Free Capitalist Network - Community Archive
Mises Community Archive
An online community for fans of Austrian economics and libertarianism, featuring forums, user blogs, and more.

Contribution of Marx

rated by 0 users
Not Answered This post has 0 verified answers | 16 Replies | 4 Followers

Top 100 Contributor
852 Posts
Points 19,800
ViennaSausage posted on Wed, Jul 14 2010 1:20 PM

This may be a blasphemous question: Is there a contribution of Marx that actually makes logical sense and can be deduced praxeologically?  I doubt it.

  • | Post Points: 95

All Replies

Top 50 Contributor
1,649 Posts
Points 28,420

Blasphemy! Last I checked, Marxist theory is flawed to the core.

There is this though, Hoppe's Marxist and Austrian Class Analysis:

I want to do the following in this paper: First to present the theses that constitute the hard core of the Marxist theory of history. I claim that all of them are essentially correct. Then I will show how these true theses are derived in Marxism from a false starting point. Finally, I will demonstrate how Austrianism in the Mises-Rothbard tradition can give a correct but categorically different explanation of their validity.

Democracy means the opportunity to be everyone's slave.—Karl Kraus.

  • | Post Points: 20
Top 500 Contributor
340 Posts
Points 6,230

Well, historicism, determinism, and dialectical materialism are all badly flawed tools for economic analysis, so anything Marx got right was just by luck.

However, the worldwide conflict we see today between the political class and the economic class does seem somewhat analagous to Marx's depiction of the proletariat versus the bourgeois.  I'm sure that after Bohm-Bawerk and others demonstrated that Marx's economics were flawed, and that different classes could mutually benefit from cooperation, many assumed it was a death blow to Marxian collectivism.  However, the "proletariat" (political class) continues to agitate against the market even knowing that it improves everyone's lot, possibly out of some irrational antagonism against the more wealthy economic class.  Certainly none of this is/was "inevitable" as Marx claimed, but maybe he was more prescient about the persistence of class antagonism than was once thought.

  • | Post Points: 20
Top 100 Contributor
852 Posts
Points 19,800

"I claim that all of them are essentially correct."

Hoppe and his arguments are hilarious yet insightful.  I love how he uses their own logic against them.

  • | Post Points: 5
Top 100 Contributor
852 Posts
Points 19,800

"Well, historicism, determinism, and dialectical materialism are all badly flawed tools for economic analysis,"

I do find the Marxist term "material conditions" in reference to "dialectical materialism" and "historicism" interesting, albeit its usage is typically in connection with flawed theory, ie capitalist exploitation and theory of crisis.

  • | Post Points: 5
Top 50 Contributor
Male
2,255 Posts
Points 36,010
Moderator

He has some decent social commentary and insights, the conclusions and theory though are as batty as can be.

"I am not an ego along with other egos, but the sole ego: I am unique. Hence my wants too are unique, and my deeds; in short, everything about me is unique" Max Stirner
  • | Post Points: 20
Top 25 Contributor
Male
3,055 Posts
Points 41,895

He has some decent social commentary and insights, the conclusions and theory though are as batty as can be.

Shame he didn't find any insight to help his kids.

  • | Post Points: 20
Top 500 Contributor
Male
345 Posts
Points 7,035
Jesse replied on Wed, Jul 14 2010 2:47 PM

He is more consistent in his application of the labor theory of value than the classical school was.

I Samuel 8

  • | Post Points: 35
Top 50 Contributor
1,649 Posts
Points 28,420

Jesse:
He is more consistent in his application of the labor theory of value than the classical school was.

1/0=2/0

your point?

Democracy means the opportunity to be everyone's slave.—Karl Kraus.

  • | Post Points: 5
Top 150 Contributor
785 Posts
Points 13,445

"Shame he didn't find any insight to help his kids."

I forget how many of them died? I know that he only had one daughter who survived but I forget how many of the little suckers died for the father of marxism.

"Lo! I am weary of my wisdom, like the bee that hath gathered too much honey; I need hands outstretched to take it." -Thus Spake Zarathustra
  • | Post Points: 20
Top 25 Contributor
Male
3,055 Posts
Points 41,895

Marx's Kids

  • | Post Points: 20
Top 75 Contributor
1,037 Posts
Points 17,975

Not being a Keynesian.

  • | Post Points: 5
Top 75 Contributor
1,434 Posts
Points 29,210

I think all of his good ideas got lost in the mane around his head.

  • | Post Points: 5
Top 500 Contributor
254 Posts
Points 6,065
Coase replied on Wed, Jul 14 2010 4:45 PM

By taking the labor theory of value to its logical conclusion, he probably helped expose its flaws and in doing so may well have indirectly contributed to the development of the subjective theory of value, even if by accident.

  • | Post Points: 5
Top 75 Contributor
Male
1,129 Posts
Points 16,635

I never looked into this, but I'm left wondering:

Does Marxism account for the unemployment levels we are facing today? How is sitting at home unemployed and getting paid a form of slavery? Wouldn't the bourgeois want us to work even more for them at lower and lower wages? We're not seeing that seperation of bourgeois and proletariat intensifying.

  • | Post Points: 35
Page 1 of 2 (17 items) 1 2 Next > | RSS