This post is basically complaining that I cannot keep up.
I think I am fairly informed on Karl Marx. I do not read German, and I have not even read some early works. My area of concentration is reading Capital as a work of mathematical economics, which cuts against the subtitle and, maybe, de-emphasizes a break with classical, especially, Ricardian political economy.
More generally, I thought Marx generally praises the tremendous increase of productivity brought about by the bourgeoisie. He downplays the accompanying environmental degradation. Imperialism extends capitalism into non-European colonies. Marx deplores the violence, but thinks rationalization of such societies is progress.
As I understand it, some of the literature below challenges these ideas. This is partly because of the current context. But it is also because of new texts brought into circulation by the second attempt at a Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe (MEGA2). David Ryazanov led the first attempt at MEGA. Stalin first dismissed him to internal exile, then killed him in one of his purges. I have not read him, but I gather Musto draws on Marx's reflections from visiting Algiers on a doctor's recommendation. Anderson, I guess, draws on journalistic writings. These two offers re-evaluate what Marx has to say about colonialism. I am currently reading Soren Mau. The instruments and violence and intellectual hegemony of those presently the interests of capitalists as universal interests help maintain the reproduction of capitalism. Mau looks at a third means for such reproduction.
And we also now have available a new translation of the first volume of Capital. From Heinrich, I learned that the structure of the first chapter was quite different in the first edition. Some turns of phrase, such as, "Moneybags must be so lucky", come from the Moore and Aveling's english translation.
Anyways, here are some recent works on Marx:
- William Clare Roberts, 2016, Marx's Inferno: The Political Theory of Capital, Princeton University Press.
- Kevin B. Anderson, 2016, Marx at the Margins: On Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Non-Western Socities, University of Chicago Press.
- Marcello Musto, 2020, The Last Years of Karl Marx: An Intellectual Biography, Stanford University Press.
- Michael Heinrich, 2021, How to Read Marx's Capital: Commentary and Explanations on the Beginning Chapters, Monthly Review Press.
- Soren Mau, 2023, Mute Compulsion: A Marxist Theory of the Economic Power of Capital, Verso.
- Kohei Saito, 2023, Marx in the Anthrocene: Towards the Idea of Degrowth Communism, Cambridge University Press.
- Adrian Johnston, 2024, Infinite Greed: Inhuman Selfishness of Capital, Columbia University Press.
- Karl Marx, 2024, Capital: Critique of Political Economy: Volume 1, Edited and translated by Paul Reitter, Edited by Paul North, Preface by Wendy Brown, Afterword by William Clare Roberts, Princeton University Press.
I think a tendency exists to treat capital as something like an emergent, over-arching subject. One can see this in writing from Ian P. Wright. Philip Mirowski argues markets are computing automata, and computers are often taken as models of the mind these days. Another book I want to consider reading is Benjamin Labatut, 2023, The Maniac, Penguin Random House. This is a novelization of the life of Johnny Von Neumann.
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4 comments:
«praises the tremendous increase of productivity brought about by the bourgeoisie»
My understanding is that he praises the productivity of *capitalism*, not of *capitalists*. That is a pretty important difference. Indeed his prediction is that capitalism will be replaced by *more* capitalism, in the form of socialism (capitalism with society ownership of capital via the state instead of private ownership), and that will be replaced with more capitalism still, in the form of communism (capitalism with communal ownership of capital, when the state "withers away").
Reminder: my understanding is that by "capital" Marx does not mean all means of production, what other political economists call "capital", but only those means of production involved in industrial production, where workers do not own them. and by "capitalism" he means the social relationship between workers without means of production and the means of production and their owners, whatever the form of ownership of that capital.
Put another way "capitalism" means the industrial system of production. Nowadays that seems redundant, as by and large it is the only system of production of importance, but even in the time of Marx many if not most households especially in rural areas made their own bread, sausages, cloth and dresses, and most remaining production was done in the same way by artisans for sale to third parties.
At the same time as an historical materialist he acknowledges that in the historical context capitalism had to begin as private capitalism (in its successive firms as personal, private company, public company, managerial forms), but the form of ownership of capitalism is not what gives it its main characteristics, it is the use of capital not personally owned by the workers.
«He downplays the accompanying environmental degradation.»
I am not so sure, IIRC it is described as another form of exploitation.
BTW as to "exploitation" and other ills of "private capitalism" my understanding is that he actually blames *competitive markets*: it is competition in markets that forces capitalists to behave badly, trying to externalize losses and squeeze profits out of everything. The less competitive capitalists are bought out or bankrupted by the more vicious ones. This if applicable also means that a change of the form of ownership of capital has the same issue, for example to cooperative capitalism.
I think that the marxian conceit or hope is that once socialism is achieved, the state, as the steward of the interests of the whole of society, can achieve the same optimum-seeking effects as competitive markets without the downsides. Actually existing state capitalism has largely failed to do so, as perverse incentives still apply.
«Imperialism extends capitalism into non-European colonies. Marx deplores the violence, but thinks rationalization of such societies is progress.»
As was the introduction of the industrial system in the home countries, despite the exploitation and pollution of the "Manchester system" well described by Engels. But many imperialist home countries suppressed or repressed the creation of industrial production in the colonies, for example in New England before the revolution it was illegal to manufacture *nails*, which had to be imported from England (because the nail industry magnates of England had a lot of influence at Westminster, but not the wannabe ones of New England).
However in order to facilitate the export of cheap raw materials from the colonies, and the import of expensive industrial products to the colonies, some colonial powers nonetheless created significant amounts of social and infrastructure capital that came quite useful later. For example I guess it is not entirely unrelated that most "asian tigers" were oppressed (as most of Japan itself) by japanese colonialism for a while at least.
«argues markets are computing automata, and computers are often taken as models of the mind these days»
Every age has its overarching metaphor or simile for "systems": once it was biology,as in trees, humans, farms, then it became machinery, such as orreries, then it became computers. For example marginalism was clearly inspired by "orreries", the mechanistic classical physics of Laplace etc., variational methods in particular.
The political economy is like the elephant before the three sages with the blindfold: it is multidimensional complex system that can be modeled by analogy with biology, machinery, computers; as a system of complementary markets, as a giant integrated factory, as a system of interlocking balance sheets, as a huge farm, as a collection of social institutions, as a set of anthepological relationships, etc.
“praises the tremendous increase of productivity brought about by the bourgeoisie”
«My understanding is that he praises the productivity of *capitalism*, not of *capitalists*. That is a pretty important difference.»
My understanding is that by doing so he committed a grave mistake, because almost all the productivity came not from the use of the industrial system but the use of very cheap very high energy density fuel. In my readings of Marx he seems to have understand that the fuel (coal in his time) was important, but not quite how determinant it is; like the more recent Ayn-Rand style propagandists who preach that productivity comes solely from "technical progress" gifted to us by geniuses of creativity and enterprise ("wealth creators") instead of by the enormous consumer surplus embedded in mineral wood (coal) and mineral oil.
There seems to be considerable confusion between the productivity of cheap dense fuel and that of the industrial system because to reap the benefits of cheap dense fuels a system of large scale industrial production seems necessary.
But the vice-versa is not right: it is not necessary to have a system of large scale industrial production (labour specialization and big machinery) even if powered by expensive low density fuels like animal or human labour, wood or hay, wind or running water, but it would be nowhere as productive as one based on mineral wood and oil; and arguably it would be futile, because huge transport costs without coal and oil would means that "large scale" industrial could not happen, because that depends on having a cheaply reachable large scale market too (see the enormous impact of cheap oil powered ships and containers on the scale of industrial production).
«it is not necessary to have a system of large scale industrial production (labour specialization and big machinery) even if powered by expensive low density fuels»
I meant to write that as "it is not inconceivable to have ...".
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