A Marxist is understood as a follower of Marx’s political thought or later variants of it. A Marxian, however, could refer to anyone substantially influenced by Marx, but not necessarily a “Marxist” strictly speaking. One loses credibility by inaccurately labeling people as “Marxists” with reckless disregard for what that word specifically means. However, it’s not out of line to label an establishment social-democrat a “Marxian” if you are prepared to make the following point — that they subscribe to the same particular key error that Marx made in economics. That error is the supposition that oppressive capitalism, best understood as state driven monopolization of capital, derives from market exchange rather than state granted privilege, forcible transfer of wealth by the state and assorted other statist market distortions.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Blog of the Moment: Brad Spangler
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"Religion is the sigh of the hard-pressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, the spirit of unspiritual conditions. It is the opium of the people. .. . It is the imaginary realisation of the human essence, necessary because the human essence has not true reality." - Karl Marx, Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law
ReplyDeleteThere is not now, nor has there ever been, any such thing as a "free market", therefore, the supposition that somehow a free market will lead to "freedom" is just that, a supposition. It is so apparent what an unregulated "free market" will lead to that the founding fathers of the USofA charged the national government with but two responsibilities: national defense, and anti-trust. (Although we really didn't get around to anti-trust until Taft-Hartley)(That fact alone says volumes about wealth and power.) They recognized that a level playing field was essential to any kind of freedom for the population.
ReplyDeleteIt is important to note that Karl Marx wrote his manifesto in the depths of one of the most crushing economic depressions in history. People were starving in the streets as they struggled to shed themselves of the crushing oppression of the dregs of monarchy. He himself was sore depressed by the discovery of gold in California and stated that it would set back the proletariat revolution by 100 years because suddenly the hopeless had hope of a brighter future. They could go to California and strike it rich. As it turns out, he was off the mark by 100 years.
This issue is NOT black and white. The answer is somewhere in the gray.