David Harvey on capitalism

Economics Economics Questions
1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0

Very interesting video. Technically well made, at the very least. To those who disagree, why is he wrong?

Also, how many people are there who still openly self-identify Marxist? I thought they were all dead, converted to some other economic school of thought, or in the closet.

And to any mods who see this - is posting outside links kosher?

2

He is manipulative.

He says this crisi was too much Hayek and too little Keynes. In fact, this crisis is all about Keynes. He associates the efficient market theory to Hayek, when in reality is a monetarist theory, etc…

Its just a series of good criticism of the present system, but trying to lie about what ideology is to blame.

3
  1. The basic error is the Marxist one that “One element of society gets wealthier under Capitalism only at the expense of another.” This time it was financiers at the expense of laborers and of industry.

But that is a big big mistake. Capitalism makes everyone involved better off than they were before.

Source: I picked this up from Mises in Human Action. Maybe the more rudite here can point to chapter and verse, or to more accesible sources.

  1. Another error is the “Capitalism has inherent problems that it can never solve, but just move to another part of the globe, like from the USA to Greece and the PIIGS.” This is false, too.

There are three falsities.

First, Capitalism has no inherent problems. He just stated this, but did not prove it. And with good reason. There is no proof possible to a false statement.

Second, the claim that the US problem was solved somehow. No it wasn’t. Proof: Obama gave a 14 minute speech defending his policies, and all he could say was [paraphrasing] “It is very bad now, indeed, worse than before I came to office, but it could have been worse. we could have had 13% unemployment instead of 9.”

Three, the claim that the Greeks and PIIGS were doing everything great, and the USA somehow kicked its problem into their front yard. No evidence that the two are connected. In fact, they aren’t. The Greeks and PIIGS are giving money away to their citizenry, borrowing the money from abroad to do it. Well, The lenders concluded, quite rightly, that those spenthrift Greeks and PIIGS aren’t doing anything to make money. So they want their loans back.

  1. A good test of your knowledge of economics and logic is to spot the many other major and minor errors in that short segment.
4

He treats labor and capital as opponents instead of partners.

Also, the treatment of credit cards as a tool of capital to artificially pump up demand is simply absurd. He makes it sound as if capital pushed credit cards on everyone and tricked them into racking up debt somehow.

5

David Harvey just makes bold statements without backing them up.

6

“Also, how many people are there who still openly self-identify Marxist?”

Not sure but in my experience it differs on level and context. Pure academics would be more likely to identify as Marxist whereas anyone with real world experience outside the university is in my experience much less likely to the point of being nonexistant. However Marxist errors will simply be repackaged and sold under a different label. Plus, lower down in the second and third hand idea dealers I think you’re more likely to see people self identify as Marxist for the same reason people at such levels self identify with anything. It’s just a personal brand they use to distinguish themselves. I’d wager there are plenty of self proclaimed ‘Austrians’ who are just pissed at the Fed but who haven’t necessarily thought through the various aspects of the school. I think people in general are more likely to self identify with any label the less rigirous their thought processes are, and thus the more they need a simple category to explain to others and even themselves where they stand.

7

Also, the actual unemployment rate is way higher than the reported figure. Obama cost the US a fortune and delivered nothing.