Jim Hlavac
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Economic Theory
| Economic Theory |
For better or worse, Karl Marx was the writer of ideas that were
simple to understand, easy to translate into action, and with a little
brutality were easy to keep in place for the thuggish people who have
always become rulers. Thus they have permeated the world for the
past 150 years. There is no escaping this reality. No matter what part
of mankind's existence you look at someone has done some so-called
Marxist analysis of it. Economics is the big one of course, and politics.
But so too has culture, and even individual books, and history in
general, been subject to Marxist analysis. There are millions of scholars
who work on Marxist theories and analysis. Yet, even the discrediting
of his economic ideas as put into place in Soviet Russia and elsewhere
around the world has not diminished Marx himself. He is still ranked as
possibly the greatest political and economics philosopher. His impact
is so great that many people don't even realize they are using his ideas
and theories. They just assume that this is the only explanation of the
things which exist.
Adam Smith may have been the first person to lay down economic
theory, but Karl Marx's play to emotion and self-importance won the
day. Where Smith was vague, mathematical and without proposed
actions -- the invisible hand as it were -- Marx was direct in his
proposistions. "This is the way it is" he wrote, "and this is how you fix
it." While Smith said, 'well, it all depends on what else happens,' and
didn't really propose any solution, figuring (correctly) that someone else
would find a solution.
One thing Marx did wrong was to lay the adversarial relationship
that exists in society between the worker and the employer. He
missed the true adversarial relationship between the individual with
the state. No matter what sort of individual there is, a merchant, and
employer, a worker, a homebody, they will have peaceful,
cooperative relationships with each other, it is in their interests, as
Smith said, to be the best and as nice as they can be. Only the state
works against any sort of individual.
A second thing Marx did wrong was to ascribe base acts, those
usually associated with the Ten Commandments, to the system of
economics and the era of technology in which the economics occurred.
He took all history and divided it into periods of economic and
technological development and said all the bad things that happened
were a direct result of the economic system. In fact, there were no
different politico-economic systems from the beginning of time until
America. The economics were simply the desires based on the divine
right of kings. The technology only allowed the king of a certain era to
have more or less control over his people. All the land was always
owned by royalty based on their divine right to be the owner. All the
business activity existed only because of the privileges given by the
state at the point of sword, or later, the gun. The entire view of
economics for millenia was that the king should control everything and
get the lions share of the profits. A king of the era before power,
whether steam or electric, was limited only by his technological era.
After the invention of power the control by the king only increased.
But at all points in history, the people were subjects of royalty. Until
America there was no society that ever gave to the individual the right
to control his own survival.
While in pre-power days the individual was often freer, in fact,
this was only because the king simply didn't have the technology to
impose his control. The king attempted control. History is filled with
examples. But the king was constrained by technology's abscence.
Once the king got power he just uppped his ability to control the
economy. No where, though, did people historically have the right to
buy, sell, trade, labor, own, join together or do anything without the
permission of the king. Only with America were people finally able to
throw off this shackle on their right to survive, which exists
independent of the king or the state.
Since nearly all political and economic theories since Karl Marx use
his definitions, his words, his beliefs about the adverarial roles, about
technology and its impact, they are all necessarily wrong to the degree
to which they adhere to his beliefs. Even libertarians and those who
edge in that direction are forced to use words like Capitalism, and
labor markets, and alienation and all the other trappings of Marx,
because no one has posited any other way to look at things. While
libertarians come closest, that they have to use the words Marx
created they are forced to discuss things on his terms, and the people
they speak to will, of course, use the definitions as they know them.
If a person simply believes what Marx said about capitalists, and
most people do, then to discuss with him how capitalism is really good
flies in the face of what he thinks he knows, whether he even knows
his beleifs stem from Marx.
simple to understand, easy to translate into action, and with a little
brutality were easy to keep in place for the thuggish people who have
always become rulers. Thus they have permeated the world for the
past 150 years. There is no escaping this reality. No matter what part
of mankind's existence you look at someone has done some so-called
Marxist analysis of it. Economics is the big one of course, and politics.
But so too has culture, and even individual books, and history in
general, been subject to Marxist analysis. There are millions of scholars
who work on Marxist theories and analysis. Yet, even the discrediting
of his economic ideas as put into place in Soviet Russia and elsewhere
around the world has not diminished Marx himself. He is still ranked as
possibly the greatest political and economics philosopher. His impact
is so great that many people don't even realize they are using his ideas
and theories. They just assume that this is the only explanation of the
things which exist.
Adam Smith may have been the first person to lay down economic
theory, but Karl Marx's play to emotion and self-importance won the
day. Where Smith was vague, mathematical and without proposed
actions -- the invisible hand as it were -- Marx was direct in his
proposistions. "This is the way it is" he wrote, "and this is how you fix
it." While Smith said, 'well, it all depends on what else happens,' and
didn't really propose any solution, figuring (correctly) that someone else
would find a solution.
One thing Marx did wrong was to lay the adversarial relationship
that exists in society between the worker and the employer. He
missed the true adversarial relationship between the individual with
the state. No matter what sort of individual there is, a merchant, and
employer, a worker, a homebody, they will have peaceful,
cooperative relationships with each other, it is in their interests, as
Smith said, to be the best and as nice as they can be. Only the state
works against any sort of individual.
A second thing Marx did wrong was to ascribe base acts, those
usually associated with the Ten Commandments, to the system of
economics and the era of technology in which the economics occurred.
He took all history and divided it into periods of economic and
technological development and said all the bad things that happened
were a direct result of the economic system. In fact, there were no
different politico-economic systems from the beginning of time until
America. The economics were simply the desires based on the divine
right of kings. The technology only allowed the king of a certain era to
have more or less control over his people. All the land was always
owned by royalty based on their divine right to be the owner. All the
business activity existed only because of the privileges given by the
state at the point of sword, or later, the gun. The entire view of
economics for millenia was that the king should control everything and
get the lions share of the profits. A king of the era before power,
whether steam or electric, was limited only by his technological era.
After the invention of power the control by the king only increased.
But at all points in history, the people were subjects of royalty. Until
America there was no society that ever gave to the individual the right
to control his own survival.
While in pre-power days the individual was often freer, in fact,
this was only because the king simply didn't have the technology to
impose his control. The king attempted control. History is filled with
examples. But the king was constrained by technology's abscence.
Once the king got power he just uppped his ability to control the
economy. No where, though, did people historically have the right to
buy, sell, trade, labor, own, join together or do anything without the
permission of the king. Only with America were people finally able to
throw off this shackle on their right to survive, which exists
independent of the king or the state.
Since nearly all political and economic theories since Karl Marx use
his definitions, his words, his beliefs about the adverarial roles, about
technology and its impact, they are all necessarily wrong to the degree
to which they adhere to his beliefs. Even libertarians and those who
edge in that direction are forced to use words like Capitalism, and
labor markets, and alienation and all the other trappings of Marx,
because no one has posited any other way to look at things. While
libertarians come closest, that they have to use the words Marx
created they are forced to discuss things on his terms, and the people
they speak to will, of course, use the definitions as they know them.
If a person simply believes what Marx said about capitalists, and
most people do, then to discuss with him how capitalism is really good
flies in the face of what he thinks he knows, whether he even knows
his beleifs stem from Marx.