My first two posted
lectures have provoked so many thoughtful comments that I must stop me work on
Lecture Four [Three is ready to post] in order to attempt some sort of
response. Here goes, in no particular
order.
First, let me just
say a heartfelt thank you for the very kind comments. They mean more to me than you might imagine.
Now, to work:
Andrew MacDonald
said: "Found the first lecture very interesting. Mannheim's idea that one
must go back to the origins in order to understand a thought is interesting
(reminiscent of Nietzsche and Foucault). I wonder if we could also say that
along with this backwards movement one must also engage in a horizontal
movement; relating the thought to the context of significance it inhabits at
this particular place and time."
Absolutely.
I hope I conveyed that in my extended Marx example. I chose the story about my childhood because
it struck me as an example people would not immediately think of. Mannheim's own examples of ideological
thinking very often make this "horizontal movement."
Formerly a wage slave said: "Steve Keen made an
argument along the same lines in his "Debunking Economics". That is,
he argued that there are articles in mainstream economics journals that
undermine most of what's taught (at undergraduate levels) as Economics and also
that the same refuted doctrines influence policy. Keen suggests those articles
are either ignored by Economists, or it is assumed that the details of the
math. is someone else's job. In Ha Joon Chang's remarks about Neo-Classical
Economics in his "Economics; a User's Guide" he says something along
the lines that it's not the overwhelming evidence on the side of the theory
which has made Neo-Classical economics dominant."
I think the situation is a bit worse than
this. Only ideological blindness can
explain the fact that professional economists who do indeed know better [as I
argued] nevertheless appeal to arguments they know are inapplicable to justify
policy positions that serve the interests they consciously or unconsciously serve. Some of them are just con artists and frauds,
but the best of them, I believe, are truly in the grip of an ideology they
cannot see for what it is.
As I have several times observed, Freud says
somewhere that if there is one subject one cannot discuss in an analysis,
sooner or later the entire analysis comes to be about that one subject. For economists like Krugman, Marx is that
subject.
2 comments:
Krugman's article on Marx is just awful:
http://www.pkarchive.org/theory/keynes.html
I don't doubt that you are correct so far as the truth goes. I meant to suggest that these two economists writing for the public were pointing to the same sort of problem you're on to, even if they are less robust in their language, even if they do not share all of your views.
But I think Chang's oblique mention of an absence of evidence is closer to you-- a step away from saying what you've said. Elsewhere he does say there are political reasons for the popularity of neo-Classical Economics, and I think that if one allows for a difference of idiom, that is what you are saying. On the other hand, he is not a Marxist, though he finds something of value in Marx. So, he's not going to say exactly what you say.
On a personal note, I should have liked to know what you know about Economics and Marx before I came to be where I am today, teaching English to students of Economics in Central (for some Americans forever "Eastern") Europe. But I've never sat in on a class in Economics, my study of math. stopped too soon, even my advanced undergraduate Logic teacher did not do his job, and I'm trying to learn something outside of my numerous hours of teaching. Your blog (and others) have influenced what I say to my students, but I'm not in a position to say what really needs saying. And I'm lacking the detailed knowledge which would allow me to make things clearer for myself or my students. It's maddening to know that what's in a textbook is crap, and see students nodding their heads at hearing another recitation of the claim that higher wages automatically lead to fewer jobs, or any other of a dozen oft-repeated untruths.
And when I look at local newspapers, or listen to local television, there are the same falsehoods repeated ad nauseam.
There are many days when I tell myself: Well, at least I have health insurance.....
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