Supertramp
30th May 2013, 02:01
I used google translator but I think the text is understandable.
"When Marx refutes Keynes and the current Marxist
Marxists, social democrats and other advocates of interventionism always claimed that certain sectors of the economy - particularly health, education and safety, but also the electric sector and telecommunications - can not stand on its free market and free competition because greed and the profit motive are not only incompatible with such industries, but also lead to absurdly expensive prices, which would hurt mostly the poor.
As for the followers of the Austrian School economists always said categorically that it is precisely the search for profit in an environment without protectionism, no privileges, no regulatory agencies and without subsidies which generates high quality services and low prices.
And the explanation is simple: as entrepreneurs, in general, do not like competition, they always show themselves eager to lobby and use state power in their own interest in order to ban the competition and solidify its position of dominance. They do so by means of protective tariffs, subsidies and regulatory agencies that cartelizam the market and prevent the entry of competitors.
But the free market arrangement where there is no protectionism, subsidies and regulatory agencies, is a system in which consumers are controlling the business. On the free market, companies have no choice: either they serve the consumer effectively or close their doors. And serve the consumer effectively means always offering quality goods and services at prices growing ever smaller.
It's just the government - with its subsidies, special privileges (such as protective tariffs and execution of public works to private contractors) and restrictions on competition (through regulatory agencies and bureaucratic requirements) - who promotes monopolies and oligopolies, and consequently high prices and low quality services. So if you want quality services at ever lower prices, you have to defend the free market.
You know who agrees with this? None other than Karl Marx. There is curious to note that Marx understood perfectly that reality. Moreover, he was explicit in demonstrating this. On the issue of "beneficial effects of free competition", Marx agrees with the Austrians and disagrees with all current Marxist and other interventionists. Here's what he wrote in the opening pages of the Communist Manifesto:
The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by infinitely facilitated communication, draws all nations, even the most barbarian, into civilization. The cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which refute all Chinese walls, with which force capitulation the most obstinate hatred of the barbarians abroad. It compels all nations appropriating the bourgeois mode of production, if they will not ruin it, it compels them to introduce in its bosom the call civilization, i. is to become Bourgeois. In a word, it creates for itself a world after its own image.
In short: in addition to credit the bourgeoisie and its instruments of production - that is, the system of profits and losses - the feat of removing nations of barbarism and bring them to civilization, Marx asserts categorically that the bourgeois mode of production - that is nothing more than the pursuit of profit - generates goods at cheap prices. And not only that: he claims that the system of profits and losses compels all nations to adopt this mode of production, failing to completely ruin if they do not.
Ie, the real problem of the current Marxist and other interventionists who claim contrary to health services, education, security, energy and telecommunications are offered in an environment of free competition, as would be expensive and unaffordable for the poor is that they certainly not read Marx. If you have read, understood not. Marx understood perfectly that the pursuit of profit under an arrangement of free competition leads to the cheapening of products and services, and that this is cheapening "the heavy artillery with which [the profit system] ... compels all nations to take ownership mode production of the bourgeoisie [and become civilized], lest you ruin yourself. "
Unlike recent Marxist who advocate nationalization of various services on the grounds that it would reduce their prices, Marx understood that the profit motive is what really drives down prices, and not the nationalization of these services.
As if that were not enough, Marx also shot a petard against Keynesian fiscal stimulus advocates and state borrowing policies. Marx mocked Keynesianism even before this system was created - something possible because there was absolutely nothing original in the ideas of Keynes.
This is what Marx wrote in Capital, chapter 24, section 6, "The Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist":
The only part of the so-called national wealth that actually is in the collective ownership of modern peoples is their national debt. Hence ... the modern doctrine that a nation becomes the richer the more deeply into debt. The public debt becomes the credo of capital. And with the advent of the indebtedness of the state, goes to the place of sin against the Holy Spirit - for which there is no forgiveness - perjury against the state debt.
As with the touch of the magic wand, [the debt] takes money unproductive procreative power and transforms this into capital. ... [But] the modern fiscal policy ... carries within itself the germ of automatic progression. The overcharge is not an accident, but a principle.
Conclusion
Here, then, the two beliefs that a true follower of Karl Marx must submit: the profit motive in a free market environment leads to reduction of prices, and Keynesian fiscal policies, as well as being a method of enslavement, make money unproductive be seen as illusory capital creates wealth. Moreover, according to Marx, criticizing the indebtedness of the state came to be seen by advocates of state profligacy as an act equivalent to blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.
So if you're a Marxist defender of the poor and want them to have access to quality goods and services at low prices, you have to defend the free market. If you advocate that the people have power over companies, you have to defend the free market. And if you are against the enslavement of the people by the financial elite, you have to argue that government expenditures are restricted to the maximum.
Now, if you advocate that the government regulates the market and spend too much, you will be defending the interests of large corporations and financial elites, and will be defending privileges they have on the poor and those they oppress the abolition of competition, with high prices and poor services.
Marx's words."
mises. org.br/Article.aspx?id=1608
The post is non-sense, simplistic and partial. Marx clearly saw problems in free trade and the text does not show this.
marxists. org/archive/marx/works/1848/01/09ft.htm on the question of free trade
communistvoice .org/23cWTOMarxFreeTrade.html - How Marx opposed both free traders and protectionists
A look back on Marx's speech
'On the question of free trade'
"But, in general, the protective system of our day is conservative, while the free trade system is destructive. It breaks up old nationalities and pushes the antagonism of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie to the extreme point. In a word, the free trade system hastens the social revolution. It is in this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, that I vote in favor of free trade." ~ Karl Marx
"When Marx refutes Keynes and the current Marxist
Marxists, social democrats and other advocates of interventionism always claimed that certain sectors of the economy - particularly health, education and safety, but also the electric sector and telecommunications - can not stand on its free market and free competition because greed and the profit motive are not only incompatible with such industries, but also lead to absurdly expensive prices, which would hurt mostly the poor.
As for the followers of the Austrian School economists always said categorically that it is precisely the search for profit in an environment without protectionism, no privileges, no regulatory agencies and without subsidies which generates high quality services and low prices.
And the explanation is simple: as entrepreneurs, in general, do not like competition, they always show themselves eager to lobby and use state power in their own interest in order to ban the competition and solidify its position of dominance. They do so by means of protective tariffs, subsidies and regulatory agencies that cartelizam the market and prevent the entry of competitors.
But the free market arrangement where there is no protectionism, subsidies and regulatory agencies, is a system in which consumers are controlling the business. On the free market, companies have no choice: either they serve the consumer effectively or close their doors. And serve the consumer effectively means always offering quality goods and services at prices growing ever smaller.
It's just the government - with its subsidies, special privileges (such as protective tariffs and execution of public works to private contractors) and restrictions on competition (through regulatory agencies and bureaucratic requirements) - who promotes monopolies and oligopolies, and consequently high prices and low quality services. So if you want quality services at ever lower prices, you have to defend the free market.
You know who agrees with this? None other than Karl Marx. There is curious to note that Marx understood perfectly that reality. Moreover, he was explicit in demonstrating this. On the issue of "beneficial effects of free competition", Marx agrees with the Austrians and disagrees with all current Marxist and other interventionists. Here's what he wrote in the opening pages of the Communist Manifesto:
The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by infinitely facilitated communication, draws all nations, even the most barbarian, into civilization. The cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which refute all Chinese walls, with which force capitulation the most obstinate hatred of the barbarians abroad. It compels all nations appropriating the bourgeois mode of production, if they will not ruin it, it compels them to introduce in its bosom the call civilization, i. is to become Bourgeois. In a word, it creates for itself a world after its own image.
In short: in addition to credit the bourgeoisie and its instruments of production - that is, the system of profits and losses - the feat of removing nations of barbarism and bring them to civilization, Marx asserts categorically that the bourgeois mode of production - that is nothing more than the pursuit of profit - generates goods at cheap prices. And not only that: he claims that the system of profits and losses compels all nations to adopt this mode of production, failing to completely ruin if they do not.
Ie, the real problem of the current Marxist and other interventionists who claim contrary to health services, education, security, energy and telecommunications are offered in an environment of free competition, as would be expensive and unaffordable for the poor is that they certainly not read Marx. If you have read, understood not. Marx understood perfectly that the pursuit of profit under an arrangement of free competition leads to the cheapening of products and services, and that this is cheapening "the heavy artillery with which [the profit system] ... compels all nations to take ownership mode production of the bourgeoisie [and become civilized], lest you ruin yourself. "
Unlike recent Marxist who advocate nationalization of various services on the grounds that it would reduce their prices, Marx understood that the profit motive is what really drives down prices, and not the nationalization of these services.
As if that were not enough, Marx also shot a petard against Keynesian fiscal stimulus advocates and state borrowing policies. Marx mocked Keynesianism even before this system was created - something possible because there was absolutely nothing original in the ideas of Keynes.
This is what Marx wrote in Capital, chapter 24, section 6, "The Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist":
The only part of the so-called national wealth that actually is in the collective ownership of modern peoples is their national debt. Hence ... the modern doctrine that a nation becomes the richer the more deeply into debt. The public debt becomes the credo of capital. And with the advent of the indebtedness of the state, goes to the place of sin against the Holy Spirit - for which there is no forgiveness - perjury against the state debt.
As with the touch of the magic wand, [the debt] takes money unproductive procreative power and transforms this into capital. ... [But] the modern fiscal policy ... carries within itself the germ of automatic progression. The overcharge is not an accident, but a principle.
Conclusion
Here, then, the two beliefs that a true follower of Karl Marx must submit: the profit motive in a free market environment leads to reduction of prices, and Keynesian fiscal policies, as well as being a method of enslavement, make money unproductive be seen as illusory capital creates wealth. Moreover, according to Marx, criticizing the indebtedness of the state came to be seen by advocates of state profligacy as an act equivalent to blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.
So if you're a Marxist defender of the poor and want them to have access to quality goods and services at low prices, you have to defend the free market. If you advocate that the people have power over companies, you have to defend the free market. And if you are against the enslavement of the people by the financial elite, you have to argue that government expenditures are restricted to the maximum.
Now, if you advocate that the government regulates the market and spend too much, you will be defending the interests of large corporations and financial elites, and will be defending privileges they have on the poor and those they oppress the abolition of competition, with high prices and poor services.
Marx's words."
mises. org.br/Article.aspx?id=1608
The post is non-sense, simplistic and partial. Marx clearly saw problems in free trade and the text does not show this.
marxists. org/archive/marx/works/1848/01/09ft.htm on the question of free trade
communistvoice .org/23cWTOMarxFreeTrade.html - How Marx opposed both free traders and protectionists
A look back on Marx's speech
'On the question of free trade'
"But, in general, the protective system of our day is conservative, while the free trade system is destructive. It breaks up old nationalities and pushes the antagonism of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie to the extreme point. In a word, the free trade system hastens the social revolution. It is in this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, that I vote in favor of free trade." ~ Karl Marx