Man just discovers Marx's discovers and writes a book on it.

[Comrade Jacob]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...n_5191566.html

*discoveries

[Thirsty Crow]

"The more egalitarian 20th century".

Wow oh my, I never knew that the entire 20th century begun with the Marshall Plan and that historical temporality is non-existent in the global South.

[motion denied]

Piketty says the world's biggest economies have to do something, like impose a global tax on capital, to stop it.

That's radical. Definitely bringing Kapital to the 21st century.

[Queen Mab]

I've read a lot of articles about Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century in the last few days.

The fact that the bourgeois media is promoting this guy is a massive deal when you think about it. A mainstream neoclassical economist bowlderising bits from Marx and getting to the top of the bestsellers list. 20 years ago it would never have happened. You get the feeling that the bourgeoisie knows capitalism is in a long-term crisis but can't see a way out. Certainly a return to social democracy is absolutely laughable.

I brought up this book with a liberal friend, telling him that "even bourgeois economists are starting to turn on capitalism".

[BIXX]

I've read a lot of articles about Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century in the last few days.

The fact that the bourgeois media is promoting this guy is a massive deal when you think about it... You get the feeling that the bourgeoisie knows capitalism is in a long-term crisis but can't see a way out.

They may know there's no way out but they'd never support someone who advocates the end of capitalism- the support he has is likely due to the feeling that he isn't a threat. He is more or less a sideshow, who will probably be forgotten in just a few days, maybe weeks.

I highly doubt this guy is anything to be terribly excited about.

[Queen Mab]

They may know there's no way out but they'd never support someone who advocates the end of capitalism- the support he has is likely due to the feeling that he isn't a threat. He is more or less a sideshow, who will probably be forgotten in just a few days, maybe weeks.

I highly doubt this guy is anything to be terribly excited about.

Of course. I just think the book is symptomatic of a turn in discourse, which in turn is symptomatic of a material crisis of capitalism.

[Redistribute the Rep]

I died laughing at this comment

I want to see labor invest capital in a start up company, I want to see labor worry about paying the bills. I want to see labor working endless hours without wanting over time. I want to see labor borrow money and risk their own money, maybe through a second mortgage, family loans, cashing in a retirement plan. I want to see labor focusing on making a company work and putting themselves last in line.

And if the company fails, I want to see labor pitch in to help the company liquidate or close in a manner that will not hurt the founders even more.

Of course....you won't see that......

You will see labor want to share in the benefits but to blame management on the failures.

[The Jay]

The book may be shit but at least more people are questioning the status quo even if their solutions are just another form of it. Could be worse.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

The truth is that most bourgeoisie economists, even if they're pained to admit it, have known about and acknowledged many of Marx's primary points, including his law of The Declining Rate of Profit, for many years now. They may not agree with his solutions, or even his conclusions, but even they can't deny that his observations are still as true now as they were in his lifetime.

Marx, of course, will ultimately have the last laugh.

[Loony Le Fist]

I died laughing at this comment

What an idiot. If labor owns the company, then labor is the managers. So they are going to attempt to skirt the blame for failure by blaming themselves?

Are these people even for real?

[Redistribute the Rep]

My favorite is the part where he says he wants to see labor work endless hours does he even know what the word labor means?!

[Sea]

Plot twist: His name is Karl Marx IV.

[Red Economist]

Here's a rough sketch of what is going through my head.

"Welcome to huff post live. I'm Ryan Grim. A new book is out and it argues that under capitalism the rich get richer. This, quite naturally, has rocked the economics profession to it's core.

I'm joined here today by the author of that book, Capital in the twenty-first century, Thomas Picketty. And to help me digest this, we joined also be Alexis Goldstein of the other 98%, herself a former wall street banker.

thank you for joining us.

so, let me try, err, real quickly to lay out a top line here. you tell me if I'm botching it, you tell me what I'm leaving out. But essentially, what you've done here as nobody else has done in the past, is combine more than two hundred years of empirical data on inequality and deduced a few patterns that are evident in capitalism. And the main one that you find, is that returns on capital outstrip returns on growth of the regular economy and what that means is that the rich keep getting richer, everybody else stays below the rich, capital keeps accumulating to the top. I think you say at one point that the past devours the future because people inherit more money and the grow more and more power, the more power they have, the more they tilt the rules in their favor. err. did I get anything wrong here. what did you find?"

This gets you to 1:24 in the interview.

The ignorance. The incomprehension. The incredulity. The hypocrisy. I don't know whether to laugh, cry or smash my laptop in a fit of rage. it's so frustrating.

The economics profession says "the market is always right", enforces it as a scientific dogma in neoclassical economics, pushes aside problems of evidence with mathematical formulas and dismisses it's opponents as unrealistic proponents of economic inefficiency and enemies of individual liberty and freedom of consumer choice. This guy is just saying "the market is always right.....but...." and they think he's a visionary, sitting there, lapping it up as if it's an original point of view.

He's only arguing for a Tobin tax and a registry of Tax havens for F**K sake!

42:18
"You've written one of the seminal texts of political economy. What do you do next?"
"so, your going to spend your life writing volumes two and three. like the last guy who wrote one?"

please. stop. just stop. you're letting down your entire social class and making a mockery of the historical and intellectual achievements of classical economics. you're an insult to your predecessors who had the integrity to admit Marx's ghost is shouting, screaming and banging on the glass in the studio behind you. He wrote Capital whilst he was impoverished and you bastards just sit their in you're suits congratulating your selves at being paid for this sh*t. Could you just role a spliff with a hundred dollar bill and light up on camera to complete the picture of intellectual decadence and self-congratulation?

[takes deep breath] Ok, rant over.

[slum]

tragedy, farce etc

[bropasaran]

The truth is that most bourgeoisie economists, even if they're pained to admit it, have known about and acknowledged many of Marx's primary points, including his law of The Declining Rate of Profit, for many years now. They may not agree with his solutions, or even his conclusions, but even they can't deny that his observations are still as true now as they were in his lifetime.

Marx, of course, will ultimately have the last laugh.

That wasn't his point, all classical ecnomists (Smith, Ricardo, etc) function with the assumption that falling rate of profit is a fact, and then give different theories as to why that's the case. That means that some economist are reconsidering ideas of classical (as opposed to today's neoclassical) economy, not Marxian ideas. Which I don't see as a bad thing, Marxian theory is pretty awful, concerning criticism of practical side of (historically) existing capitalist economies, other theories such as different forms of Keynesianism are much better, and concerning criticism of fundaments of capitalism the way to look is towards Thomas Hodgskin, Anton Menger and Proudhon.

[Tim Cornelis]

This thread is teeming with ignorance really. None of you have read the book but many are ridiculing it. It's bias all around. This thread is in theory. So an interesting discussion on whether the conclusions of this book can be married with Marxist analysis, does it invalidate Marxism, etc., would be expected here.

Which discovery of Marx has he done? That growing wealth disparity is a tendency in capitalism? I'm not entirely sure if that was Marx' key points. In any case, the popularity of this book does not come from some conspiracy of the bourgeoisie in promoting it, but from its validation through empirical data. Marx' Capital relies on reasoning (which has proven to be a great attraction to readers), but not directly on empirical data. In fact, the law of vale has never been proven as it is very difficult to test. As such, it remains a hypothesis. Pikkety's thesis is sustained by empirical data that has so far been tried to be refuted, but failed, which is the source of Pikkety's rising popularity.

"The more egalitarian 20th century".

Wow oh my, I never knew that the entire 20th century begun with the Marshall Plan and that historical temporality is non-existent in the global South.

Here is a picture of the empirical data compiled by Piketty:



Red = growth of capital
Turquoise = growth of the world economy

Compared to all centuries, the 20th was comparatively "more egalitarian" indeed.

That's radical. Definitely bringing Kapital to the 21st century.

There's no pretension of Piketty being "radical" in any sense. His goal was not to bring Das Kapital to the 21st century, to update Marxist economics. He does not purport to be an anticapitalist or Marxist. His book, Capital in the 21st century, concerns itself with the growth of capital vis-a-vis the growth national economies. He's never pretended to be anything more than a Keynesian so I'm not sure why you all are holding him up to the standard of a Marxist.

I've read a lot of articles about Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century in the last few days.

The fact that the bourgeois media is promoting this guy is a massive deal when you think about it. A mainstream neoclassical economist bowlderising bits from Marx

He hasn't done that, it's almost arrogant to claim so really.

Has ha r and getting to the top of the bestsellers list. 20 years ago it would never have happened. You get the feeling that the bourgeoisie knows capitalism is in a long-term crisis but can't see a way out. Certainly a return to social democracy is absolutely laughable.

They may know there's no way out but they'd never support someone who advocates the end of capitalism- the support he has is likely due to the feeling that he isn't a threat.

The popularity of his book lies in that it uses, so far irrefutable, empirical data to make his case. Journalists like the sensational aspect of that (it's sales that drive it, not a political conspiracy by the bourgeoisie), which is why he gets promoted in journalism.

He is more or less a sideshow, who will probably be forgotten in just a few days, maybe weeks.

I highly doubt this guy is anything to be terribly excited about.

You're mistaken. This is really out of touch with reality. Firstly, I've been hearing about this guy for months now, and I see no reason why this economic star will fade. Friedman had less momentum than this guy and he's still spoken about. You're seriously underestimating the significance of economists facing real empirical data, as opposed to competing abstracted models of reality. It's almost like science.

The truth is that most bourgeoisie economists, even if they're pained to admit it, have known about and acknowledged many of Marx's primary points, including his law of The Declining Rate of Profit, for many years now.

That's news to me. Do you have any sources?


------

Maybe we can objectively assess the meaning and implications of his findings, instead of bashing him based on preconceived notions and biases.... mmm'k?

[Cheese Guevara]

I'm reading this book right now. Whilst it adds "proof" to some of the "tendencies" Marx wrote of, it's nevertheless very frustrating ("capitalism can be fixed with tax and regulation!" he says).

What we now need is economists and mathematicians tracking global poverty, birth rates, bankrupcy rates, debt, wealth, energy usuage and inequality and creating a host of new formulae. I want us to be able to say X dollars of profit causes X debt, requires X energy to maintain, has a X bankrupcy ratio and requires X population increase.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Ugh. Yeah, just what we needed, right? Another set of social democratic proposals to save capitalism.

Oh well, maybe it points to better days ahead. Bernie Sanders for Prez.

Also, thank-you Jacobin mag for shameless trash-talk. I'm in complete agreement.

[Red Economist]

What we now need is economists and mathematicians tracking global poverty, birth rates, bankrupcy rates, debt, wealth, energy usuage and inequality and creating a host of new formulae. I want us to be able to say X dollars of profit causes X debt, requires X energy to maintain, has a X bankrupcy ratio and requires X population increase.

I think it's going to be unlikely. Mathematical Formula are not necessarily a reflection of reality. Economists adopted mathematics as a methodology ('econometrics' i think) partly because it made them look more scientific and (I think) there is a similar debate in Theoretical Physics as to the validity of Mathematical models. When NASA started to laying off people in the late 60's and 70's, they got hired by wall street because it was a great way of marketing financial products, especially because no-one understood what they meant but it looked 'smart'. It was the use of Mathematics that let Economists justify Sub-Prime Mortgages.

Put a 'bad mortgage' in with a basket (or group) full of good ones and it 'averages' out as a good mortgage. So that Mortgages could be traded as commodities on the market based on their credit rating. But, one of the reasons for the credit crunch was because the Banks didn't know where the bad mortgages were because they were all mixed up. So they just stopped moving the money around because they didn't know who had the mortgages that were going to default, or even if they themselves were going to default. It was a case of 'pass the bomb' until you wait to see when it goes off.

These formulas however work 'well' for the computers in the Financial sector that makes split-second trades (because timing is everything to get a good price). Of course, sometimes the formulas 'break' and the computers (or 'high frequency traders') decided to crash the stock market because they thought everyone else is going to sell, so they start dumping the stock. This is what happened in the "Flash Crash" of 2010.

So whilst the use of Mathmatics in Economics makes it look cutting edge, it really is based on a serious of vulnerable philosophical assumptions and economic practices.

[The Jay]

I think it's going to be unlikely. Mathematical Formula are not necessarily a reflection of reality. Economists adopted mathematics as a methodology ('econometrics' i think) partly because it made them look more scientific and (I think) there is a similar debate in Theoretical Physics as to the validity of Mathematical models.

I have not heard of this debate. Mathematical models are only guesses as to how things work and it is not to be assumed - by those pushing the bounds of said model - that they are correct. The validity of mathematical modelling is put under skepticism in that sense but I'm not aware of any inclination to move one to non-mathematical modelling. That would imply either some kind of idealistic philosophizing or something I've never heard of.

Your point on models not necessarily reflecting reality is correct though. I just took issue with you bringing up physics.

When NASA started to laying off people in the late 60's and 70's, they got hired by wall street because it was a great way of marketing financial products, especially because no-one understood what they meant but it looked 'smart'. It was the use of Mathematics that let Economists justify Sub-Prime Mortgages.

Sure, but what does that have to do with mathematics involved in economic analysis? It is definitely an example that would elicit a bad result, but it does nothing to counter the idea itself.

Put a 'bad mortgage' in with a basket (or group) full of good ones and it 'averages' out as a good mortgage. So that Mortgages could be traded as commodities on the market based on their credit rating. But, one of the reasons for the credit crunch was because the Banks didn't know where the bad mortgages were because they were all mixed up. So they just stopped moving the money around because they didn't know who had the mortgages that were going to default, or even if they themselves were going to default. It was a case of 'pass the bomb' until you wait to see when it goes off.

Sounds about right.

These formulas however work 'well' for the computers in the Financial sector that makes split-second trades (because timing is everything to get a good price). Of course, sometimes the formulas 'break' and the computers (or 'high frequency traders') decided to crash the stock market because they thought everyone else is going to sell, so they start dumping the stock. This is what happened in the "Flash Crash" of 2010.

So whilst the use of Mathmatics in Economics makes it look cutting edge, it really is based on a serious of vulnerable philosophical assumptions and economic practices.

Agreed, but it is still useful to radicals. The metrics would just have to be changed.