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Comment by csallen | Hacker News Reader

Who are you talking about?

Karl Marx. And I see the point the parent is making, although that's probably more of an issue in the USA than in Europe for instance. And I do agree that it's a shame because the writings of Marx are extremely interesting and deserve to be studied and discussed even if you don't believe in socialism and communism, it's really about economy in general first and foremost. Dismissing this important ground-breaking work because of what people did in its name decades after Marx's death is pretty strange. You could argue that he was wrong in his "praxis" but the diagnostic is very thorough, methodical and unfortunately a lot of it is very much relevant.

And let's not even talk about whatever rebranding of Marx is used as a strawman these days, like this "cultural marxism" dog whistle I hear 10 times a day and I can't be bothered to figure out what that's even supposed to mean anymore. Actually I just tried to search the term and the first result was an entry on "urban dictionary" which goes like:

>An umbrella term for identity politics, affirmative action, feminism, radical LGBT activism, Islam apologetics, white privilege, political correctness... Basically the SJW ideology.

I think I missed that part in Das Kapital...

In a past life I went to film school at a very very left-leaning university and distinctly remember learning about Lukács, Gramsci and Althusser as a "Cultural Marxist" wave that was all about correcting the excessive emphasis on economics of previous orthodox marxism.

So there -- not only the phrase makes perfect sense if you do read Gramsci like I have, it's been uttered by Marxist professors somewhere in the world sometime this century.

The Frankfurt School, which coined the term "cultural Marxism", were German Marxists who survived WWI, saw the revolution fail in Germany and turn to Leninist/Stalinist horror in Russia, and tried to understand what went wrong. They were seeking a route to revolution that was not wracked with violence and dictatorship. Fascinating stuff, actually.

It doesn't seem helpful to say that the Frankfurt school coined the term when their academic use is so vastly different from the bullshit we see today.

You should read up on Gramsci. It's not that far removed from the alt-right's straw man -- indeed they seem to be learning tactics from him.

Thanks, his works are on my reading list. Curiously enough, I reckon that the sole reason I've pushed his works down the list is because he's so talked about by the sort of people that like to obfuscate everything in an esoteric language - which I despise.

But neither Lukács (Hungarian iirc), nor Gramsci (Italian, wrote in prison) nor Althusser (at one point the "French Freud" before Lacan rose to prominence) were from the Frankfurt school.

They think you can take Capital and search/replace 'money' for 'privilege points' and it's what the left believes now. I'm paraphrasing but I see this point made over and over again. James Damore did it in his Google Memo...

But Karl Marx was wrong, really wrong. About almost everything he modeled. Labor theory value did not stand academic or practical scrutiny. The reserve army idea is frankly, plain off the mark.

He contributed a great challenge to economics with his ideas, having to work towards rebuttal and debunking of his simple, yet appealing models.

>Labor theory value did not stand academic or practical scrutiny.

It seems to be standing academic scrutiny today, at least, it is debated to be. Kliman's[0] Temporal Single System Interpretation of Marx, upheld by Alan Freeman, David Laibman and Guglielmo Carchedi is one example which also attempts to solve for the transformation problem. On the other hand, Paul Cockshott has written on the empirical validity from the opposite pole[4] (note, one which Kliman rejects). Anwar Shaikh takes up what (I believe to be, my memory is rusty) a neo-Ricardian approach to the empirical strength of Marx's theory of value[8]. With regard to Marx's falling rate of profit, Okishio's Fundamental Marxian Theorem is currently upheld by Dong-Min Rieu (in several interpretations)[10]. Recent work has also been done on the empirical validity of the TRPF using actual econometric data[9]. Marx's theory of exploitation is currently upheld by John Roemer, Roberto Veneziani and Naoki Yoshihara[1]. Marx's "third thing" proof is currently upheld by James Furner[2]. The interpretation of the labour theory of value in the causal-explanatory mode is discussed since Steven Fleetwood[3]. The Sraffian criticism of Marx is also very much discussed[5][6][7]. There is also, of course, the Neue Marx-Lektur school which takes the sociological and cultural approach to the theory of value, the relatively new idea of the "value theory of labour", and the philosophical reading of capital such that price and value are different levels of abstraction and thus irreconcilable.

My point is that to say Marx was "wrong, really wrong" does not do justice to the fact that he was wrong on some counts and right on other counts, and your dismissal is much too heavy handed to dismiss much of the work and debate done in political economy.

[0] "Two Concepts of Value, Two Rates of Profit, Two Laws of Motion," Research in Political Economy 18, 243–67

[1] http://www.ier.hit-u.ac.jp/~yosihara/Reexamination_of_the_Ma...

[2] Furner, James (2004) 'Marx's critique of Samuel Bailey', Historical Materialism 12(2)

[3] Fleetwood, S. (2001) 'What kind of theory is Marx's labour theory of value? A critical realist inquiry', Capital & Class 73

[4] http://users.wfu.edu/cottrell/eea97.pdf

[5] Freeman, Alan, (2002), Marx After Marx After Sraffa, MPRA Paper, University Library of Munich, Germany.

[6] http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/ecn265/value.pdf

[7] Bowles, S., and Gintis, H. (1981): “Structure and ractice in the Labor Theory of Value,” Review of Radical Political Economics 12,pp.1-26.

[8] "The Empirical Strength of the Labor Theory of Value" in Conference Proceedings of Marxian Economics: A Centenary Appraisal, Riccardo Bellofiore (ed.), Macmillan, London.

[9] Basu, Deepankar and Manolakos, Panayiotis T., "Is There a Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall? Econometric Evidence for the U.S. Economy, 1948-2007" (2010). Economics Department Working Paper Series. 99.

[10] Rieu, D.-M. (2009). Interpretations of Marxian Value Theory in Terms of the Fundamental Marxian Theorem. Review of Radical Political Economics, 41(2), 216–226.

I've saved the references and plan to take a solid look at them. I stand by my criticism at the moment, even as an avid and interested reader in Das Kapital.

^ this. Furthermore, one can really make progressive, social-democratic policy within the confines of fairly traditional economics, certainly without much reference to Marx.

Cultural Marxism applies modes of analysis developed within the Marxist community with different presumed central conflicts than the economic class one addressed in Marxism (and a number of the early practitioners were former Marxists.) So there originally was an understandable genesis of the term.

Nowadays, it's sort of a generic derogatory epithet by the right for anything that they disagree with that can't be ascribed directly (even in a very loose view) to actual economic Marxism, because everything bad must have “Marxism” stamped on it somewhere.

That's the point. You have a problem with people misappropriating Marxism, so why not start with the people who claim to be Marxists? If you ask cultural Marxists to explain socialism then they'll tell you to go read Capital, but I think you should be able to answer questions about it if you have and you have understood it. If you don't understand it then you have no good reason to recommend it.

Marx isn't responsible for cultural Marxists, Nietzsche isn't responsible for Nazis and Darwin isn't responsible for social Darwinists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx_Brothers

e: Oh shit I just realized who I'm replying to. Serious answer time. Socialism will be a disruptive new paradigm for start-ups and other businesses where (following the idea of a meritocracy) workers, and not stuffy old capitalists, each own an equal number of shares at their place of work. And even more innovative in structure than Zappos and Valve, it allows for capital investment decisions to be voted on by individual contributors, throwing away traditional management structures you see at crufty old firms. Pretty cool stuff! According to some dusty old theories it's the "Exit Strategy" for our largest firms.

I liked your original answer. It got the point across while being absolutely fucking hilarious.

Thanks. People keep getting mad at my jokes though (I'm on thin ice with dang) so I wanted to contribute a little bit more.

Fast Company was reporting on a bill that would implement part of this idea for companies with over $1 billion in revenue.

https://www.fastcompany.com/90223130/how-elizabeth-warrens-a...

Who's dang and why are you self-censoring? Are you afraid of getting banned from HN? I don't think the site can remove your comments. If you are banned, I'd take it as a badge of honor.

> Who's dang and why are you self-censoring?

dang is the HN admin, lead moderator, or whatever the official title is.

> If you are banned, I'd take it as a badge of honor.

Some people would rather continue to participate then accumulate honor badges.

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