... what do you think?

It has been about two or so months since Paul and I have started debating and I wanted to know, firstly, who else is reading these posts and more importantly, what you all think of these ideas, as well. I feel that your comments to this particular post about previously mentioned concepts could help steer future our postings. Thanks!

political economy

If you were to accept this definition of economics as “the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services,” then hopefully you would recognize that this study cannot be ideology. I think this is important to point out because some people (like Paul) would try to paint a picture of systematic natural economic liberty where the “free market” is “self-regulating.” This classical liberalism treats market-based system as the highest form of economic exchange. However, after looking at the historical record and archeological evidence, folks may recognize something important about humans as opposed to other animals. First and foremost, we distinguished ourselves from the rest of the world’s inhabitants when we began producing our means of subsistence. In other words, through technology whether it is a stone tool or the steam engine, humans have been able to manipulate their environment thus determining their social organization.

Because the influence of political and economic institutions is interrelated and interdependent, a study of economics cannot be divorced from a study of political decisions and actions. However, the two academic disciplines of political science and economics are separated and sanitized (where the later characterization of economics comes after years of personally studying the right-wing, ahistorical, and pseudo-scientific justifications for mass exploitation with charts and graphs).

So just as feudalism ended, there is the potential for capitalism to end as well. And though class struggle and direct democracy, the world will be rid of exploitation and misery as people rationally plan to utilize the world’s resources sustainably.

Economics and The Free Market

Economics
"The most common misunderstanding about economics is that it is only about money and commerce...economics concerns everyone and everything." [1] Economics is not just a countries GDP, imports and exports; not just about making monetary profit and avoiding loss. It is about individuals, their interaction which each others and their environment. Ironically, although the economy can be studied, it cannot, with any degree of certainty and consistency, be controlled without relinquishing the liberty of individuals.

The Free Market
I am reluctant to use the term Capitalism, not necessarily because it carries negative attributes, but it does not accurately portray a Free Market. However, the terms are typically synonymous with one antother. "The free market is a summary term for an array of exchanges that take place in society. Each exchange is undertaken as a voluntary agreement between two people or between groups of people represented by agents. These two individuals (or agents) exchange two economic goods, either tangible commodities or non-tangible services." [2] A Free Market allows for free exchange and free entry, not to mention free exit.

Although there appear semblances of a Free Market in today's economy, there exists a ranging degree of control from central planners, ie politicians and government officials. Coercive and aggressive restrictions, regulations, and mandates, inhibit not not individuals, but firms from free exchange and free entry in the market. We live in a mixed economy, where many industries are more centrally controlled than others, yet where a free market attempts to thrive. The less restrictions, regulations, and mandates on a market, the better off a market will be able to self manage and self correct.

[1] Rockwell, Lew, The Free Market, Vol. 24, No. 1, January 2006
[2] Rothbard, Murry, The Free Market, Vol. 24, No. 1, January 2006

... more on historical materialism

As I mentioned within a comment to the last post of mine titled "Philosophers have merely interpreted the world," stated Marx long ago. "The point, however, is to change it," Paul Siegel's The Meek & the Militant and John Bellamy Foster's Marx's Ecology both informed my understanding of Marx's dialectical/historical materialism.

Foster indicates that "in developing historical materialism [Marx] tended to deal with nature only to the extent to which it was brought within human history, since nature untouched by human history was more and more difficult to find. The strength of his analysis in this regard lay in its emphasis on the quality of the interaction between humanity and nature, or what he was eventually to call the "metabolism" of humanity with nature: through production" (114). Foster later cites from Marx and Engels' Collected Works that humans "themselves begin to produce their means of subsistence, a step which is conditioned by their physical organization. By producing their means of subsistence [humans] are indirectly producing their material life" (7-8).

And as Siegel outlined after explaining the particular materialism of Feuerbach, "the older non-dialectical materialism did not see the historical process in which people collectively seek to answer social questions only when these questions are thrust upon them. In this historical process human activity is both the product of social development and a cause of social development. In transforming its social environment, humanity transforms itself, buts its transformation of society is limited by historical conditions, in the first place the level and power of the productive forces" (61). As Paul D'Amato indicates in the Meaning of Marxism, "the transformation from one mode of production to another was not smooth or automatic. Each ruling class would at first act to lead society forward, then as their rule progressed, would act to prevent any changes to the system from which they benefited" (35). Lastly, as I've indicated earlier within this blog, the working class, on the other hand, is in a unique historical position to liberate humanity from the exploitation, oppression, and misery created by the constraints of class society, particularly those consolidated under a market-based economic system.

Idealism: Ideas NOT Ideals

Idealism is a confusing term. It has two (perhaps more) meanings. But let's just settle in on the ubiquitous meanings. Many times, individuals may jump between the two meanings and not even realize it. One meaning invokes ideals, a conception of perfection. This meaning seeks the perfection, and that perfection is obtainable. The other meaning deals with ideas, that is, knowledge dependent on the activity of the mind. The mind, namely the human mind plays a central role. Praxeology does not deal with ideals, but rather requires ideas. Praxeology does not investigate perfection, per se, but instead examines the actions emergent from the human mind. Rene Descartes summed it up well, "Cogito, ergo sum" (Latin for "I think, therefore I am").