5 ms·

Keith Richards, Karl Marx, and the satisfaction of genuine work

45 points by chrismealy 16y ago

TomOfTTB 16y ago
I’m in no way a fan of modern day liberalism but having said that I think this author misunderstands it and accuses it of something it’s not guilty of. He says… This is what liberals, who think that human wellbeing consists in the consumption of goods and services, cannot understand. Capitalism piles up consumer goods but deprives more and more of us of the satisfaction of genuine work. A good trade, when it's a question of meeting basic needs. But once they are met -- they are met; they are finite; tho liberals, from Mill to DeLong, deny it -- all the bacchanals in the world are no substitute for the knowledge that one has produced something worthwhile by one's own free efforts. The problem with that statement is it’s based on a straw man argument that modern liberals are all Marxists. In my experience the modern liberal has evolved beyond Marx’s theories to a hybrid Captalistic/Marxist philosophy that understands the necessity of Captialism but seeks to equalize the resulting wealth created by it. So modern liberalism is concerned with the rewards of one’s labors where as Marxist theory was concerned with both that and choosing which labor people undertook. Meaning liberals really don't want to rob anyone of satisfaction in one's work they simply want to redistribute some of the compensation one gets for said work. (and in fairness Marx only advocated a planned society in which people’s abilities were assessed and applied in a way that was best for society. So while a government using that policy might force you to do the work they wanted it should, in theory, have been something you excelled at and could be satisfied in)
- joe_the_user 16y ago
  Huh? My reading of the text was that he was praising Marx's concept of work and more or less attacking liberals for not having it. He claims old Karl agree that creative, productive activity is superior to consumption. I see not mention of the Marxist concept of a planned economy in the text either. There are strong indications that B. Traven was a revolutionary German Marxist who escaped the failed Sparticus rebellion after WWI, btw.
  - chrismealy 16y ago
    joe_the_user's exactly right.
  - TomOfTTB 16y ago
    Honestly you're probably right when put in that context (I had no idea who B. Traven was) but if that's the case this post is kind of odd. It ignores the end result of every government based on Marx's theories that has ever existed in the history of man. I mean really, does anyone think people living in communist Russia and being assigned an occupation based on an aptitude test weren't "alienated" from their work (to use Marx's term)? Also it's odd to quote Jesus while defending Karl Marx (who famously called Religion the opiate of the masses and claimed true happiness could only be achieved when religion was abolished) Anyway, as I said, you're almost certainly right I'm just saying my mistake wasn't entirely stupid ;)
    - forkandwait 16y ago
      > It ignores the end result of every government based on Marx's theories that has ever existed in the history of man. Marx wrote a brilliant critique of capitalism, but failed miserably when it came to designing what the replacement would be. He believed that an almost supernatural rationality would evolve out of the inherent contradictions of capitalism and the worker/ owner conflict; organizing society rationally from the top down is really the only thing of his that made it into supposedly marxist regimes. Don't judge Marx by Russia -- read Marx. Or, well, don't pretend to know what Marx said... He also believed very strongly that "communism" could only appear in a society after it had gone through its capitalist stage thoroughly -- he was hoping for Great Britain to become communist, and the idea of an agrarian society like China or Russia becoming communist was just goofy. Marx also never foresaw the compromises that would happen in an increasingly wealthy and unionized society, and which have forestalled any revolutionary drive (as the builder of the first tract home developments said: people with mortgages and a postage stamp worth of land don't join the CP.) Also "liberal" here refers to liberal as in "neo-liberal": those who support the freeing up of regulation and tradition in the support of capitalism. You may be using "liberal" in the current usage of "leftwing and sort of socialist" which it never meant originally. This liberalism very much is tied up with "utilitarianism", which basically thinks that everything can be reckoned in terms of consumer utility; the idea that we are driven by consumption and pleasure (as in "the pleasure principle") pervades our society, but is not necessarily the basic scientific principle that economists and Freudians pretend it is; meaningful work or prestige might be contenders...
lionhearted 16y ago
I'm pretty well-convinced that sooner or later, quoting Marx and quoting Hitler will have the same levels of social respectability. They both advocated a lot of nonsense and violent insanity. Just like a blind squirrel occasionally finds a nut, the advocate of violent nonsense occasionally has a decent quote. Still, you can find better sources of quotes on anti-consumerism than Marx, just like you can find better sources of quotes on helping people than Hitler... too much violent insane nonsense attached to those blind squirrels, even if they occasionally stumble on a nut.
- _delirium 16y ago
  If you compared Lenin or Stalin to Hitler, sure, but comparing Marx to Hitler is pretty strange. If anything he's notoriously silent on how exactly one would organize a communist society, and was politically ineffectual. He spends most of his time as a theoretician of how capitalism works, with some pretty vague ideas of what would replace it. A closer analogy might be comparing Marx and Ayn Rand: theoreticians most at home critiquing the social order they don't like, with some very idealized notions of how their preferred version would work, and a flair for manifesto-writing.
  - lionhearted 16y ago
    I haven't read any of Rand's nonfiction, so correct me if I'm wrong - but I don't think she advocated violence as a means of change. Hitler and Marx both did. Marx advocated violent overthrow and takeover by the "dictatorship of the proletariat" - and when it was tried, it worked really, really badly, leading to much destruction and death and misery. Marxist-inspired philosophy and governance have been a wasteland of insanity and destruction... for the last 100 years, nothing else even comes close in terms of destruction. Fascism comes in a distant second. I don't think any Randian philosophy of individuality has stacked up millions of bodies in the same way, but I'm open to being corrected on that.
    - forensic 16y ago
      Rand believes in force. Remember Ragnar Danneskjöld, the philosopher turned pirate? Rand doesn't believe force should be used to create a utopia. She believes that force should be used in self-defense when it is rational to do so - and this includes defending your property from collectivists. So basically she believes it is morally acceptable to violently defend your property from tax collectors, as long as in doing so you are not sacrificing some greater good such as your happiness and well-being.
javert 16y ago
I agree with most of this post - the part about the value of good, solid work. I disagree with this, which the blogger just presents as a given and does not justify: Capitalism piles up consumer goods but deprives more and more of us of the satisfaction of genuine work. In fact, I believe capitalism allows more people to have good, solid, enjoyable work than any other system.
- forkandwait 16y ago
  I think you are right for about 30% of the population -- those who manage the society, even if they don't own it. We (I am a member of the 30%, luckily) get to build organizations, create processes, develop stuff; even if we are doing it for a paycheck and our employers own our patents, it is still fun. However, for the 70% that work as cogs in the machine, capitalism sucks -- but then so did feudalism or state industrialism like the USSR. The 70% who are cogs in the US generally don't know they have any options, though they do (let me give a hint -- start at community college....). If they all figured it out at once, there would be chaos as all the forklift drivers, fry cooks, and widget assemblers would say (basically) "fuck that" and walk away.
pygy_ 16y ago
when you don't create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. your tastes only narrow & exclude people. so create. — Why The Lucky Stiff
iwwr 16y ago
"A good trade, when it's a question of meeting basic needs. But once they are met -- and they are met; they are finite, tho liberals, from Mill to DeLong, deny it" We should be thankful that our ancestors were not content to just live at a bare subsistence level.
seanmcq 16y ago
This is an honest question: When did "liberal" come to mean "who think that human wellbeing consists in the consumption of goods and services" I presume this is a new political meme that I'd not heard. Where did it come from?

45 points by chrismealy 16y ago

I’m in no way a fan of modern day liberalism but having said that I think this author misunderstands it and accuses it of something it’s not guilty of. He says… This is what liberals, who think that human wellbeing consists in the consumption of goods and services, cannot understand. Capitalism piles up consumer goods but deprives more and more of us of the satisfaction of genuine work. A good trade, when it's a question of meeting basic needs. But once they are met -- they are met; they are finite; tho liberals, from Mill to DeLong, deny it -- all the bacchanals in the world are no substitute for the knowledge that one has produced something worthwhile by one's own free efforts. The problem with that statement is it’s based on a straw man argument that modern liberals are all Marxists. In my experience the modern liberal has evolved beyond Marx’s theories to a hybrid Captalistic/Marxist philosophy that understands the necessity of Captialism but seeks to equalize the resulting wealth created by it. So modern liberalism is concerned with the rewards of one’s labors where as Marxist theory was concerned with both that and choosing which labor people undertook. Meaning liberals really don't want to rob anyone of satisfaction in one's work they simply want to redistribute some of the compensation one gets for said work. (and in fairness Marx only advocated a planned society in which people’s abilities were assessed and applied in a way that was best for society. So while a government using that policy might force you to do the work they wanted it should, in theory, have been something you excelled at and could be satisfied in)

joe_the_user 16y ago
Huh? My reading of the text was that he was praising Marx's concept of work and more or less attacking liberals for not having it. He claims old Karl agree that creative, productive activity is superior to consumption. I see not mention of the Marxist concept of a planned economy in the text either. There are strong indications that B. Traven was a revolutionary German Marxist who escaped the failed Sparticus rebellion after WWI, btw.
- chrismealy 16y ago
  joe_the_user's exactly right.
- TomOfTTB 16y ago
  Honestly you're probably right when put in that context (I had no idea who B. Traven was) but if that's the case this post is kind of odd. It ignores the end result of every government based on Marx's theories that has ever existed in the history of man. I mean really, does anyone think people living in communist Russia and being assigned an occupation based on an aptitude test weren't "alienated" from their work (to use Marx's term)? Also it's odd to quote Jesus while defending Karl Marx (who famously called Religion the opiate of the masses and claimed true happiness could only be achieved when religion was abolished) Anyway, as I said, you're almost certainly right I'm just saying my mistake wasn't entirely stupid ;)
  - forkandwait 16y ago
    > It ignores the end result of every government based on Marx's theories that has ever existed in the history of man. Marx wrote a brilliant critique of capitalism, but failed miserably when it came to designing what the replacement would be. He believed that an almost supernatural rationality would evolve out of the inherent contradictions of capitalism and the worker/ owner conflict; organizing society rationally from the top down is really the only thing of his that made it into supposedly marxist regimes. Don't judge Marx by Russia -- read Marx. Or, well, don't pretend to know what Marx said... He also believed very strongly that "communism" could only appear in a society after it had gone through its capitalist stage thoroughly -- he was hoping for Great Britain to become communist, and the idea of an agrarian society like China or Russia becoming communist was just goofy. Marx also never foresaw the compromises that would happen in an increasingly wealthy and unionized society, and which have forestalled any revolutionary drive (as the builder of the first tract home developments said: people with mortgages and a postage stamp worth of land don't join the CP.) Also "liberal" here refers to liberal as in "neo-liberal": those who support the freeing up of regulation and tradition in the support of capitalism. You may be using "liberal" in the current usage of "leftwing and sort of socialist" which it never meant originally. This liberalism very much is tied up with "utilitarianism", which basically thinks that everything can be reckoned in terms of consumer utility; the idea that we are driven by consumption and pleasure (as in "the pleasure principle") pervades our society, but is not necessarily the basic scientific principle that economists and Freudians pretend it is; meaningful work or prestige might be contenders...

lionhearted 16y ago

I'm pretty well-convinced that sooner or later, quoting Marx and quoting Hitler will have the same levels of social respectability. They both advocated a lot of nonsense and violent insanity. Just like a blind squirrel occasionally finds a nut, the advocate of violent nonsense occasionally has a decent quote. Still, you can find better sources of quotes on anti-consumerism than Marx, just like you can find better sources of quotes on helping people than Hitler... too much violent insane nonsense attached to those blind squirrels, even if they occasionally stumble on a nut.

_delirium 16y ago
If you compared Lenin or Stalin to Hitler, sure, but comparing Marx to Hitler is pretty strange. If anything he's notoriously silent on how exactly one would organize a communist society, and was politically ineffectual. He spends most of his time as a theoretician of how capitalism works, with some pretty vague ideas of what would replace it. A closer analogy might be comparing Marx and Ayn Rand: theoreticians most at home critiquing the social order they don't like, with some very idealized notions of how their preferred version would work, and a flair for manifesto-writing.
- lionhearted 16y ago
  I haven't read any of Rand's nonfiction, so correct me if I'm wrong - but I don't think she advocated violence as a means of change. Hitler and Marx both did. Marx advocated violent overthrow and takeover by the "dictatorship of the proletariat" - and when it was tried, it worked really, really badly, leading to much destruction and death and misery. Marxist-inspired philosophy and governance have been a wasteland of insanity and destruction... for the last 100 years, nothing else even comes close in terms of destruction. Fascism comes in a distant second. I don't think any Randian philosophy of individuality has stacked up millions of bodies in the same way, but I'm open to being corrected on that.
  - forensic 16y ago
    Rand believes in force. Remember Ragnar Danneskjöld, the philosopher turned pirate? Rand doesn't believe force should be used to create a utopia. She believes that force should be used in self-defense when it is rational to do so - and this includes defending your property from collectivists. So basically she believes it is morally acceptable to violently defend your property from tax collectors, as long as in doing so you are not sacrificing some greater good such as your happiness and well-being.

javert 16y ago

I agree with most of this post - the part about the value of good, solid work. I disagree with this, which the blogger just presents as a given and does not justify: Capitalism piles up consumer goods but deprives more and more of us of the satisfaction of genuine work. In fact, I believe capitalism allows more people to have good, solid, enjoyable work than any other system.

forkandwait 16y ago
I think you are right for about 30% of the population -- those who manage the society, even if they don't own it. We (I am a member of the 30%, luckily) get to build organizations, create processes, develop stuff; even if we are doing it for a paycheck and our employers own our patents, it is still fun. However, for the 70% that work as cogs in the machine, capitalism sucks -- but then so did feudalism or state industrialism like the USSR. The 70% who are cogs in the US generally don't know they have any options, though they do (let me give a hint -- start at community college....). If they all figured it out at once, there would be chaos as all the forklift drivers, fry cooks, and widget assemblers would say (basically) "fuck that" and walk away.

pygy_ 16y ago

when you don't create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. your tastes only narrow & exclude people. so create. — Why The Lucky Stiff

iwwr 16y ago

"A good trade, when it's a question of meeting basic needs. But once they are met -- and they are met; they are finite, tho liberals, from Mill to DeLong, deny it" We should be thankful that our ancestors were not content to just live at a bare subsistence level.

seanmcq 16y ago

This is an honest question: When did "liberal" come to mean "who think that human wellbeing consists in the consumption of goods and services" I presume this is a new political meme that I'd not heard. Where did it come from?