Archives for August 2015

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August 30, 2015 by Admin Leave a Comment

Joseph A. Schumpeter: Can Capitalism Survive?

August 30, 2015 by Admin Leave a Comment

“Can capitalism survive? No. I do not think it can.” So begins Joseph Schumpeter’s classic essay, Can Capitalism Survive?, which constitutes the middle third of his 1942 book, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. Schumpeter goes on to say, The thesis I shall endeavor to establish is that the actual and prospective performance of the capitalist system […]

Why Historical Materialism?

August 28, 2015 by Admin Leave a Comment

Historical Materialism is a Marxist proposition that offers a “methodological approach to the study of human societies and their development over time”1. It holds, among other things, that historical change is driven by contradictions within the mode of production between the means of production and the relations of production, and that the overall nature of […]

Historical Materialism – Insight From 1859

August 27, 2015 by Admin Leave a Comment

Frederick Engels, speaking at Marx’s funeral, cited the proposition of historical materialism as the greatest of Marx’s achievements, along with the discovery of surplus value, and the capitalist system’s “laws of motion.” It is staggering to think that this excerpt, from the preface of A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, was written in 1859. […]

The growing perception that existing social institutions are unreasonable and unjust, that reason has become unreason, and right wrong, is only proof that in the modes of production and exchange changes have silently taken place with which the social order, adapted to earlier economic conditions, is no longer in keeping -

Friedrich Engels, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific

Modern bourgeois society, with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the netherworld whom he has called up by his spells.

-Marx and Engels

Man today is confronted with the most fundamental choice; not that between Capitalism and Communism, but that between robotism (of both the capitalist and communist variety), or Humanistic Communitarian Socialism. Most facts seem to indicate that he is choosing robotism, and that means, in the long run, insanity and destruction. But all these facts are not strong enough to destroy faith in man's reason, good will, and sanity. As long as we can think of other alternatives, we are not lost; as long as we can consult together and plan together, we can hope. But, indeed, the shadows are lengthening; the voices of insanity are becoming louder. We are in reach of achieving a state of humanity which corresponds to the vision of our great teachers; yet we are in danger of the destruction of all civilization, or of robotization.

- Erich Fromm, The Sane Society (1955)

In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness... It is not the consciousness of men that determines their social being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.

- Karl Marx

The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist....Soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.

- John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money