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> He did not know the endless march of technological advance that would follow. This is a bizarre claim. He absolutely predicted this, it was a huge focus of

> He did not know the endless march of technological advance that would follow. This is a bizarre claim. He absolutely predicted this, it was a huge focus of most of his work and is central the 'tendency for the rate of profit to fall'. It is also one of the essential parts of how surplus value is extracted. The common notion is simply that factory workers get paid less than the value of their labor but this is only a part of how surplus value is taken. Capitalist also do this by raising the quality of life but at a slightly slower rate the efficiencies that they benefit from in the production process, allowing them the extract surplus value through both consumption and production. So much of Capital and Grundrisse is about the relationship between technology and capital its hard to imagine that you have even passing understanding of Marx and can make a comment like that. > Marx also didn't really understand the role of finance in the economy. Another very strange claim since a good amount of Capital vol. 3 deals with "Fictitious capital" and Marx is quite aware of the increasing role that finance will play in the resolution of periodic crises. > So the central prediction of Marx has failed to come to pass. With the increasing instability of our global financial system I think a few years time you'll revisit some of the claims of yours with a bit more skepticism

QuesnayJr 6y ago
It's not an argument about Marx until somebody accuses somebody else of not understanding Marx. It's like the national anthem at baseball games. He didn't predict it. He predicted capital accumulation. The tight relation between technology and capital in Capital is exactly the mistake he's making. You can't explain the increase in output in terms of capital. This is the fundamental insight of Solow's research. With technological advance, the output of the economy becomes larger for the same inputs. Marx had heard of finance, since it existed by the time he was writing, but he didn't understand it. Otherwise he would have understood that profits do not exist solely because of exploitation. People have time preferences, and risk preferences. People would rather get paid today, and would rather avoid risk. Thus, profits are required to fund projects with long-dated payoffs, or are risky. Take away those profits, and you see those projects go largely unfunded. That's why the China that took Marx' advice was one of the poorest in the world, and the China that ignored his advice makes up 15% of world output. The instability of the global financial system is overrated. Look how easily the Fed stepped in this summer and stabilized financial markets.

QuesnayJr 6y ago

It's not an argument about Marx until somebody accuses somebody else of not understanding Marx. It's like the national anthem at baseball games. He didn't predict it. He predicted capital accumulation. The tight relation between technology and capital in Capital is exactly the mistake he's making. You can't explain the increase in output in terms of capital. This is the fundamental insight of Solow's research. With technological advance, the output of the economy becomes larger for the same inputs. Marx had heard of finance, since it existed by the time he was writing, but he didn't understand it. Otherwise he would have understood that profits do not exist solely because of exploitation. People have time preferences, and risk preferences. People would rather get paid today, and would rather avoid risk. Thus, profits are required to fund projects with long-dated payoffs, or are risky. Take away those profits, and you see those projects go largely unfunded. That's why the China that took Marx' advice was one of the poorest in the world, and the China that ignored his advice makes up 15% of world output. The instability of the global financial system is overrated. Look how easily the Fed stepped in this summer and stabilized financial markets.