Clever Monkey versus the Accelerationists (2)

Part Two: (Nick) Land, Capital and Labor (Theory)

Clever Monkey’s argument against the accelerationists seems to rest on a precise formulaic incantation repeated over and over: the only accelerationism possible is Nick Land’s accelerationism. Thus accelerationism itself is merely a virulent subform of neoliberalist ideology that advocates commodification of all human relations. Which is to say all talk of accelerationism must lead us to embrace anarcho-capitalism, the Thought of Murray Rothbard, and the good folks at the Mises Institute.

Clever Monkey versus the Accelerationists (1)

Part One: The Grammar of Left Fascism

Twice in the past couple of weeks I Have been accused of being infected with an ideology known as accelerationism. To be honest, I had no idea what accelerationism was and never heard of it until the accusation was made. Nevertheless, I do accept the argument that ignorance of an ideology is no proof of innocence — at least insofar as people will make the accusation based on their criteria, not mine.

It turns out accelerationism is the idea that capitalist development can be sped up and the entire epoch brought to a close more rapidly than it would otherwise by pursuing measures designed to the end. Intrigued by this idea, I spent a few days trying to understand the concept, poring over the criticisms of those who oppose it, and thinking about the relation of this ideology to anything remotely suggested by labor theory.

What follows is my first take on the notion of accelerationism through the argument of one of its fiercest critics, Benjamin Noys, an editor at the venal academic paywall, Historical Materialism.

Guglielmo Carchedi’s bad advice for activists

Keynesian economic policies don’t work, but fighting for these policies will?

Guglielmo Carchedi’s essay on the so-called Marxist multiplier has me bugging. He is handing out bad advice to activists in the social movements and telling them this bad advice is based on Marx’s labor theory of value. The bad advice can be summed up concisely: Keynesian policies do not work and cannot work, but the fight for these policies (as opposed to neoliberal policies) can help end capitalism:

From the Marxist perspective, the struggle for the improvement of labour’s lot and the sedimentation and accumulation of labour’s antagonistic consciousness and power through this struggle should be two sides of the same coin. This is their real importance. They cannot end the slump but they can surely improve labour’s conditions and, given the proper perspective, foster the end of capitalism.

Frankly, Carchedi’s advice is the Marxist academy’s equivalent of medical malpractice. (For the record, Michael Robert’s has his own take on the discussion raised by Carchedi’s essay.)

Anti-Capitalism (or, How to identify a Marxist without a clue)

There are a few true indicators that a discussion you might overhear is dominated by people who have no idea what they are talking about.

For instance, if you hear anyone mention the term “fiscal cliff” in a discussion, you can safely ignore anything they have to say about the present crisis. The term “fiscal cliff” is a marketing term employed to produce an emotional response — it is not a category of sober economic analysis.  Also to be considered in this light are such terms as “debt limit”, “S&P rating”, “globalization”, “deleveraging”, “balance sheet recession”, “sequestration”.

To this, I want to add my own personal favorite: “Anti-capitalism”. If you ever hear the word, “anti-capitalism” or “anti-capitalist” from the mouth of a Marxist, you know he/she is a fraud. Feel free to tell them so. “Anti-capitalism” is one of those terms employed by Marxists who have absolutely no idea what a social revolution is. The term is a placeholder employed to define some vague post-capitalist society, the outlines of which are not at all clear to the person.

Cat Brain at Work: How Chris Harman explains the “Marxist theory of stagnation”

As part of my continuing occupation of the Marxist Academy, I have been looking at various Marxist theories of the crisis of neoliberalism. I am now reading the late Chris Harman’s “The rate of profit and the world today”, written in 2007, just prior to the big crash. This is part two of my examination.

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Before we go any further, let me reiterate one thing: In Marx’s theory, the law of the falling rate of profit is not expressed in “stagnation of economic growth” directly or indirectly. The so-called “stagnation thesis” appears no where in the body of Karl Marx’s works on the capitalist mode of production spanning more than 40 years. Nor does it appear in any of Frederick Engels works on the same subject spanning nearly fifty-five years. It is not even an indirect result of the laws of motion of the capitalist mode of production. Moreover, in addition to the idea of “stagnation“, no Marxist can point to a single reference in the collective body of work by these two writers — together amounting to a century of research and publication — where either the terms “financialization” or “globalization” appear.

So, why the fuck are Marxist academics trying to explain these nonexistent phenomena? I think the answer to that question is simple: they are trying to explain stagnation, financialization and globalization because they can’t explain this:

Chasing Unicorns: Chris Harman and the “Marxist theory of stagnation”

"Friesian Unicorn" by Katrina Lasky

As part of my continuing occupation of the Marxist Academy, I have been looking at various Marxist theories of the crisis of neoliberalism. I am now reading the late Chris Harman’s “The rate of profit and the world today”, written in 2007, just prior to the big crash.

*****

Harman appears to be one of a group of the influential Marxist thinkers in the last quarter of the 20th Century, and especially the period leading to this crisis, who helped refocus Marxist academic attention to Marx’s rate of profit theory. In this paper, to some extent an outline of his book, published in 2009, on the same topic in the middle of the crash, Harman presents the result of his research on the rate of profit and offers some ideas to explain his findings.

In Harman’s view Marx’s argument that the rate of profit falls over the life of capitalism has far reaching implications because it argues capitalist crises result, not from some sort of failure in the mode of production, but from its successes:

The very success of capitalism at accumulating leads to problems for further accumulation. Crisis is the inevitable outcome, as capitalists in key sections of the economy no longer have a rate of profit sufficient to cover their investments. And the greater the scale of past accumulation, the deeper the crises will be.

For some reason Harman does not follow up on this very interesting argument — if in fact capitalism’s crises are not a sign of failure but a sign of success, this indicates capitalist crises themselves should not be the focus of attention when studying the mode of production.

Crises are no more than a interval during which the mode of production resolves the contradictions produced by its previous successes. As such, these crises cannot be the reason why Marx labeled the mode of production a relative, historically limited, form of development. While the recurrent crises of increasing scale demand our attention because they momentarily bring economic activity to a near standstill these crises in no way are the source of processes leading Marx to his conclusion regarding the fate of the mode of production.

The conclusion resulting from this realization are pretty staggering: for all of its social consequences, the depression of 2001 is not the harbinger of the demise of capitalism, but an interval during which the mode of production prepares for its further expansion. This may explain why Marxists, when looking at the recurrent explosions of capitalism, see no reason why they cannot continue indefinitely.

They are looking at the wrong thing.

Marxist Academic Error 101: “A term is undefined and has no properties”

As part of my continuing occupation of the Marxist Academy, I have been looking at various Marxist theories of the crisis of neoliberalism. This is the final part of my critique of Andrew Kliman’s “Neoliberalism, Financialization, and the Underlying Crisis of Capitalist Production” (PDF).

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As can be seen in the chart above, most bourgeois economists look at fascist state economic data and conclude we are experiencing nothing like the sort of economic event that occurred in the Great Depression. The Great Depression was just that — a depression — while what we are experiencing is perhaps a more severe than normal recession generated in the aftermath of a financial crisis. For the bourgeois economist this description of the situation may or may not be entirely satisfactory.

For anyone attempting to understand the fascist state economic data using Marx’s theory of the capitalist mode of production it is less than worthless — it can turn Marx’s theory into a useless glob of shit that describes nothing — least of all what is occurring within the capitalist mode of production.

Marxist Theories of the Current Crisis: Andrew Kliman and the curious case of the missing Capitalist Boom

Next up in my survey of academic Marxist theories of the current crisis is Kliman’s “Neoliberalism, Financialization, and the Underlying Crisis of Capitalist Production” (PDF).

Kliman’s argument is by far the most interesting explanation for the present crisis I have read so far. Far from seeking to merely explain the present crash, Kliman is essentially asking another and for more provacative question:

“What the fuck happened to the capitalist boom period after the last crisis?”

Dumenil, Levy and FDR’s Fascist Revolution

As part of my continuing occupation of the Marxist Academy, I have been looking at various Marxist theories of the crisis of neoliberalism. This is the final part of my critique of “The Crisis of Neoliberalism” (PDF) by Gerard Dumenil and Dominique Levy,  first published in 2009. I am using the 2011 version of the book.

Since I am getting bored with Dumenil and Levy, this will be the last post on them.

I tried to show in my last post (Speculation, Greed and Chart Porn for Fun and Profit) even based on their own data Dumenil and Levy can’t explain how the 1930s is similar to today’s crisis. They argue the Great Depression, like the present one, resulted from causes other than a fall in the rate of profit. But, the chart they offer clearly shows a pronounced fall in the rate of profit even exceeding that leading into the depression of the 1890s.

The data is not mine — it is theirs. And it shows the profit rate, as they calculate it, fell from about 15-20 percent to about 2 percent. The fall in the profit rate to 2 percent is more severe even than the fall to 9 percent that occurred in the 1890s depression. Further, if you look at the data series back to 1870 there is a clear down slope both in terms of highs and lows in the profit rate. A series high is established in 1880 and the series low is established in 1933. Fluctuations in the rate of profit are a succession of lower highs and lower lows between 1880 and 1933. Any day trader would argue the series up to 1933 shows a clear downward trend in the profit rate.

Speculation, Greed and Chart Porn for Fun and Profit

As part of my continuing occupation of the Marxist Academy, I have been looking at various Marxist theories of the crisis of neoliberalism. In this current post I will be spending some time critiquing “The Crisis of Neoliberalism” by Gerard Dumenil and Dominique Levy, first published, it appears, in 2009. I am using the 2011 version of the book. This is part two of my critique.

Dumenil and Levy open Part VIII of their book, “The Crisis of Neoliberalism” (PDF) by asserting a striking similarity between the Great Depression and the present crisis:

If there is a precedent to the contemporary crisis, it is, unquestionably, the Great Depression.

The core proposition of the book is that an historical pattern is being played out in this crisis similar to that experienced in the period beginning with the Great Depression and ending with World War II. Moreover, the writers go on to argue this pattern is part of an even larger historical pattern beginning more or less with the depression of the 1890s and ending with the emergence of neoliberalism by the end of the 1970s. The larger pattern is the emergence of a financial hegemony which dominates society until its twin social determinants — the owners of capital and their management team — bring themselves to ruin in an orgy of speculation and greed. At the end of this outbreak of license, the state is forced to step in, regulate the financial oligarchy, repair the inequalities generated by the excessive greed, and assume management of the macro-economy.

I will show in this post how Dumenil and Levy are offering an argument that is not only significantly at odds with Marx’s labor theory of value, and a mere rehash of the sort of pop culture economics you might find on CNN, FOX News and MSNBC, but also, how even by their own standards, their argument is questionable and at odds with their own data.