Rand and Marx

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Pretty sure that, if anything, there's a lot of Feuerbach in it.

oic. In my defense I haven't read his theses on Feuerbach, and know really nothing of importance about him or his work.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Materialism =/= economic/technological determinism. I am disappoint with how they taught Marx in the Eastern Bloc countries.

Fun fact, during the height of Stalinism, you weren't actually allowed to read Marx front to back.

 

[aelf]

oic. In my defense I haven't read his theses on Feuerbach, and know really nothing of importance about him or his work.

I have a feeling Traitorfish can give the most comprehensive answers to this. I'm mainly focused on late Marxist stuff.

Fun fact, during the height of Stalinism, you weren't actually allowed to read Marx front to back.

And they must have taught Marxist philosophy badly too.

 

[Mise]

Ayn Rand and Karl Marx, the two political thinkers who have suceeded in twisting more bollocks than any others combined. (Shush, Dachs and/or Park!) Neither are what you'd call popular in the mainstream, and, although they have pretty divergent legacies, the majority of people are not what you'd call overly well-aquainted with either. But which, if either, has the most to offer as a thinker?

Marx.

Which among them is capable of making the most valuable contributions to modern social, economic and political thought?

Marx.

Which is the most deserving of study, however little you may consider that to be?

Marx.

How is this even a question?! Marx was one of the most influential thinkers of all time. Rand offers absolutely nothing of value whatsoever.

 

[knez]

I didn't even read you post, but I will comment anyway.

Let me repeat. There is nothing Marxist in economics today. Extreme left (end left in general) in economics today, as well as it was for the biggest part of 20th century, is on the positions of utilitarianism with some Keynes mixed in. Even weirdos like 19th century german historical school has its intellectual offspring today, but literally nothing Marxist survived.

And I'm not talking just about economic theory. Methodology and philosophy of science as well. My textbook on philosophy of economics discusses Hume, Mill, Popper, Lakatoš, Duhem, Friedman and so on. Marxism is mentioned only once - Poppers distinction of science from pseudo science - and Marxism is example of pseudo science.

I have a feeling Traitorfish can give the most comprehensive answers to this. I'm mainly focused on late Marxist stuff.



And they must have taught Marxist philosophy badly too.

It's not that they taught it badly, they ignored it for the biggest part. Soviets abandoned Marx and Pol Pot style of world view with introduction of New Economic Policy in 1921., and with time it was quietly abandoned in economic science. Economics in ex Jugoslavia ignored him as well. I've recently borrowed Wallersteins The Modern World-System (now, that a commie , and a sociologist) printed in the 1980s, and on the cover you can see that the same publisher printed Keynes, Cantillon (<snip>, I'm impressed, this goes on my reading list), and... Bohm. Yes, the same Bohm that dismantled Marxist economics. But no Marx.

The thing is, you can't be a Marxist and a scientist at the same time. Those who try either abandon Marx, abandon science or go into sociology.

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[aelf]

And I'm not talking just about economic theory. Methodology and philosophy of science as well. My textbook on philosophy of economics discusses Hume, Mill, Popper, Lakato&#353;, Duhem, Friedman and so on. Marxism is mentioned only once - Poppers distinction of science from pseudo science - and Marxism is example of pseudo science.

Correction: Economics is a pseudo-science. Philosophy is not a science.

The thing is, you can't be a Marxist and a scientist at the same time. Those who try either abandon Marx, abandon science or go into sociology.

Sociology isn't scientific either. Nonetheless, although there's a lot of crap in it, I don't see an inherent problem with it being unscientific in the strictest sense of the word. Sociology inevitably deals with society and culture, things that cannot in most cases be studied like objects in the natural sciences. That is why economics finds it very difficult to become a science. Human society is too complex and too dynamic to be reduced to structures that are constituted by comprehensive sets of immutable laws. And I don't just mean that what people think the rules might be changes (i.e. essentially, that there are paradigm shifts), but also that the rules themselves are constantly changing. And I believe dialectics is capable of handling such a dynamic environment through methods that can be constantly updated such as immanent criticism, which means Marxism certainly has an important place in the study of contemporary society and as such has things to say about our economic processes still. It also implies that treating dialectics as part of the natural sciences is barking up the wrong tree to begin with. It's a method that is to be applied to the human, not the 'natural'.

 

[Leoreth]

To be fair to Economics, there's pseudo-science and then there's pseudo-science. It's not like homeopathy, for example.

 

[Formaldehyde]

It is small wonder that Marx's economics theories are nearly completely ignored in most "pseudo-science" economics classrooms today, given that his perspective was largely from that of the laborer instead of the capitalist.

Marx employed a labour theory of value, which holds that the value of a commodity is the socially necessary labour time invested in it. Capitalists, however, do not pay workers the full value of the commodities they produce, but compensate the worker for the necessary labor only (the worker's wage, which cover only the necessary means of subsistence in order to maintain him working in the present and his family in the future as a group -(the working class)- absolutely necessary for the existence of the capital-labor relation, the essence of the capitalist mode of production). This necessary labor is, in fact, only a fraction of a full working day, and the rest, the surplus-labor, is, in fact, pocketed by the capitalist. Marx theorized that the gap between the value a worker produces and his wage is a form of unpaid labour, known as surplus value. Moreover, Marx notes that markets tend to obscure the social relationships and processes of production, a phenomenon he termed commodity fetishism. People are highly aware of commodities, and usually don't think about the relationships and labour they represent.

But that doesn't mean they all do:

Marxian economics has been built upon by many others, beginning almost at the moment of Marx's death. The second and third volumes of Das Kapital were edited by his close associate Friedrich Engels, based on Marx's notes. Marx's Theories of Surplus value was edited by Karl Kautsky. The Marxian value theory and the Perron-Frobenius theorem on the positive eigenvector of a positive matrix [7] are fundamental to mathematical treatments of Marxist economics.

Colleges and universities that either offer one or more courses on Marxian economics, or that teach one or more economics courses on other topics from a perspective that they designate as Marxian or Marxist, include the University of Utah, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, University of Massachusetts-Boston, University of Maine, New School for Social Research, University of Missouri&#8211;Kansas City, Colorado State University, University of Leeds, University of Manchester, University of Sheffield, York University (Toronto), School of Oriental and African Studies, University of California at Riverside, University of Maastricht, and University of Bremen.[8]

English-language journals include Capital & Class, Historical Materialism, Monthly Review, and Rethinking Marxism, Review of Radical Political Economics, and Studies in Political Economy.

 

[aelf]

I think the correct formulation is: There's pseudo-science and then there's complete rubbish that only fools think is scientific.

 

[Leoreth]

Hehe My cousin is an accomplished mathematician and she still "believes" in homeopathy. I could never quite get my head around that.

But yeah, it's just that they're two different definitions of pseudo-science floating around. One is "a science that uses models which are not verifiable by experiment", which includes economics, the other is "something that likes to pass itself off as science, although it's not", which includes homeopathy.

 

[aelf]

But yeah, it's just that they're two different definitions of pseudo-science floating around. One is "a science that uses models which are not verifiable by experiment", which includes economics, the other is "something that likes to pass itself off as science, although it's not", which includes homeopathy.

That's a good way to put it, although the former can also do the latter (see: economics ). Switch "something" with "utter nonsense".

 

[knez]

Correction: Economics is a pseudo-science. Philosophy is not a science.
bla bla.

philosophy of science and philosophy of economics

While I would not call economics to be fully scientific yet, it does employ scientific methods and is capable as a field to dismiss most ridiculous theories (read Marx).

 

[Leoreth]

That's a good way to put it, although the former can also do the latter (see: economics ). Switch "something" with "utter nonsense".

It depends a lot on how you try to apply it, I suppose

 

[knez]

It is small wonder that Marx's economics theories are nearly completely ignored in most "pseudo-science" economics classrooms today, given that his perspective was largely from that of the laborer instead of the capitalist.



But that doesn't mean they all do:

Come on, I write you a paper on...
And I get perspective of the laborer and labor theory of value

Labor theory of value ??????????????????????????????????????????

I give up, no point arguing with believers

 

[Patroklos]

Marx has directly caused hundreds of millions of deaths. I am not sure if that is a plus or a minus given the question asked in the OP.

 

[aelf]

philosophy of science and philosophy of economics

While I would not call economics to be fully scientific yet, it does employ scientific methods and is capable as a field to dismiss most ridiculous theories (read Marx).

Sociology also employs scientific methods, if proper empirical research is all that is required. Yes, even that very Marxist discipline.

I give up, no point arguing with believers

There are Marxists at every street corner, waiting to impose their One True Faith on you.

Marx has directly caused hundreds of millions of deaths. I am not sure if that is a plus or a minus given the question asked in the OP.

Is that so? Marx must have wielded Weapons of Gargantuan Destruction.

 

[Formaldehyde]

I give up, no point arguing with believers

I never claimed to be a "believer". I just pointed out why so many current economic theory "believers" would try to completely dismiss his theories, instead of studying them as they do with virtually any other economic theoretician from the past.

Marx has directly caused hundreds of millions of deaths. I am not sure if that is a plus or a minus given the question asked in the OP.

That is like trying to blame Madison, Jefferson, Franklin, and Jesus for all the dead Vietnamese and Iraqi civilians. There is quite a difference between theory and practice.

 

[BvBPL]

Sociology isn't scientific either.

The fundament of science is the scientific method of proposing hypotheses, testing those hypotheses, and reporting results. Sociology does this. Given this, please elaborate on how sociology is not, in your opinion, scientific. Feel free to dispute that the scientific method is the core of scientific study, but if you do so, please provide an opposing viewpoint of what constitutes science.

From your post, it sounds like you think that the scientific method is incapable of describing social behavior. Is this an accurate summation?

If that is the case then please elaborate on the value of social science theses that can actually be tested. I mean, I can propose a hypotheses that the level of education achieved by one’s father is a key determinate of one’s own level of completed education as an adult, test this hypothesis by examining things like the General Social Survey, and come back with a extremely high statistical significance. What value do you think is gained from this? How is it not science? Do you feel there is a place for the application of scientific principles within the social sciences even if you think that sociology itself is fundamentally nonscientific?

How do you feel about psychology as a science? If people are going to bang on economics and sociology as being unscientific then it is fair to bring other social sciences into the ring.

 

[RedRalph]

Marx has directly caused hundreds of millions of deaths. I am not sure if that is a plus or a minus given the question asked in the OP.

You not clear on what the word 'directly' means?

 

[aelf]

The fundament of science is the scientific method of proposing hypotheses, testing those hypotheses, and reporting results. Sociology does this. Given this, please elaborate on how sociology is not, in your opinion, scientific. Feel free to dispute that the scientific method is the core of scientific study, but if you do so, please provide an opposing viewpoint of what constitutes science.

I think you focused on that sentence and neglected to pay close attention to the rest of the post, which can tell you what I meant. When people say something is scientific or unscienfitic around here, they tend not to include the social sciences in the former. But, as you can see from a later post of mine, I do know that sociology uses scientific methods. The oft-cited main distinction between 'science' and 'social science' is the Popperian criteria. That's what I had in mind in that post.

From your post, it sounds like you think that the scientific method is incapable of describing social behavior. Is this an accurate summation?

Social science is perfectly capable of describing social behaviour. It is just mostly incapable of formulating (scientific) laws in its domain.