"Ain't no party like a Communist party"
The New York Times put together a panel of five people that know what they're talking about and asked them the less than benign question "Was Marx right?".
Below is the roster of the participants and links to their respective answers:
Doug Henwood, "A return to a world Marx knows":
- ...a system dependent on high levels of mass consumption has a hard time coping with the stagnation or decline in mass incomes.The development of a mass consumer market after Marx died, with the eager participation of a growing middle class, caused a lot of people to say his analysis was obsolete. But now, with the hollowing out of the middle class and the erosion of mass purchasing power, the whole 20th century model of mass consumption is starting to look obsolete.
Michael R. Strain, "Responsible Politics can cure capitalism's ills"
- But these problems don't mean capitalism will inevitably unravel, as Marx thought...many of today's problems are temporary results of the Great Recession. And on a deeper level, Marx erred significantly in believing that social relations and social institutions are founded upon economics. We are not slaves to changes in the way goods and services are produced and exchanged...Likewise, the flipside of communism is mistaken: The economy is not a holy, untouchable, object...In fact, both Marxism and pure laissez-faire elevate the economy above its proper station, ignoring the ability (Marxism) and the duty (laissez-faire) of culture, and through it politics, to soften the rough edges of the free enterprise system.
Yves Smith, "Foreseeing the dangers, but not the response"
- Marx failed to anticipate how the immense growth of commercial enterprises would create the need for a large range of managers, from shop supervisors and office managers to top executives, as well as technocratic experts such as accountants, lawyers, computer programmers and consultants. And while the Great Depression raised fears of radical revolt, the rise of large unions and Rooseveltian social safety nets served as a bulwark against the Red Menace.
- ....as long as there is a sufficiently large remnant of the American middle class, still socialized to identify with the established order, no matter how beleaguered they are, it's hard to see how any organized, large scale uprising could occur.
Tyler Cowen, "Problems are in sectors, not systems"
- Marx pointed out, again perceptively, that capitalism might be subject to a declining rate of profit, and indeed the rate of productivity growth generally has been lower since the 1970s. But why? I would cite energy price shocks, greater investments in environmental goods (which may well be optimal), political dysfunction, the difficulty of topping the amazing achievements of the early 20th century, a bit of cultural complacency, and a generally greater aversion to risk, failure and also the new NIMBY “not in my backward” mentality. Most of Marx’s analytical constructs are convoluted, replete with contradictions, and in any case not ideally suited toward analyzing those problems.
Brad Delong, "Blind to system's ingenuity and ability to reinvent"
- Karl Marx in his day could not believe the volume of production could possibly expand enough to re-employ those who lost their jobs as handloom weavers as well-paid machine-minders or carpet-sellers. He was wrong...The optimistic view is that our collective ingenuity will create so many things for people to do that are so attractive to the rich that they will pay through the nose for them and so recreate a middle-class society.
