SFist thinks we're commiesSo the folks at SFist have decided that we're all commies over here because we think it's okay to tax the rich and provide services for the homeless.
I thought we were all too intelligent in these circles to resort to stupid quips about the "proletariat," and I've posted a response on SFist. But since I've had to have this fight since I was an economics major at Wesleyan way back in the dark ages, I have to make a point here:
The Soviet Union as we knew it in the post-War era was not built by Karl Marx. There were some guys named Lenin and Stalin who built a political system in the name of his economic theories. Neither of them had much use for democracy or freedom. One of them was a savage butcher.
That said, you have to admit that Marx was, and remains, one of the most important economists of the modern era. You can't understand capitalism just by reading Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes. The critique of capital that Marx put forward was brilliant; I never fully understood the role of labor in productivity and the way labor-price theory actually works until I studied Marx. So yeah, he should be on the reading list of anyone who wants to talk intelligently about economics.
I would add Robert Reich's Supercapitalism to Steve's reading list, too; I did an interview with him last week which will be posted on sfbg.com shortly.
The theory of money -- how it's created, what it is, how it effects the economy -- is that stuff of dozens of textbooks and a thousand doctoral theses. But the bottom line is, money today is not a direct measure of labor productivity; it's a far more artifical construct, as Steve points out. Money is created by the federal reserve and by private banks. At times, the government in effect prints more money at the mint to inject it into the economy. In practice, money -- the dollar -- is an internationally traded commodity, and the money supply in the United States is desperately hard to even track,much less manage or control.
Yes, taxes come from labor. But these days, a sane system would tax investment income and speculative income much higher than what we typically think of as labor. And a lot of the economy today is built on investment income and speculation that has nothing to do with productive labor.
Yeah, it's all more complicated than that, but folks: If you can't understand that money doesn't directly equal labor, and that you can use Marx's economic analysis without being a commie .. geez. I thought people in San Francisco were smarter than that.
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Comments (7)
Tim,
I'm going to disagree with you on a few points:
1.) Lenin wasn't as bad as you make him out to be. During his tenure, Russia was at war with itself and with Germany. This being the case, he had to resort to some extreme measures, which -- though not ideal -- were necessary.
2.) Lenin convinced Trotsky (who was originally opposed to the idea) that it was important to establish an independent labor union outside the communist party to stand up for the workers. This would have counteracted the state capitalism and tyranny that would come into to being.
3.) Thus, once Stalin came to power, he made sure that there would be no independent labor union outside (or even inside) the communist party. This was against the wishes of Trotsky and (had he been alive) Lenin.
4.) Don't argue with someone of MattyMatt's I.Q. It would be inhumane.
Posted by expatriate | October 12, 2007 04:21 PM
Okay, I'm not here to defend Lenin, who was, however justified it may have been, an authoritarian, but I get your point. My point is that you can't blame Marx for what became of the Soviet Union under Stalin, Kruschev etc.
Thanks for your insights.
Posted by tim redmond | October 12, 2007 04:35 PM
I like how you go from "money comes from taxes", through "money comes from mints" (by way of STJ), to "it's complicated, read a book," and still have the temerity to call the people who didn't study graduate-level economics "stupid".
I don't think you're a communist. I do think you have authoritarian tendencies, evidenced by your locking the comments section of this blog when people post things you don't like to read.
Posted by Jer | October 12, 2007 06:22 PM
Authoritarian? Wow, that's a new one. I've never been accused of that before. Even my kids don't listen to anything I say.
Posted by tim redmond | October 12, 2007 06:30 PM
It is people who -have- done graduate level study in 'Economics' who tend toward a stupid and cartoonish understanding of how global and local economics actually work; all based almost entirely on fairytale theoretical philosophic drivel and mathematics in graphs and books written by academes, which tell us that selfishness is nirvana; while paying no attention whatsoever to what is actually happening outside of their office and classroom doors.
It is high time for graduate level 'economists' to admit that even liberal implementations of capitalism are a dismal failure, that capitalism is now literally eating the planet alive and threatening to cause the imminent extinction of the human species; likely taking 95% of the other species on the planet down with it.
If people like you Jer, don't wake up, you are going to be complicit in destroying the world...
I would highly recommend, for anyone who wants to understand how economics and money really work; to listen to the 20+ part progressive economics education series at:
http://www.antiscia.com/wizardsofmoney/
Posted by Eric Brooks | October 13, 2007 03:33 PM
Hey Jer -- I'm the, admittedly, slightly authoritarian Web editor here. We don't ever lock the comments part of the blog.
Sometimes, due to traffic or inclusion of links, our spam filter gives the message "waiting for approval" so that it can process your comments.
We would never lock any voices out of debate, unless they were trying to enlarge your penis or threatening you with criminal activity ...
Posted by Marke B. | October 13, 2007 04:16 PM
As I understand it, current majority economic opinion is that money is created via interest rates and has nothing to do with productivity, using a system called 'partial reserves' and a 'multiplier effect' that goes several layers deep. Did you see on 60 minutes last night that Americans work more hours than anyone else in the world but our productivity is way below countries like France, a so-called 'socialist' economy where people work less, have more vacations and benefits including health care?
Posted by antennaz | October 15, 2007 01:08 PM