maybe…
out of curiosity are there any methodological works by a classical economist?
Not that I am aware of. Most of their methodology is implicit, and often difficult to interpret. In fact, there are number of competing interpretations out there, particularly of Ricardo and Marx.
My own theory is along the lines of “anything worth having is worth working for”. The things that folks value will eternally be subjective, no matter the chains of conformist society, folks will always place value in what they want to. I know I appreciate more, the things I worked harder to get. I feel others may find similar analogy.
This is part of why I’ve never understood why the laor theory of value didn’t more or less immiediatly bring economists to socialist conclusions.
I don’t think that socialism is the logical implication of LTV. Marx needed a normative theory to justify socialism, which he found in Kant.
(they reject the notion of one true logic).
“There’s more then human logic in the universe.”
How they reached that conclusion is beyond me.
George Reisman claimes that Adam Smith preemptively refuted both the exploitation theory of interest and the law of falling rate of profit (both central in Marxian political economy) before Marx ever formally introduced them. I can’t remember the actual argument right now, but you can find it in Reisman’s Capitalism (free pdf available on line).
Such a great post. I’ve been thinking about this top down approach the marxist followers likes to employ. They want to create this perfect world from the top down. Making things as they personally see that they should be. They state that people’s individual behavior will magically change once their pefect plan is implimented. They hint that propertarianism encourages an inherently violent, exploitative nature.
On the flip side, keeping methodological individualism in check, the Austrians come from the bottom up. Placing Praxeology first, and deducing their understanding of economies from that. So could it be argued that one of the the differences between them and us is this? They see the economy as it should be, from the top down. We see the economy as it would be from the bottom up, using the individuals as our baseline of direction.
Yea, polylogism. Perhaps thats one of the reasons that when pointing out a logical fallacy to a Marxist its just shrugged off as if it weren’t any big deal.
Another thing that bothers me. Why is it that Communism, defines itself from Capitalism. In nearly half of the definitions and explanation of Marxism/Communism I find, it definds itself in contrast to Capitalism. Shouldn’t a self-standing political philosophy be able to stand on it’s own self-defining terms, without the need to define itself based on, or in conrast to another?
See here, and consider how many times Capitalism is mentioned. In contrast, how many times is Communism mentioned when defining Capitalism?
Rev-Left states.
Is this a coherent definition for a political philosophy? Lets assume Communism becomes the worlds primary political-economic system(Ignoring the economic consequences). What does it mean to say “Liberation of the proletariat”. Liberation from who? From what?
Seems sad to me, that their entire poitical philosophy, defines itself in the contrast to or in the shadow of Capitalism. It doesn’t have it’s own definition independent from another external political philosophies.
The Communism wiki-page mentions Capitalism 23 times. It’s catagorized in the “Anti-Capitalism” section.
In Contrast, the Capitalism wiki-page mentions Communism twice. One of those occurences is in the criticism page, no doubt added by a communist. Socialism is mentioned 3 times. Capitalism is NOT catagorized in the “Anti-Socialist” catagory.
Interesting isnt it?
Yes, this (method) is the major difference between the Austrians and the Classical school (not just the Marxians, who are, to some degree, part of the Classical school). The Classical School wasn’t interested in analyzing individual human action, which is, after all, entirely subjective and in continuous flux. They wanted to analyze the entire system (society) and focus on what they considered to be objective facts and the invariable laws of nature. This is why, at least in my opinion, they employed this top-down approach, where the laws of value and production (objective natural laws) exist at the highest level (society), and where distribution is governed primarily by the varying interests and bargaining power of the three social classes (defined by their roles in production, namely land, labor and capital).
You have to remember that, according to the classicals, the economy produces tangible, material commodities. The marginalists, on the other hand, argued that the economy really produces satisfaction. This was a major theoretical breakthrough; the analysis was flipped upside down (from nature → economy → individual, to individual → economy → nature).
Yes because Marxism is inherently emotional. They are, in their minds, defenders of the proletariat, the masses, and we are the evil exploiters and pillagers, who must ultimately fail in this great historical struggle. Our arguments are nothing but the apologist reactions and self-serving rationalizations of the “capitalist superstructure” designed to keep the exploitive system going. In other words, our arguments are automated responses, dictated by the material forces of production which define our epoch. Here’s Mises:
Marx shifted the focus away from the logical consistency of the arguments towards the intentions and characteristics of those making the arguments, and we still see this today.
Because communism is just an ill-informed critique of capitalism which misapprehends reality and cries out against it.
Esuric, In light of all that you and some of the other users have posted on this subject, do you believe it would be fair to state that the heirs/adherents of Marxist thought are simply being obscurantists? That is, they don’t want to be confused by the facts?