# Masters of Money: Keynes, Hayek & Marx



## magneze (Sep 17, 2012)

Interesting sounding 3 part series covering the work of Keynes, Hayek & Marx starts tonight on BBC2 @ 9pm.


> In Masters of Money, produced in partnership with the Open University, BBC economics editor Stephanie Flanders examines how three extraordinary thinkers, Keynes, Hayek and Marx, helped shape the 20th century and continue to exert a huge influence on our world today.
> 
> Stephanie begins by looking at John Maynard Keynes. Many argue only Winston Churchill had a greater impact on British life than Keynes over the last century. Even today his ideas remain crucial to one of the most important debates of our time: how can we escape from the economic crisis? Should governments borrow and spend their way out of trouble or slash spending and reduce the national debt?
> With contributions from some of the world's leading economic thinkers including a Nobel laureate and the governor of the Bank of England, Stephanie Flanders argues Keynes has never been more relevant or controversial than now.
> During his life, Keynes was credited with, amongst other things, helping to save capitalism from the Great Depression, funding the war against the Nazis and building post-war decades of growth and rising prosperity. And when the global crisis struck in 2008, it was his ideas that the world's leaders turned to to help avoid another depression.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01mxpzv


----------



## butchersapron (Sep 17, 2012)

Sounds hideous on so many levels. Firstly, that utterly cliched approach outlined above that brings nothing new to the table, something that ana level student or any bog standard middle brow account would spew out, and all buttressed by wait for it... Nobel laureates!

Stephanie Flanders on Marx


----------



## Hocus Eye. (Sep 17, 2012)

> And when the global crisis struck in 2008, it was his (Keynes) ideas that the world's leaders turned to to help avoid another depression.


No it wasn't, they all turned back to Hayek, Friedman, and Adam Smith, to say nothing of the Chicago School and other neo-liberal economics gurus. That is why we are in the excrement so deeply.


----------



## butchersapron (Sep 17, 2012)

I wonder if privately schooled and Oxbridge educated Stephanie will mention, when she does talk of the crisis, her own role in providing the intellectual basis and political justification for Lawrence Summers to repeal the Glass–Steagall Act thereby opening the world economy up to a whole new round of financial deregulation and the mess that we are now in?


----------



## articul8 (Sep 17, 2012)

might have been interesting if Mason had done it (and scripted it himself)


----------



## butchersapron (Sep 17, 2012)

Note, this is being done with the open university business school:



> We are transforming management thinking. We have removed the boundaries between the academic and working world with our pioneering and practice-based approach; what is taught one day can be put into action the next, what is learnt is embedded in practice. Our research and teaching truly challenge the way professionals and organisations work and learn around the world: we learn from professionals while professionals learn from us.


----------



## butchersapron (Sep 17, 2012)

articul8 said:


> might have been interesting if Mason had done it (and scripted it himself)


A genuinely open history of economic thought would be interesting. But it won't be the BBC who make it.


----------



## articul8 (Sep 17, 2012)

Channel 4 might have done in the 80s - some of its content then was massively better than half the drivel around now.


----------



## Brainaddict (Sep 17, 2012)

> And when the global crisis struck in 2008, it was [Keynes] ideas that the world's leaders turned to to help avoid another depression.


What on earth does this refer to? The UK and the EU have done everything they could to prevent keynesian stimulus even being discussed as an option. The US did some _very_ weak stimulus stuff that had results as half-arsed as you would expect from a half-arsed attempt. If this really is what the program says then it is not telling the truth - which is either really shit research or outright lying. With what purpose?


----------



## Hocus Eye. (Sep 17, 2012)

Exactly


----------



## articul8 (Sep 17, 2012)

well, I guess they mean there was massive state intervention required to stop the banking system from going under.


----------



## Hocus Eye. (Sep 17, 2012)

articul8 said:


> well, I guess they mean there was massive state intervention required to stop the banking system from going under.


The effect and intention of that was purely to rescue the banks from their folly. It wasn't meant to stimulate the non casino part of the economy. The original model for this was the American New Deal. That money went to farmers not bankers.


----------



## butchersapron (Sep 17, 2012)

Hocus Eye. said:


> The effect and intention of that was purely to rescue the banks from their folly. It wasn't meant to stimulate the non casino part of the economy. The original model for this was the American New Deal. That money went to farmers not bankers.


It went to both. And keeping the credit and savings system afloat through state intervention is Keynesianism.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Sep 17, 2012)

Brainaddict said:


> What on earth does this refer to? The UK and the EU have done everything they could to prevent keynesian stimulus even being discussed as an option. The US did some _very_ weak stimulus stuff that had results as half-arsed as you would expect from a half-arsed attempt. If this really is what the program says then it is not telling the truth - which is either really shit research or outright lying. With what purpose?


Well that blurb does say that Keynes was credited during his lifetime with the post-war economic boom. Which was clever of whoever credited him, given that he died in 1946. The programme _may_ be a bit better than the notes.


----------



## Brainaddict (Sep 17, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Well that blurb does say that Keynes was credited during his lifetime with the post-war economic boom. Which was clever of whoever credited him, given that he died in 1946. The programme _may_ be a bit better than the notes.


Let's hope.


----------



## Idris2002 (Sep 17, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> Sounds hideous on so many levels. Firstly, that utterly cliched approach outlined above that brings nothing new to the table, something that ana level student or any bog standard middle brow account would spew out, and all buttressed by wait for it... Nobel laureates!
> 
> Stephanie Flanders on Marx


 
This is one of my pet peeves. *THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A "NOBEL PRIZE FOR ECONOMICS". *There is a bogus prize for economics in honour of Alfred Nobel, sponsored by a Swedish bank, but it has nothing to do with the dynamite manufacturer's original six prizes.

In my (admittedly cynical) opinion, the deliberate confusion over this issue has had the effect of conferring on mainstream economics a credibility it does not deserve - i.e., it implies that the truth-claims of mainstream economics have the same validity as those of the natural sciences. This obscures the fact that no social science (economics included) can have the same degree of precision as that enjoyed by the natural sciences.

So the next time you hear someone (like Krugman, who endorsed Enron - really) described as a "Nobel laureate in economics", take it with a pinch of sodium.


----------



## butchersapron (Sep 17, 2012)

What do you mean there's no such thing as a nobel prize for religion?


----------



## Hocus Eye. (Sep 17, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Well that blurb does say that Keynes was credited during his lifetime with the post-war economic boom. Which was clever of whoever credited him, given that he died in 1946. The programme _may_ be a bit better than the notes.


1946 was the beginning of the Post War period. When Keynes died, they didn't burn his books. His ideas continued to be the basis of political economics right up until the mid '70s.

Incidentally In my earlier posts I was not suggesting that Keynes was anything other than a supporter of Capilalism. Revolutionaries should probably hate him for saving the capitalist system at a time of a major crisis.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Sep 17, 2012)

Hocus Eye. said:


> 1946 was the beginning of the Post War period. When Keynes died, they didn't burn his books. His ideas continued to be the basis of political economics right up until the mid '70s.


 
Yes, I know. But that's not what the blurb says. They weren't booming already by 1946. Anyway, it's the least of the thing's problems.

Personally, it annoys me that Hayek is given the dignity of a place in such programmes. His ideas are so full of holes that he really shouldn't be taken seriously by anybody.


----------



## Hocus Eye. (Sep 17, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yes, I know. But that's not what the blurb says. They weren't booming already by 1946. Anyway, it's the least of the thing's problems.
> 
> Personally, it annoys me that Hayek is given the dignity of a place in such programmes. His ideas are so full of holes that he really shouldn't be taken seriously by anybody.


Hayek is important because his book Roads to Serfdom influenced Thatcher making her subsequently open to the direct influence of Sir Keith Joseph who was really just a jumped up accountant. Hayek was a big political influence on the people who had control of economics.


----------



## butchersapron (Sep 17, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yes, I know. But that's not what the blurb says. They weren't booming already by 1946. Anyway, it's the least of the thing's problems.
> 
> Personally, it annoys me that Hayek is given the dignity of a place in such programmes. His ideas are so full of holes that he really shouldn't be taken seriously by anybody.


 
They're looking at their influence - which for Hayek, is vast.


----------



## butchersapron (Sep 17, 2012)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yes, I know. But that's not what the blurb says. They weren't booming already by 1946. Anyway, it's the least of the thing's problems.
> 
> Personally, it annoys me that Hayek is given the dignity of a place in such programmes. His ideas are so full of holes that he really shouldn't be taken seriously by anybody.


Personally it annoys me that Marx must suffer the indignity of a BBC flanders.


----------



## Idris2002 (Sep 17, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> Personally it annoys me that Marx must suffer the indignity of a BBC flanders.


 
In Flanders field the poppies grow.


----------



## butchersapron (Sep 17, 2012)

In Flanders field _the enormous condescension of posterity_ grows.


----------



## articul8 (Sep 17, 2012)

Idris2002 said:


> In Flanders field the poppies grow.


 
wouldn't be the only presenter on the Class A's.


----------



## Idris2002 (Sep 17, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> In Flanders field _the enormous condescension of posterity_ grows.


 
Genuine LOL. Full marks for you.


----------



## Idris2002 (Sep 17, 2012)

articul8 said:


> wouldn't be the only presenter on the Class A's.


 
Your effort was . . . OK.


----------



## articul8 (Sep 17, 2012)

stewards inquiry


----------



## Idris2002 (Sep 17, 2012)

articul8 said:


> stewards inquiry


 
Swift and fiery.


----------



## articul8 (Sep 18, 2012)

well...?  Was it as bad as predicted (I didn't watch)?


----------



## revol68 (Sep 18, 2012)

half way through and it's pretty shit, the presenter is well annoying.


----------



## Firky (Sep 18, 2012)

I watched this in the early hours of this morning. It was a bit shit.

Hayek is like gravity, you don't really notice it until you look for it. 

One of my first logins for this board was called Hayek


----------



## youngian (Sep 19, 2012)

This programme wasn't aimed at propellerheads and there is probably a lot of people out there who constantly hear the word Keynsian banded about but not sure what it means. But that doesn't excuse its faults.

The early biographical detail and his opposition to the Versailles Treaty terms was well done but it became much more sketchy. Flanders mentioned a few times Keynes's belief in international institutionalism without going into detail of how the international trading system broke down in the 1930s, despite regimes as diverse as Mussolini, Hitler and Rooselvelt experiemneting with deficit spending, or what little about what Bretton Woods actually acheived beyond a mention of currency stability agreements.

Glad she reminded the audience that economics is as much an art as a creative science, as practioners, along with city business people like to sit on Newsnight trying to kid us they are Prof. Brian Cox with their ephemeral predictions.


----------



## magneze (Sep 20, 2012)

It was ok - about what you could expect from an hour overview I guess.


----------



## revol68 (Sep 21, 2012)

The worst thing was how she kept talking about the bank bailout and qe as keynsian policies like the hoover dam and public works, the distinction on where the money was injected seemed to not matter to her.


----------



## magneze (Sep 21, 2012)

Did she mention the bank bailout as Keynesian? Not that I can remember.


----------



## revol68 (Sep 21, 2012)

Yeah she did.


----------



## 8115 (Sep 21, 2012)

I'm halfway through this and really enjoying it.


----------



## Firky (Sep 24, 2012)

Anyone watch the Hayek one, is it worth watching?


----------



## magneze (Sep 25, 2012)

I watched it and found it interesting, especially as of the three he's the one I knew least about.


----------



## nino_savatte (Sep 25, 2012)

I reckon the reason the Tories are so attracted to Hayek is because he rationalises a form of social Darwinism.


----------



## Idaho (Sep 25, 2012)

I thought it was a bit undercritical.

"The Tories followed the ideas of Hayek and rolled back the frontiers of the state"

...well they said they would, and they made it a big part of their rhetoric. But actually state spending and government intervention increased massively under Thatcher.


----------



## revol68 (Sep 25, 2012)

Both episodes so far have been lightweight crap and little in the way of critical engagement, though somehow I expect the Marx one to be a tad more critical, though no less superficial.

If they spent more time and money on things like graphs and statistics and investigating basic assumptions instead of having that tit of a presenter driving rally cars it would have been better.


----------



## youngian (Sep 25, 2012)

I would of thought the sound money principles of the post-war Bundesbank and the arguments about how the ECB should operate would be of ore relevance to the Hayek programme than interviews with kooky US fringe politicians like Ron Paul.

Still not sure what the guy arrested for producing his own coins had actually done wrong, he wasn't printing US Dollars just a commodity to be exchanged for US Dollars.


----------



## Firky (Sep 25, 2012)

She's not even attractive like the filth boffin Dr Alice Roberts


----------



## toblerone3 (Sep 26, 2012)

Just watched the Hayek programme. One of the talking heads mentioned that there was a period of 19th century America where there were lots of competing bank currencies but that it led to a lot crashes and very unfree situation for the poor.  

Would have welcomed more details on this and if Hayek had a response to this very obvious criticism of his ideas.  The way it was presented made it seem he criticised macro economic management without explaining the problems which macro economic management were introduced to deal with.


----------



## JimW (Sep 26, 2012)

Watched the Keynes one just; see the BBC could give a platform to some far-right loon from the Institute of Economic Affairs and the thief David Laws but not a sniff of a common-sense class analysis  Doesn't bode well for the Marx programme.


----------



## revol68 (Oct 2, 2012)

half way through the marx one, pretty much shit, they're reducing him to a guy with vital insights into capitalism who is of more relevance to bankers and traders than the working class. no mention of surplus value, just that capitalists pay workers less than they make in profit. Presenter is as smug and annoying as ever, actually more so.


----------



## revol68 (Oct 2, 2012)

christ she's just described owning a mobile phone as having a stake in capitalism, just after talking about workers owning shares, as if they are equivalent and how many workers do own shares, none that I know other than some tesco workers. No figures given or mention that they can't live off them. But anyway a mobile phone is a stake, christ on a bike.

Jesus, former editor of Marxism Today on to shore up the idea of there being no alternative to capitalism. Meanwhile Peter Hitchens describes talk of getting rid of capitalism with getting rid of the weather.


----------



## revol68 (Oct 2, 2012)

Such a piece of shit program, I'll never get to sleep anytime soon now.


----------



## lefteri (Oct 2, 2012)

Idris2002 said:


> So the next time you hear someone (like Krugman, who endorsed Enron - really) described as a "Nobel laureate in economics", take it with a pinch of sodium.


 
your lack of precision here leads me to believe you're a social scientist*




*please take this post with a pinch of sodium chloride


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 2, 2012)

lefteri said:


> your lack of precision here leads me to believe you're a social scientist*
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
I am intrigued by your ideas and interested in subscribing to your newsletter.


----------



## Idaho (Oct 2, 2012)

I thought the marx one was a little better than the others. Not really sure what Hitchens was doing on the programme.


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 2, 2012)

Idaho said:


> I thought the marx one was a little better than the others. Not really sure what Hitchens was doing on the programme.


 
They probably thought they were getting Christopher Hitchens.


----------



## Random (Oct 2, 2012)

Idris2002 said:


> So the next time you hear someone (like Krugman, who endorsed Enron - really) described as a "Nobel laureate in economics", take it with a pinch of sodium.


  I've told you this before. The Economics Prize is recognised as being of the same standing as the others, by the Nobel Foundation, and the prize holders are referred by the Foundation as laureates: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/

It is indeed true that it was never endorsed personally by a guilt-ridden arms dealer, but that's it.


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 2, 2012)

Random said:


> I've told you this before. The Economics Prize is recognised as being of the same standing as the others, by the Nobel Foundation, and the prize holders are referred by the Foundation as laureates: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/
> 
> It is indeed true that it was never endorsed personally by a guilt-ridden arms dealer, but that's it.


 
How dare you blunt my spleen with your facts and logic. The point remains that the so-called Nobel for economics does confer on that discipline a status which it does not deserve and to which it should not pretend.


----------



## fredfelt (Oct 2, 2012)

firky said:


> She's not even attractive like the filth boffin Dr Alice Roberts


Filth.  Tsk tsk http://woodystellycaps.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/dr-alice-roberts-dont-die-yoFiltung-again.html


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 2, 2012)

Idaho said:


> I thought the marx one was a little better than the others. Not really sure what Hitchens was doing on the programme.


In what way was it better than the others do you think? If revol's summary is even half accurate it sounds appalling, and if you thought this was the best one, then that's not filling me with hope for the first two.


----------



## Athos (Oct 2, 2012)

Notwithstanding the points Revol made, I didn't think it was as bad as it might have been.

I guess it wasn't meant for an audience already au fait with Marx's ideas. And getting any significant proportion of his theories across in less than an hour is a tough job. After all, it takes Harvey an hour per chapter of Capital, and that's on the basis that you've read the chapter first!

My biggest criticism was it failed to consider the future of Marx's ideas, or any significant contemporary marxist thought in any depth.  And that it gave the impression that marxism and the soviet union were one and the same.


----------



## lefteri (Oct 2, 2012)

now we're on the subject the peace prize is a bit woolly and unscientific too

laureate has to be up there with professional and award-winning in the top ten on the meaningless chart


----------



## Quartz (Oct 2, 2012)

Idaho said:


> But actually state spending and government intervention increased massively under Thatcher.


 
How could it not, with 3M people on unemployment benefit? Plus all those they fiddled off the books.


----------



## Idaho (Oct 2, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> In what way was it better than the others do you think? If revol's summary is even half accurate it sounds appalling, and if you thought this was the best one, then that's not filling me with hope for the first two.


It was a better put together episode. There was more controversy and disagreementbetween the talking heads.


----------



## youngian (Oct 2, 2012)

revol68 said:


> christ she's just described owning a mobile phone as having a stake in capitalism, just after talking about workers owning shares, as if they are equivalent and how many workers do own shares, none that I know other than some tesco workers.


 
She was harping back to the Thatcherite cliche of the modern property, share owning worker who is light years away from the outdated impoverished cloth capped Marxist stereotype.
In fact there is nothing new about this and Marx and Engels wrote extensively about the aristocracy of labour which with the prominence of craftsmen guilds in the Victorian era was probably a more prominent trend then it is now among an increasingly deskilled working class.


----------



## Lo Siento. (Oct 2, 2012)

revol68 said:


> Jesus, former editor of Marxism Today on to shore up the idea of there being no alternative to capitalism. Meanwhile Peter Hitchens describes talk of getting rid of capitalism with getting rid of the weather.


 
I thought they were the best bit. Showed up the massive, idiotic complacency of these tossers. Imagine being thick enough to look at the past 200 or so years of human history, and thinking about the massive transformation that's going to take place in terms of the environment, population, production, distribution and consumption over the coming century, then saying "nah, this is it, end of history".


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 2, 2012)

youngian said:


> She was harping back to the Thatcherite cliche of the modern property, share owning worker who is light years away from the outdated impoverished cloth capped Marxist stereotype.
> In fact there is nothing new about this and Marx and Engels wrote extensively about the aristocracy of labour which with the prominence of craftsmen guilds in the Victorian era was probably a more prominent trend then it is now among an increasingly deskilled working class.


Marx and Engels really didn't write extensively about it - and what littke they have has been contested. The concept really came about with the failures (as they saw it) of the working class to vote for the social democratic parties in the period of the second international and the growth of mass democracy and was used to explain the phenomenon of working class tories, working class supporters of empire and so on  - and it was the popes of marxism (Kautsky etc) who brought it to life after marx. May look like a pedantic point but it does relate directly to how different material conditions produce different analysis - the condition that produced that analysis are now pretty definitively gone (as you suggest) so to see Flanders trying to re-introduce it but on the mass level is rather revealing.


----------



## Idaho (Oct 2, 2012)

The labour aristocracy arguement was one of a long series of post-Marx reasons dished out as to why the rapture revolution hadn't/hasn't happened yet.

The talking heads suggesting the inevitably and eternal nature of capitalism was pretty funny. But then we are a species that was poking animals with pointy sticks and living under mammoth hides a few thousand years ago.


----------



## articul8 (Oct 4, 2012)

To be fair, Martin Jacques doesn't say capitalism will last for ever - quite the opposite.  But he does say that it's hard to envisage an end to capitalism for the foreseeable future.  Which doesn't seem awfully controversial. 

He's not gone over to the camp of Nigel Lawson, Madsen Pirie and Peter Hitchens


----------



## revol68 (Oct 4, 2012)

articul8 said:


> To be fair, Martin Jacques doesn't say capitalism will last for ever - quite the opposite. But he does say that it's hard to envisage an end to capitalism for the foreseeable future. Which doesn't seem awfully controversial.
> 
> He's not gone over to the camp of Nigel Lawson, Madsen Pirie and Peter Hitchens


 
In the context of the show, the foreseeable future means he can't see any alternative and only mentalists can. The fact he adds "nothing is forever" is neither nor there.


----------



## articul8 (Oct 4, 2012)

I don't think so - I think he was just saying capitalism might be in crisis but it's not as though an alternative economic system is really threatening to take its place.


----------



## revol68 (Oct 4, 2012)

articul8 said:


> I don't think so - I think he was just saying capitalism might be in crisis but it's not as though an alternative economic system is really threatening to take its place.


 
Jesus, you really are naive.


----------



## articul8 (Oct 4, 2012)

It reminds me of that quote from Fredric Jameson - it's now easier to imagine the catastrophic end of human life on earth than it is to imagine a different order of social relations.  This is not to say he's arguing socialism is impossible, far from it.


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 4, 2012)

That was Zizek.

edit: actually i appear to be talking about him mangling a FJ quote.


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 4, 2012)

articul8 said:


> It reminds me of that quote from Fredric Jameson - it's now easier to imagine the catastrophic end of human life on earth than it is to imagine a different order of social relations. This is not to say he's arguing socialism is impossible, far from it.


How far from it - given his past record? I take it you've now moved out of he industrial unrest of the 70s and are now going to spend the next 6 months dropping 'new times' shit on us as  your lastest vote and join labour initiative?


----------



## revol68 (Oct 4, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> That was Zizek.


 
I hate to defend articul8 but Zizek nicks it from Jameson.


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 4, 2012)

revol68 said:


> I hate to defend articul8 but Zizek nicks it from Jameson.


Yep see, edited above already when i checked. I _think_ it was that short Mark Fisher book that says it was zizek that made me think it was his.


----------



## revol68 (Oct 4, 2012)

articul8 said:


> It reminds me of that quote from Fredric Jameson - it's now easier to imagine the catastrophic end of human life on earth than it is to imagine a different order of social relations. This is not to say he's arguing socialism is impossible, far from it.


 
In the context of the program I think it's obvious he wasn't making a point anything like Jameson and I find it remarkable that you could be so naive in your reading.


----------



## love detective (Oct 4, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> Yep see, edited above already when i checked. I _think_ it was that short Mark Fisher book that says it was zizek that made me think it was his.


 
Capitalist Realism attributes it to both Jameson and Zizek!


----------



## revol68 (Oct 4, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> Yep see, edited above already when i checked. I _think_ it was that short Mark Fisher book that says it was zizek that made me think it was his.


 
Zizek certainly popularised it. What'd you think of the Fisher book? I really liked it, was like a non poncy primer for half decent cultural marxism, loved the bit about Heat and The Godfather (or was it Goodfellas).


----------



## revol68 (Oct 4, 2012)

love detective said:


> Capitalist Realism attributes it to both Jameson and Zizek!


 
Jesus, times are hard when even Marxist academics have to take up co-ownership.


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 4, 2012)

revol68 said:


> Zizek certainly popularised it. What'd you think of the Fisher book? I really liked it, was like a non poncy primer for half decent cultural marxism, loved the bit about Heat and The Godfather (or was it Goodfellas).


I thought it was a good read - enjoyed the moaning about his students.


----------



## revol68 (Oct 4, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> I thought it was a good read - enjoyed the moaning about his students.


 
My mate who is a teacher thought that bit rang very true.


----------



## articul8 (Oct 4, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> How far from it - given his past record? I take it you've now moved out of he industrial unrest of the 70s and are now going to spend the next 6 months dropping 'new times' shit on us as your lastest vote and join labour initiative?


I meant Jameson was "far from it" - don't know about where Jacques stands now, but he didn't say that capitalism was here to stay in the long run.


----------



## revol68 (Oct 4, 2012)

articul8 said:


> I meant Jameson was "far from it" - don't know about where Jacques stands now, but he didn't say that capitalism was here to stay in the long run.


 
You were talking about Jacques.


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 4, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> I thought it was a good read - enjoyed the moaning about his students.





revol68 said:


> My mate who is a teacher thought that bit rang very true.


 
What does he say about his students?


----------



## revol68 (Oct 4, 2012)

Idris2002 said:


> What does he say about his students?


 


> Ask students to read for more than a couple of sentences and many - and these are A-level students mind you - will protest
> that they can't do it. The most frequent complaint teachers hear is that it's boring. It is not so much the content of the written Material that is at issue here; it is the act of reading itself that is deemed to be 'boring'. What we are facing here is not just time-honored teenage torpor, but the mismatch between a post-literate 'New Flesh' that is 'too wired to concentrate' and the confining, concentrational logics of decaying disciplinary systems. To be bored simply means to be removed from the communicative sensation-stimulus matrix of texting, YouTube and fast food; to be denied, for a moment, the constant flow of sugary gratification on demand. Some students want Nietzsche in the same way that they want a hamburger; they fail to grasp - and the logic of the consumer system encourages this misapprehension - that the indigestibility, the difficulty is Nietzsche.
> 
> An illustration: I challenged one student about why he always wore headphones in class. He replied that it didn't matter, because he wasn't actually playing any music. In another lesson, he was playing music at very low volume through the headphones, without wearing them. When I asked him to switch it off, he replied that even he couldn't hear it. Why wear the headphones without playing music or play music without
> ...


 
The PDF is here, it's well worth a read in full.

http://libcom.org/files/Capitalist Realism_ Is There No Alternat - Mark Fisher.pdf


----------



## Cornetto (Oct 4, 2012)

Random said:


> I've told you this before. The Economics Prize is recognised as being of the same standing as the others, by the Nobel Foundation, and the prize holders are referred by the Foundation as laureates: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/
> 
> It is indeed true that it was never endorsed personally by a guilt-ridden arms dealer, but that's it.


 
Would that be why they call it the Nobel prize?


----------



## articul8 (Oct 5, 2012)

revol68 said:


> You were talking about Jacques.


 I was saying that the short excerpt in the doc wasn't enough to determine how far MJ has backtracked from socialism, as an analogous point had been made by Jameson who is "from from" having backtracked in this way.


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 5, 2012)

articul8 said:


> I was saying that the short excerpt in the doc wasn't enough to determine how far MJ has backtracked from socialism, as an analogous point had been made by Jameson who is "from from" having backtracked in this way.


Given that he had abandoned it in the 80s what on earth makes you think that he has changed back? 

Telling choice of guest though isn't it?


----------



## articul8 (Oct 5, 2012)

I'm not saying he has - I'd guess that he is of the view that capitalism is shedding its liberal democratic political face and we're moving towards a Chinese style command capitalism.  He might even be right.


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 5, 2012)

articul8 said:


> I'm not saying he has - I'd guess that he is of the view that capitalism is shedding its liberal democratic political face and we're moving towards a Chinese style command capitalism. He might even be right.


What on earth would lead you to think that he's taking that view?

And 'how far he has backtracked from socialism' is an entirely irrelevant question given his activities in the 80s and 90s - you're aware of these right? You do know who he is/was don't you?


----------



## articul8 (Oct 5, 2012)

Yes, former editor of Marxism Today and Mr. New Times proto-Blair.  Isn't he saying the future is China now?  Maybe he just thinks China/India have given capitalism a new lease of life.  If he does, he's wrong.


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 5, 2012)

revol68 said:


> The PDF is here, it's well worth a read in full.
> 
> http://libcom.org/files/Capitalist Realism_ Is There No Alternat - Mark Fisher.pdf


 
Thanks,that does look good. My boss is currently reading a volume that tries to apply Deleuze and Guattari to West Africa. She says it's 180 pages of sheer hell.


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 5, 2012)

articul8 said:


> Yes, former editor of Marxism Today and Mr. New Times proto-Blair. Isn't he saying the future is China now? Maybe he just thinks China/India have given capitalism a new lease of life. If he does, he's wrong.


Wtf has this got to with it not being clear to you if he has 'abandoned socialism' or not? Is the jury similarly out on Blair then? (And note others, it's not me using 'abandoned' here).


----------



## articul8 (Oct 5, 2012)

I've always said what would sort Africa out is a bit of Deleuze


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 5, 2012)

articul8 said:


> I've always said what would sort Africa out is a bit of Deleuze


 
That's nice dear.


----------



## articul8 (Oct 5, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> Wtf has this got to with it not being clear to you if he has 'abandoned socialism' or not? Is the jury similarly out on Blair then? (And note others, it's not me using 'abandoned' here).


 
Well I wouldn't say Stuart Hall - to take one New Times figure - has backtracked from socialism, he just got a bit carried away with the revisionism.  He's [Hall] is not on the same level as people like Leadbetter or Mulgan.


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 5, 2012)

articul8 said:


> Well I wouldn't say Stuart Hall - to take one New Times figure - has backtracked from socialism, he just got a bit carried away with the revisionism. He's [Hall] is not on the same level as people like Leadbetter or Mulgan.


Sorry, at what point when i was talking about Martin Jacques was i really on about Stuart Hall? At what point when i asked you why you were in any doubt about MJ's 'abandonment of socialism' did i really ask you if Stuart Hall had? Why do you do this?


----------



## Idaho (Oct 5, 2012)

Stewart Hall backtracking from socialism?


----------



## articul8 (Oct 5, 2012)

Just have Hall on the brain at the moment is all


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 5, 2012)

articul8 said:


> I'm not saying he has - I'd guess that he is of the view that capitalism is shedding its liberal democratic political face and we're moving towards a Chinese style command capitalism. He might even be right.


No, not at all. From what I've read by him about China, that's not at all what he thinks. He thinks of China as a diverse 'civilisation' (rather than nation-state) inside which different kinds of society can emerge. He thinks China is in the process of changing, and he doesn't at all think that the rest of the world is moving towards the kind of society China itself is changing from.


----------



## articul8 (Oct 5, 2012)

Ok fair enough - I haven't read his stuff on China.


----------



## love detective (Oct 9, 2012)

revol68 said:


> The PDF is here, it's well worth a read in full.
> 
> http://libcom.org/files/Capitalist Realism_ Is There No Alternat - Mark Fisher.pdf


 
I think the best part of that book is the bit below, especially the last two paragraphs



> Both Marazzi and Sennett point out that the disintegration of stable working patterns was in part driven by the desires of workers - it was they who, quite rightly, did not wish to work in the same factory for forty years. In many ways, the left has never recovered from being wrong-footed by Capital's mobilization and metabolization of the desire for emancipation from Fordist routine. Especially in the UK, the traditional representatives of the working class - union and labor leaders - found Fordism rather too congenial; its stability of antagonism gave them a guaranteed role. But this meant that it was easy for the advocates of post-Fordist Capital to present themselves as the opponents of the status quo, bravely resisting an inertial organized labor 'pointlessly' invested in fruitless ideological antagonism which served the ends of union leaders and politicians, but did little to advance the hopes of the class they purportedly represented.
> 
> Antagonism is not now located externally, in the face-off between class blocs, but internally, in the psychology of the worker, who, as a worker, is interested in old-style class conflict, but, as someone with a pension fund, is also interested in maximizing the yield from his or her investments. There is no longer an identifiable external enemy. The consequence is, Marazzi argues, that post-Fordist workers are like the Old Testament Jews after they left the 'house of slavery': liberated from a bondage to which they have no wish to return but also abandoned, stranded in the desert, confused about the way forward.
> 
> ...


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 9, 2012)

I don't have my copy of Harvey's _The Condition of Postmodernity _handy (who does, these days?), but I recall him being very hard on Deleuze and Guattari for using schizophrenia in an essentially frivolous manner, one in which the schizophrenic is seen as some sort of holy fool, and not somebody going through a really bad time.


----------



## love detective (Oct 9, 2012)

it was more to do with what the notion of 'fragmentation' does to the concept of alienation

he puts the argument that due to this focus on fragmentation of the self it's not possible to think about the alienation of the individual in a classically marxist sense - as alienation supposedly presupposes a coherent self from which to be alienated from

i guess there is something to that - however I also think the notion that there is an increasing internalisation of class struggle/contradiction within the self/individual is quite a useful/powerful concept and is perfectly compatible with the concept of alienation. even more so in fact because it's increasingly possible these days for an individual to experience alienation in different ways at the level of both labour and capital (in that it's not only labour who experiences alienation under capitalism, but so do capitalists - they just experience it in different ways)


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 18, 2012)

Random said:


> I've told you this before. The Economics Prize is recognised as being of the same standing as the others, by the Nobel Foundation, and the prize holders are referred by the Foundation as laureates: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/
> 
> It is indeed true that it was never endorsed personally by a guilt-ridden arms dealer, but that's it.


 
Actually, no old chap - it turns out that I was RIGHT ALL ALONG.

http://exiledonline.com/the-nobel-prize-in-economics-there-is-no-nobel-prize-in-economics/

Ecrasez l'infame.


----------



## Blagsta (Oct 18, 2012)

Idris2002 said:


> I don't have my copy of Harvey's _The Condition of Postmodernity _handy (*who does, these days?*), but I recall him being very hard on Deleuze and Guattari for using schizophrenia in an essentially frivolous manner, one in which the schizophrenic is seen as some sort of holy fool, and not somebody going through a really bad time.


 
On the bookshelf downstairs!


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 18, 2012)

Blagsta said:


> On the bookshelf downstairs!


 
I leant my copy to my youngest brother, I think.


----------



## Quartz (Oct 19, 2012)

revol68 said:


> The PDF is here, it's well worth a read in full.
> 
> http://libcom.org/files/Capitalist Realism_ Is There No Alternat - Mark Fisher.pdf


 
I've just read the first chapter and it's an interesting read. Rather frustrating, though, as I haven't seen _Children of Men_.


----------



## Kaka Tim (Oct 19, 2012)

The Marx episode was (predictably) especially shit. Smug patonising presentation where Flanders was practically boasting about her ignorance.

Marx's prediction that capitalism would inevitably push wages down to criese point was wrong becasue wages steadily rose through the late 19th centuary to 1970s. Capitalism got 'gentler'. Nothing to do with the emergence of a orgnasied class concious industrial proletariat fighting for a better deal then?

Meanwhile Capitalism "has given 'us' the a fantasitc array of food and goods to comsume from all over the world alongside better working conditions".
Completely ignoiring the fact that workers in countries where most of the food and goods are produced have significently worse working conditions.

We were given a marxist analysis of what casued the economic crash - the bosses have depressed wages over the last 20 years in search of greater profits - this inevitably leads to supressed consumption as workers have less disposable income - but the crunch is bucked by the availability of lots of cheap credit - however this simply delays the crunch and makes it all the more cataclysmic.

Now this - to me - seems a pretty plausible explanation of what happened (although Id throw in rocketing oil prices as the trigger).

Stephanie tells us that - 'However - many people disagree with this'.
We then get a succession of talking heads saying - 'no thats wrong' whilst giving absolutely no explanation of why they thought that.

Oh  - and the only possible alternative to Capitalism is East Germany apparently.

Flanders is a fucking jolly hocky sticks thick as shit embarassment. Why the fuck didn't they get paul mason to do this? (who is - interestingly - the only person on the bbc economic and political team who came from an ordinary background and didn't go to Oxbridge).


----------



## love detective (Oct 22, 2012)

Kaka Tim said:


> The Marx episode was (predictably) especially shit. Smug patonising presentation where Flanders was practically boasting about her ignorance.
> 
> Marx's prediction that capitalism would inevitably push wages down to criese point was wrong becasue wages steadily rose through the late 19th centuary to 1970s.


 
Thing is Marx didn't even make such a prediction, so she's doubly wrong

That wages have generally risen in real terms over the last couple of hundred years is perfectly in line with Marx's main point about the essential nature & tendencies of capital.

Marx's argument is that an increase in real wages is perfectly in line with, and pretty much a requirement of, an increasing exploitation of labour by capital




			
				vol1 ch25 said:
			
		

> within the capitalist system all methods for raising the social productiveness of labour are brought about at the cost of the individual labourer; all means for the development of production transform themselves into means of domination over, and exploitation of, the producers; they mutilate the labourer into a fragment of a man, degrade him to the level of an appendage of a machine, destroy every remnant of charm in his work and turn it into a hated toil; they estrange from him the intellectual potentialities of the labour process in the same proportion as science is incorporated in it as an independent power; they distort the conditions under which he works, subject him during the labour process to a despotism the more hateful for its meanness; they transform his life-time into working-time, and drag his wife and child beneath the wheels of the Juggernaut of capital. But all methods for the production of surplus-value are at the same time methods of accumulation; and every extension of accumulation becomes again a means for the development of those methods. It follows therefore that in proportion as capital accumulates, the lot of the labourer, *be his payment high or low*, must grow worse


----------



## Random (Oct 23, 2012)

Idris2002 said:


> Actually, no old chap - it turns out that I was RIGHT ALL ALONG.
> 
> http://exiledonline.com/the-nobel-prize-in-economics-there-is-no-nobel-prize-in-economics/
> 
> Ecrasez l'infame.


No it doesn't did you read that article? I read it a couple of weeks ago, and it simply says its wrong that the Riksbank prize is lumped in with the other Nobels. But, like it or not, it is indeed recognised as part of the package, by the Nobel foundation and by the Swedish state. All the Exile added is one great-nephew of Nobel saying that he doesn't agree.


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 23, 2012)

Random said:


> No it doesn't did you read that article? I read it a couple of weeks ago, and it simply says its wrong that the Riksbank prize is lumped in with the other Nobels. But, like it or not, it is indeed recognised as part of the package, by the Nobel foundation and by the Swedish state. All the Exile added is one great-nephew of Nobel saying that he doesn't agree.


 
So it's recognised by the Nobel foundation and the Swedish state? So friggin' what? According to this guy, the Nobel prize committee and the Swedish state are both in a condition of political degeneration and compromised by that condition to the point where Nobel's original vision has been essentially betrayed:

http://www.thelocal.se/43756/20121011/

Your move, anarchy boy.


----------



## Quartz (Oct 23, 2012)

I'm having trouble with the third chapter, 'Capitalism & the real' and the difference between Real and 'reality'. I'm missing something, likely an understanding of Lacan whom I've not read, because it doesn't make sense. I mean, how is madness a political category?


----------



## Random (Oct 23, 2012)

Idris2002 said:


> So it's recognised by the Nobel foundation and the Swedish state? So friggin' what? According to this guy, the Nobel prize committee and the Swedish state are both in a condition of political degeneration and compromised by that condition to the point where Nobel's original vision has been essentially betrayed:
> 
> http://www.thelocal.se/43756/20121011/
> 
> Your move, anarchy boy.


  Like it or not, the claim that the Economics Nobel is not a "real" Nobel is false. It is just as real or unreal as the others.


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 23, 2012)

Quartz said:


> I'm having trouble with the third chapter, 'Capitalism & the real' and the difference between Real and 'reality'. I'm missing something, likely an understanding of Lacan whom I've not read, because it doesn't make sense. I mean, how is madness a political category?





Random said:


> Like it or not, the claim that the Economics Nobel is not a "real" Nobel is false. It is just as real or unreal as the others.


 

Oooh, meta.

Nice one.


----------

