Some good points.

Post #388,079 by Another Scott 3/31/14 9:59:00 AM Reply	Some good points. You might enjoy DeLong's little piece - http://delong.typepa...ance-of-marx.html Or maybe not. ;-) Over at the New York Times Room for Debate: I have long thought that Marx's fixation on the labor theory of value made his technical economic analyses of little worth. Marx was dead certain for ontological reasons that exchange-value was created by human socially-necessary labor time and by that alone, and that after its creation exchange-value could be transferred and redistributed but never enlarged or diminished. Thus he vanished into the swamp, the dark waters closed over his head, and was never seen again. READ MOAR at the Equitablog. [...] His NYTimes piece is here - http://www.nytimes.c...ility-to-reinvent There are comments at all 3 places. Cheers, Scott.
Post #388,083 by mmoffitt 3/31/14 1:58:36 PM Reply	That's not optimism. That's delusional. Karl Marx in his day could not believe the volume of production could possibly expand enough to reemploy 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. Um, care to consider this: http://www.shadowsta...employment-charts Median income in the US (adjusted for inflation) between 1999 and 2012 FELL from $56,080 to $51,017. That's a 9 percent drop in median wages! Right, tell me again how the rich are going to "pay through the nose."
Post #388,093 by Another Scott 3/31/14 9:42:19 PM Reply	DeLong is an economist with a strong interest in history. His Socratic-esq dialogs are entertaining - e.g. http://delong.typepa...ncial-crisis.html He knows that it's perfectly within the capabilities of our leadership to fix our economic problems. The economics is well understood. I think that's what he's getting at - he doesn't accept that it's inevitable that we'll slouch toward the 1% owning everything and an eventual revolution of the proletariat. He pulls his hair out like all of us over the stupidity of our politics - https://www.google.c...t+vote+republican He's not saying our destiny is to tax the rich and have more leisure time. That is a possible outcome - we know how to do it - but it's not inevitable. Now whether he's given a fair summary of Marx, I can't say. Marx wrote a lot and I've only read a little of his writing. If you like graphs of how far we've fallen and where we are in our recovery, then you should read Calculated Risk if you aren't already - http://www.calculatedriskblog.com You're welcome! ;-) Cheers, Scott.
Post #388,084 by mmoffitt 3/31/14 2:03:29 PM Reply	And Thanks! Better articulated view that I adhere to. ;0) http://www.nytimes.c...-would-have-known

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