Economics Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Classes: identity of classes provided by same elements (extension) - identity of properties by the same predicates (intension)._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Karl Marx on Classes - Dictionary of Arguments
Rothbard II 381 Classes/society/Marx/Rothbard: There is a grave inner contradiction at the heart of the Marxian system, in Marx's crucial concept of class. In the Marxian dialectic, two mighty social classes face each other in inherent conflict, the ruling and the ruled. In the first two ofhistory's major conflicts: 'oriental despotism', and 'feudalism', the social classes are defined by Marx (…) as classes privileged or burdened by the state. Thus, in 'oriental despotism', or the 'Asiatic mode ofproduction', the emperor and his technocratic bureaucracy run the state, and constitute its 'ruling class'. Problem/RothbardVsMarx: But then, suddenly, when Marx gets to capitalism, the class categories change, without acknowledgement. Now the ruling class is Rothbard II 382 not simply defined as the class that runs the state apparatus. Now, suddenly, the original act of rule or 'exploitation' is the voluntary market wage contract, the very act of a capitalist hiring a worker and a worker agreeing to be hired. This in itself, to Marx, establishes a common 'class-interest' among capitalists, exploiting a 'common class' of workers. It is true that Marx also believed that this 'capitalist class' runs the state, but only as 'the executive committee of the ruling class', that is, of a ruling class that previously existed on the free market, because of the wage system. So that what Marx, as analyst of oriental despotism or feudalism, would consider ruling-class exploitation still exists under capitalism, but only as an addendum to the preexisting capitalist exploitation of the workers through the wage system. Ruling-class exploitation under capitalism is unique in exercising a double exploitation: first, on the market as part of the wage contract, and second, the alleged exploitation by the state as executive committee of the ruling class. RothbardVsMarx: It should be evident that Marx's analysis of class is by this point a mishmash, in total disarray; two contradictory definitions of class are jammed together, unfused and unacknowledged. Why should capitalism, of all systems, be able to levy a 'double' exploitation that no other ruling class in Marx's historical schema can ever enjoy? Problems: How can 'capitalists', even in the same industry let alone in the entire social system, have any thing crucial in common? Similarly, there can be no 'working class' With common class-interests on the free market. Workers compete with each other, just as capitalists or entrepreneurs compete with each other. Once again, if groups of workers can Rothbard II 383 use the state to exclude other groups, they can become a ruling class as against the excluded groups. Thus, if government immigration restrictions keep out new workers, the native workers can benefit (at least in the short run) at the expense of incomes of immigrants; or if white workers can keep black workers out of skilled jobs by state coercion (as was done in South Africa), the former becomes a privileged or ruling class at the expense of the latter. Rothbard:(…) any group that can manage to control, or gain privileges from, the state can take its place among the exploiters: this can be specific groups of workers, or businessmen, or Communist Party members, or whatever. There is no reason to assume that only 'capitalists' can acquire such privileges. >Class conflict/Marx. Rothbard II 384 Definition of classes/def class/Marx/Rothbard: (…) in Marx's theoretical magnum opus, Capital, there is no attempt at a definition of class. Only an incomplete Volume I was published in Marx's lifetime (1867), at which point he had substantially finished working on the book. After Marx's death in 1883, Engels worked up, edited and published the remaining manuscript in two further volumes (1885 , 1894).(1) Only in the famous very last chapter of the third volume does Marx finally arrive at an attempt to define what he and Engels had been talking and writing about for four decades. It is an unfinished chapter of startling brevity - five short paragraphs. In this chapter, 'Classes', Marx begins with the classical Ricardian triad: that the sources of income in the market economy are wages, profits and rents, and that the receivers of such income constitute the 'three big classes of modern society' - labourers, capitalists and landlords. Rothbard II 385 Marx: (…) [there is an] infinite fragmentation of interest and rank into which the division of social labour splits labourers as well as capitalists and landlords -the latter, e.g. into owners of vineyards, farm owners, owners of forests, mine owners and owners of fisheries.(1) Rothbard: Precisely. Marx has said it very well; his cherished two-class monolith (…) lies totally in ruins. >Classes/Mises. Rothbard II 392 Ricardo/Marx: As Karl Marx plunged into the economics of capitalism (…) he found ready at hand a marvellous weapon: Ricardian economics. In contrast to J.B. Say and the French tradition, Ricardo concentrated not on market exchange and its inevitable focus on individual actors and enchangers benefiting from exchange, but on 'production' followed by 'distribution' of income as a distinct and separate process. Ricardo's main focus was on how this social income from production is 'distributed'. Whereas Say or Turgot looked at individual factors of production and how their income emerges from production and exchange, Ricardo focused only on entire, allegedly homogeneous, 'classes' of producers: workers earning wages, capitalists earning 'profits' and landlords acquiring rent. For counter arguments against Marx see >Classes/Mises. 1. During the 1870s, Marx led Engels to believe that he was working hard and steadily on Volumes II and III of Capital, at Marx's death, Engels was astonished to find that Marx had done virtually no work on the manuscript since 1867, in short, that Marx had lied shamelessly to his friend and patron. See W.O. Henderson, The Life of Friedrich Engels (London: Frank Cass, 1976), 11, p. 563._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Marx I Karl Marx Das Kapital, Kritik der politische Ökonomie Berlin 1957 Rothbard II Murray N. Rothbard Classical Economics. An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing. Cheltenham 1995 Rothbard III Murray N. Rothbard Man, Economy and State with Power and Market. Study Edition Auburn, Alabama 1962, 1970, 2009 Rothbard IV Murray N. Rothbard The Essential von Mises Auburn, Alabama 1988 Rothbard V Murray N. Rothbard Power and Market: Government and the Economy Kansas City 1977 |
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