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Marx, however, was and is historically inaccurate. Both in his understanding of the past and his predictions of the future. Check out Immanuel Wallerstein or Fe

by scarmig 14y ago

Marx, however, was and is historically inaccurate. Both in his understanding of the past and his predictions of the future. Check out Immanuel Wallerstein or Fernand Braudel for more accurate, careful, and relevant histories that're not just glorifications of the ruling class. Looking at your example, it fails to explain why wages rose for 200 years before the alleged stagnation hit (sure, you can hack some Leninist stuff on about imperialism, but it's mostly unconvincing). Worse, Marx's grand scheme of progress is pretty flawed: even in one lifetime, people readily shift to and from one economic system to another, and each system relies upon and coexists with its predecessors and successors. Wide swaths of life and economic activity aren't subject to what Marx described as capitalism, and as capital increasingly tries to squeeze more and more value out of people, people increasingly shift to using exit as a means of liberation. Look around you, and you can see it: that's what's most marvelous about the era we live in.

alexqgb 14y ago
Braudel is a fantastic historian in his own right, but especially important in this context in that he started his career as an overt Marxist who wanted to contribute to Marx's theory by supplying the actual history on which it depended. That is to say, a history told not from the perspective of popes and princes, but one based on material data about the world's great systems; macro-economic factors like weather patterns and the price of grain. This was supposed to be the vantage point from which the nefarious dynamic of capital would reveal itself most clearly, with the underlying data providing an empirical basis for Marx's economic theory, thereby grounding the whole enterprise in reality. As it turned out, materialist history did provide a very revealing perspective, but not the one Braudel anticipated. Quite the opposite. Among its many revelations was the unavoidable fact that Marx's assertions about history simply weren't supported by the facts. Over time, Braudel found his reverence waning. Eventually, his loss of faith turned into outright rejection. That said, were it not for Marx, Braudel's absolutely brilliant history may never have been written. And that would be a shame, since the materialist approach that Braudel pioneered has become more relevant than ever in our own data-driven age. http://www.amazon.com/Civilization-Capitalism-15th-18th-Century-Vol/dp/0520081145 http://www.amazon.com/Civilization-Capitalism-15th-18th-Cent...
- scarmig 14y ago
  It warms my heart to no end that there's another Braudel fan here! =) I didn't intend to come off as wholly dismissive of Marx--it's very fair to say that he's one of the great thinkers of political economy and sociology. But relying on 19th century thinkers when they've been surpassed always strikes me as unfortunate.
  - alexqgb 14y ago
    It's a bit like studying the development of physics and stopping when you get to Newton.

by scarmig 14y ago

alexqgb 14y ago

Braudel is a fantastic historian in his own right, but especially important in this context in that he started his career as an overt Marxist who wanted to contribute to Marx's theory by supplying the actual history on which it depended. That is to say, a history told not from the perspective of popes and princes, but one based on material data about the world's great systems; macro-economic factors like weather patterns and the price of grain. This was supposed to be the vantage point from which the nefarious dynamic of capital would reveal itself most clearly, with the underlying data providing an empirical basis for Marx's economic theory, thereby grounding the whole enterprise in reality. As it turned out, materialist history did provide a very revealing perspective, but not the one Braudel anticipated. Quite the opposite. Among its many revelations was the unavoidable fact that Marx's assertions about history simply weren't supported by the facts. Over time, Braudel found his reverence waning. Eventually, his loss of faith turned into outright rejection. That said, were it not for Marx, Braudel's absolutely brilliant history may never have been written. And that would be a shame, since the materialist approach that Braudel pioneered has become more relevant than ever in our own data-driven age. http://www.amazon.com/Civilization-Capitalism-15th-18th-Century-Vol/dp/0520081145 http://www.amazon.com/Civilization-Capitalism-15th-18th-Cent...

scarmig 14y ago
It warms my heart to no end that there's another Braudel fan here! =) I didn't intend to come off as wholly dismissive of Marx--it's very fair to say that he's one of the great thinkers of political economy and sociology. But relying on 19th century thinkers when they've been surpassed always strikes me as unfortunate.
- alexqgb 14y ago
  It's a bit like studying the development of physics and stopping when you get to Newton.