Socialdem. 21st Century

The German economist Wilhelm Lexis (1837–1914) mentions it, quite casually, as a matter of fact in an article in 1895: “Under normal conditions, reductions of wages are in our time almost impossible. Even under the worst conditions, capitalists in many cases prefer to endure a diminution of their profits rather than enter upon a struggle with their organized laborers. How many corporations maintain wages unchanged, even though the stockholders – i.e., the capitalists – get no dividends?”...

It follows clearly if you accept the interpretation of Marx’s law of value (as he expressed it in volume 1 of Capital) by Engels in his “Supplement and Addendum” to Volume 3 of Capital (see my discussion of it here).According to this interpretation, the view that labour values are anchors for individual prices and that prices tend to correspond to labour values can only be held to be true for the pre-modern modern of commodity exchange before about the 15th century. This law of value ceases...

... will this, admittedly amongst other issues, have a great deal to do with it?The situation in Calais is extraordinary: it is now being described as a “war zone.”This is the European Union today: its policies have caused a breakdown in law and order so bad that many ordinary working people driving trucks between England and France can’t do their jobs properly and fear for their lives.The documentary below illustrates this, although it fails to ask the tough question: how many are just...

This is made at the end of volume 1 of Capital in the “Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation” chapter: “ As soon as this process of [sc. capitalist] transformation has sufficiently decomposed the old society from, top to bottom, as soon as the labourers are turned into proletarians, their means of labour into capital, as soon as the capitalist mode of production stands on its own feet, then the further socialisation of labour and further transformation of the land and other means of...

An interesting analysis of current EU politics by Peter Hitchens with reference to Germany and Russia, with some good historical background. It is interesting because some of his thoughts line up with what people on the left have also argued on, for example, the Ukraine, and the absurdity of the “new” Cold war that has been ratcheted up with Russia.[embedded content]

In 6 seconds.[embedded content]Keep up the good work, Noam.

I am surprised how few people understand them: (1) as I have carefully documented here, the final view of Engels, on the basis of his edited version of volume 3 of Capital and the remarks of Marx there, was that the law of value in volume 1 of Capital could only be applied as an empirical theory to the pre-modern world of commodity exchange before about the 15th century (Marx 1991: 1038).(2) this means that the law of value in volume 1 – that commodities tend to exchange at their pure labour...

That is, Christopher Hitchens versus Peter Hitchens.[embedded content]Christopher Hitchens never knew that much about economics, apart from a shallow Marxist perspective, and he shows this ignorance here very well. He asked whether Ireland lost its economic independence by adopting the Euro – only a few short years before Ireland’s membership of the Eurozone utterly destroyed that country’s economic sovereignty in the aftermath of the global recession of 2008–2009, which for Ireland turned...

I cannot stress enough how important this issue is for clarifying and refuting Marx’s economic theory. Though I have said much of what is below before, it bears repeating with some new observations.In essence, Marx published volume 1 of Capital in German in 1867, but only volume 1 of Capital was published in Marx’s lifetime. The other volumes were edited and published by Engels (for an extended discussion of this, see here). For some reason, Marx refused to publish volumes 2 and 3.In volume...

Chomsky savages another outrageous idea of the Postmodernist left: “ … the entire idea of ‘white male science’ reminds me, I’m afraid, of ‘Jewish physics.’ Perhaps it is another inadequacy of mine, but when I read a scientific paper, I can’t tell whether the author is white or is male. The same is true of discussion of work in class, the office, or somewhere else. I rather doubt that the non-white, non-male students, friends, and colleagues with whom I work would be much impressed with the...