletariat with one breath and about centralized everything 
in the other.  If we are to believe that all these political despots
aren't really Marxist, then one must conclude that 'Marxism' is nowhere 
described in the Communist_Manifesto.


[...]

> Sorry, I thought from the words you used about "Marx understood" that
> you had realised this was not some corner Marx got backed into by
> subsequent refutations. Evidently you have not in fact understood the
> point I gave you credit for having understood (while expressing surprise
> at how you could grasp that while misunderstanding the rest). There
> was in fact nothing inconsistent between your understanding of that
> point and your understanding of the rest, so please forget what I said. 
> I'm not interested in a rehash of this issue and regret having mentioned it.

Since I am unswayed by the point, I must have misunderstood it?


> Interesting how "elimination of differences between individual and
> 'social' interests" becomes transformed into "submission of individual
> interests to social interests". Since you do that right out there in
> the open where anybody can see it, I am sure you are not being deliberately
> dishonest. But your professors have taught you well with their "giving
> up" of the profit motive and "submission to the dictates" of collective
> happiness. It has really sunk in deep, hasn't it?

I plead guilty as charged!  But what in theory is "transformation of
individual interests to common interests" is in practice "submission
to the dictates of collective happiness".  Certainly this IS what is
described in the Communist_Manifesto, if not in his "more difficult"
works.  And besides, none of this refutes the point that this 
'transformation' is methodologically useless and logically impossible.


> [Mises quote deleted.]
> 
> Pathetic. After first attempting to quote Marx in support of your claims
> about what he believed, and being refuted, you now resort to quoting
> mere ABUSE from von Mises. If you were able to quote Marx arguing in
> the way that von Mises claims, then there could be some discussion about
> what you had misunderstood. But what you are ACTUALLY doing is PRECISELY
> what von Mises accuses Marx or doing.
> 
> Instead of replying to Marxist arguments you are simply asserting that
> your adversaries are wrong because they are blinded by ideologies. There
> is ZERO content in the above abuse.

It was meant as a 'meatless' teaser to get you to read it yourself.  I
was stupid to think that it would serve that function, and lazy not to 
invest more energy in digesting down a more focused excerpt.

What Mises was objecting to in the passage I should have quoted 
more fully was Marx's polylogism.  For example, from your quote
of Marx:

"... Thus the economic forms in which men produce, consume and exchange
are _transitory_and_historical_. With the acquisition of new productive
faculties, men change their mode of production and with the mode of
production all the economic relations which are merely the necessary
relations of this particular mode of production."

Marx avoids discussing economics.  Instead, he dismisses ecomic laws
as "transitory and historical."  This is an extremely convenient way
of avoiding any economic arguements based on rationality.  It is true
that the 'popularity' of various economic theories is a product of
social conditions and structure, but the validity or lack thereof
of any given economic theory is independent of its popularity.

The important point is that there *are* economic laws that describe 
the effects of various actions.  These laws say nothing about what people 
want or what they will do about it.  It does say that if people do X, 
then Y will happen.  It says nothing about whether or not Y was actually 
what they wanted to happen or that they will even do X.  The laws do not 
directly affect people's behavior except to the degree that people will 
adjust their behavior based on their knowledge of these laws and their 
desire to bring about or avoid their given effects.

Marx is purposely ambiguous in his attack on Proudhon and his attack 
on "the impersonal human reason which never errs."  In refuting Proudhon,
we are left with the impression that reason itself had also been 
refuted.  But in doing so, it is Marx that is guilty of "invent[ing] 
mystical causes, that is to say, phrases which lack common sense"
because that is all that's left.

thant
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