Tag / Social Science Education

by doctormcgrail

Economics and the Value of Nations: Why Adam Smith Still Matters

Why, in the 21st century, should we still read Adam Smith? Often hailed as the “father of modern economics,” Smith is just as often dismissed as outdated—an 18th century thinker writing before industrialisation, automation, and the complex global economy we know today. Yet, as a closer reading of The Wealth of Nations (1776) reveals, Smith’s ideas remain deeply relevant—not because they offer final answers, but because they expose enduring questions about labour, value, and the structure of modern society.

This blog post offers a concise exploration of Smith’s place in economic thought, drawing on the evolution of economic theory in his time, his intellectual influences, and a critical evaluation of both his insights and his limitations. My blog is a shorter version of a longer (6,000 word) article which can be read here: Economics & the Value of Nations: A Snapshot on Smithian Scholarship.

The Modern Relevance of Adam Smith
At first glance, Smith’s world seems distant from ours. But on closer inspection, the society he described—what he termed “commercial society”—is the same one we inhabit today. Its defining feature is waged labour: people earning a living by selling their capacity to work. While earlier societies relied primarily on slaves, serfs, or domestic servants, Smith observed the rise of wage labour as the dominant social relationship—a condition that continues today.

Importantly, Smith wrote at a moment of transition. The social structure of modern capitalism had already emerged, even if the technological form—industrial machinery—had not yet fully developed. This gave him a unique vantage point. Without the distraction of machines, Smith could focus more clearly on the social relationships underpinning economic life, particularly how wages, profit, and rent are distributed across social classes.

Later economists, captivated by mechanisation, often misread these relationships. Thinkers such as Jean-Baptiste Say even treated machines as independent “factors of production” deserving income in their own right—an idea foreign to Smith. By contrast, Smith’s emphasis remained firmly on human labour and its organisation.

Competing Economic Theories in Smith’s Time
To understand Smith’s contribution, we need to situate him within the intellectual context of the late 18th century. Two dominant schools of thought shaped economic debate:


• Mercantilism
• Physiocracy


Smith’s work engages critically with both.

Mercantilism: Wealth Through Trade
Mercantilism argued that national wealth comes from maintaining a positive balance of trade—exporting more than you import. Rooted in the practical experience of merchants, it framed economic life as a process of buying cheap and selling dear.
However, mercantilist policies required heavy government intervention. States enforced monopolies, controlled trade routes, imposed tariffs, and maintained colonial systems to ensure profits. Colonies were restricted to trading with their “mother country,” creating protected markets that enriched merchants and, by extension, state revenues.

While this system could generate wealth for the metropole (e.g. Britain), it did so at a cost: higher prices, reduced competition, and greater inequality. Workers, in particular, bore the burden of inflated costs and heavy taxation. Despite Smith’s powerful critique, mercantilist policies persisted well into the 19th century, only gradually giving way to freer trade principles.

Physiocracy: Wealth from Nature
In contrast, the French Physiocrats located the source of wealth in nature, especially agriculture. Observing that agricultural production yields a surplus—planting one seed produces many—they concluded that only agriculture (and extractive industries like mining or fishing) truly created new wealth.

Urban industries, by comparison, were deemed “sterile.” A jeweller might reshape silver into necklaces, but the total quantity of silver remains unchanged. Physiocracy also introduced a powerful methodological innovation: systematic data collection. By tracking agricultural output, population, and economic activity, the Physiocrats could analyse economic growth empirically. They also advocated laissez-faire policies, arguing that government interference—such as price controls on bread—often made economic problems worse.

Smith’s Synthesis and Breakthrough
Adam Smith absorbed ideas from both traditions, particularly during his time in France, where he engaged directly with leading Physiocrats. Yet his contribution lies in transcending their limitations. Smith agreed that production is central to wealth, but he rejected the idea that only agriculture is productive. Instead, he identified human labour, across all sectors, as the true source of value.

His famous example of the pin factory illustrates this point. By dividing labour into specialised tasks, productivity increases dramatically—even without new machinery. This increase is not natural but social, arising from the organisation of work.
Smith also challenged the Physiocratic dismissal of trade. For him, exchange is not sterile; it motivates production. People produce not just for subsistence but for markets, responding to demand shaped by social needs.

Class Structure and Economic Insight
One of Smith’s enduring contributions is his clear articulation of a three-class system:

• Workers (earning wages)
• Capitalists (taking profit)
• Landowners (taking rent)

This framework remains influential today. Unlike earlier thinkers, Smith recognised the shared characteristics within each class. Workers across sectors are united by their dependence on wages, while business owners share a profit motive.

The Importance of Smith’s Library
Modern scholarship has deepened our understanding of Smith through the study of his personal library. This “hermeneutic” approach—interpreting Smith through the texts he read—reveals the intellectual world that shaped his thinking. Smith’s library contained works in multiple languages, travel accounts, and early economic texts like Richard Cantillon’s (1755 [1720s]) Essai sur la nature du commerce en général. By tracing Smith’s references back to these sources, we see how he adapted and reinterpreted earlier ideas.

For instance, from Cantillon, Smith draws insights about wages needing to cover not just workers’ survival but also population reproduction. This reflects a deep awareness of the relationship between labour, subsistence, and demographic growth.
Smith was also aware (from Cantillon’s work) that workers are perfectly capable of producing double what they require to survive.

The Labour Theory of Value: Insight and Problem
At the heart of Smith’s economics lies a powerful but problematic idea: that labour is the measure of value. In principle, this means that the value of goods reflects the (generic) labour time required to produce them.

However, Smith also recognises an apparent contradiction: workers do not receive the full value of what they produce. Instead, part of this value becomes profit for employers (and rent for landowners; interest for bankers; taxes for politicians).
This creates a theoretical tension. If goods exchange at their labour values, how can workers consistently receive less than the value of their labour?

Smith never fully resolves this issue. Later economists attempted to “correct” him, often abandoning the labour theory of value altogether. But another interpretation suggests that Smith was uncovering a real feature of capitalist society: a mismatch between value as a universal measure (of human effort) and the labour time of wage labourers (and how it can be the ‘measure’ of itself).

My longer article (link above) outlines this contradiction using the analogy of Kilograms as a measure of weight (which cannot then appear on the scales as a ‘Kilogram of Kilograms’). Marx resolved the ‘problem’ by noting that wage labourers are not paid for their ‘labour time’ (but for the product of their ‘recreation’ time, namely. their labour power.

Wealth vs. Value: A Crucial Distinction

Another key issue in Smith’s work is his use of the term “wealth.” He famously argues that labour is the source of all wealth, but this is only partly correct. Nature clearly provides wealth—sunlight, minerals, natural resources. What nature does not provide is value, which is a social construct arising from exchange. Smith’s failure to clearly distinguish between wealth and value leads to confusion. A more accurate title for his book might have been The Value of Nations, emphasising the social processes that determine economic outcomes.

Conclusion: A Thinker Worth Revisiting
Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations remains a foundational text not because it offers flawless theory, but because it grapples with fundamental questions that are still unresolved in “mainstream” economic theory:

• What creates value?
• Why is value distributed in the way it is? [What is role of violence / exploitation?]
• What role do labour, nature, and exchange play in economic life?


Consequently, Smith’s insights into labour, class, and productivity continue to shape economic thought. At the same time, his unresolved contradictions—particularly around value and wages—highlight the complexity of the system he sought to understand. Far from being outdated, Smith’s work invites us to think more critically about the modern economy. His legacy lies not in providing final answers, but in opening a field of inquiry that remains in dispute.

by doctormcgrail

AI? Should any Student ever Trust it?

The Labyrinth, the Ghost & Lost Intellect

If you are a student, should you ask / prompt generative artificial intelligence (AI) to write your essays?  Why would you risk doing that?  What would be the equivalent in a time before computers? Would you let Jorge of Burgo write your essay or help you to plan it?

Umberto Eco’s mediaeval murder mystery, The Name of the Rose (1980), is centred around a monastic library which contains dangerous, unorthodox texts.  Certain books are deemed dangerous because they make monks laugh like apes and (spoiler alert) for Brother Jorge of Burgo, the killer, such laughter defiles God’s glory and creation whilst making a mockery of penitence and the penitent.  But without the latter no-one will be entering heaven.  The story culminates in the burning down of the library.

Now, apparently (I’ve not checked myself), if you ask the Chinese AI bot Deepseek anything about 1989 and Tiananmen Square it ignores whatever you are asking (in relation to suppression of dissent) and, instead, provides you with tourist information on the square! Has Brother Jorge arisen from the mediaeval dead to stalk the networks of AI databanks?

The Library as Labyrinth

The library’s contents in Eco’s novel are guarded by a ‘reading room’ (scriptorium) system where the depository and its shelves can only be accessed by officially sanctioned librarians (including the Abbot, the  Keeper, and the latter’s assistants or trainees).  These bring requested books to monks in the scriptorium where copies of books are created for other libraries and monasteries.  It can be assumed these monks would also make copies going in the opposite direction (books coming from elsewhere), adding to the monastery’s existing collection.  The library is famed as one of the best in Christendom, but the extent of its collection is ‘unknown’ – a knowledge kept by, and limited to, those able to peruse the depository shelves.

Such a library was the mediaeval internet and many parallels can be drawn.  Its sanctioned librarians are the search engines – they not only retain lists of the library’s contents, but know where to find and collect works, bringing selections of knowledge to copyists’ and readers’ attention.  The latter would either know, already, what work they wanted, or would have to rely on recommendations from librarians for related, complimentary, or enhancing pieces on a subject.  And, of course, trust would be central.  A copyist might know of a book but a librarian could say the library does not have the work even though it does!

At the same time, the librarians are a ghost in the team-spirit sense – they share knowledge amongst themselves and in doing so the ethereal (beyond the individual) consciousness of any item would make it hard to hide (given every librarian who knows about it has to be involved in the subterfuge for successful censorship).  Yet, each librarian (search engine) has a unique ‘algorithm’, leading them to tackle their job in a different manner and producing a highly specific map of ’the library’, especially in terms of prioritising what is and is not an important work (for those in the scriptorium or outside the library to know about).  Consequently, there are, in effect, multiple libraries – as many as there are ways (maps) to access the contents.

As a retired, previous Keeper, Jorge of Borgo has used his extensive knowledge to not only hide certain works (placing them in the ‘wrong’ locations) but failed to share the location of secreted rooms within the library.  Whole areas of knowledge are locked away, except to Jorge.  When the novel’s hero, the detective Franciscan Brother William, eventually gains access, he discovers the library is a mind-blowing extensive labyrinth; a maze with numerous small rooms connected to a central staircase but in a confusing and seemingly random fashion.  As an outsider, he and his assistant quickly become lost and struggle to find their way out.  William has deduced that all the murders in the monastery are linked to the library and to specific books the murdered monks had seen, read, worked on, or delivered to the scriptorium. 

Given the library’s labyrinthine nature, the instigation of the murder series was a chance happening – the accidental discovery by a junior librarian of one of the secreted rooms and, within it, Aristotle’s (in)famous defence of laughter, which Jorge of Burgo had suppressed.  The junior librarian could not keep the discovery to himself and joyously shared knowledge of Aristotle’s ‘lost’ work with other young monks forcing Jorge to employ dastardly means to restore order.

The Librarian as Data ‘Censor’

That internet search engines act as surreptitious ‘censors’ is well known.  Based on computational algorithms these ‘dumb’ machines do not understand the concept of ‘censorship’ and merely scour and scrape the world’s largest dataset looking for similarities in keywords and strings of letters.  They are more sophisticated in searching for statistically approximate keywords, which is helpful when the searcher mistypes (or does not know how to spell) the subject they are looking for.  But they problematically throw up hundreds, thousands, even millions of results with only the most ‘popular’ discoveries appearing on the first few pages.  And since the commercial search engine providers require an ‘income’, paid for advertisements feature at the very top, even before the most popular (or statistically ‘likely’) ones.  Wikipedia does offer ‘disambiguations’ as part of its search to cover single words (and especially people’s names) having multiple meanings, versions, or instances.  And all search engines provide advanced ‘Boolean’ search functions, though these then require seekers to have advanced, prior knowledge of what they are seeking.

Consequently, conventional digital ‘search engines’ make for pretty dumb (i.e. mute) librarians, especially as they cannot ‘converse’ with nor question the person making the search and rhetorically work towards a solution.  Obviously, human librarians can offer such investigatory interactions, but what they offer by way of interlocution is a product of their socialisation and culture, along with their conception of philosophical meanings of life, society, history and teleology.  Questioning Jorge about the presence and then meaning as well as usefulness of Aristotle’s defence of laughter would produce a very different conversation than one held with Brother William.  And a ‘composite’ interlocutor, the synthesis of knowledge within Jorge and William would always be confronted about how to ‘merge’ mutually exclusive arguments (laughter is evil / laughter is good).  In that manner, a composite interlocutor is just another interlocutor – it might only sit ‘above’ any other in having a more extensive perspective, but history, on occasion, has shown regression in knowledge accumulation as well as progression.

In summary, librarians and search engines perform a ‘censorship’ function whether they like it or not – selections and choices have to be made and prioritised, based on the parameters (passions, drives, reasonings) programmed into the ‘engine’ and its algorithms (or the librarian and their habitual thinking).

The Mediaeval Copyist as Data ‘Generator’

Yet, the role of the librarian in helping to form and reform societal knowledge is but one element to be taken from the story (and analogy) of the mediaeval monastic library.  Another key element, of course, is that of the scribe, editor, or ‘copyist’ (the ‘file transfer’ and/or ‘translator’ function in digital terms).  The monks working in the scriptorium might aim to ’copy’ (reproduce) the work in front of them but examples of their work indicate that even when copying a text (when keeping to the same language) they made ‘errors’.  If their copy was then copied, the first copyist’s error might be ‘copied’ accurately, whilst at the same time new ‘errors’ could creep into the work, and so on.

Such errors could be basic: a miscopied word where the error would be obvious to any future reader or copyist.  However, errors involving confusion over words with multiple meanings or spellings would create more complex scholarship and interpretation issues.  Over time, passages could become corrupted ‘code’.  When copyists come across an error there could be several ways to correct the problem, such as attempting to compare the copy with an original (so long as one knew which work was the ‘original’).  Indeed, academic scholarship has become defined by questions of what to do about errors on discovering them and the requirement for discussion around options and competing resolutions.

In conventional digital networks, the editorial role was still played by those adding content to the network.  Even in a ‘free for all’ – no controls on entry – system (such as Twitter, formerly known as ‘X’), where there is no centralised censor (such as Jorge), the quality of the library content is determined by the quality of what people put into it.  Misunderstood misrepresentations of others’ work flowing into the ‘big data’ cauldron produces a depository of corrupted information.  But poor quality human ‘input’, and it’s corollary in ill-informed and biased human ‘editing’ and ‘editorial control’, may well now be the least of our problems.

In the world of generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) the core problem might not be poor ‘copying’, ‘editing’ or ‘writing’ (though even with digital recordings, like CD, ‘error correction’ systems had to be built into playback software to cope with some level of data corruption).  Rather, what happens when AI systems keep discovering ‘new’ works within the system itself (no ‘input’ nor ‘editorial’ gatekeeping required) which are nothing more than ‘new’ statistical summaries (made by the AI engine) of previous data devoured by a large language model (LLM)? 

Should such internally-generated ‘additions’ be treated as significant ‘new’ works which nurture and enrich the library or as bodily waste-products to be flushed away as quickly as possible?  Even worse is the issue of hallucination, when generative AI machines start creating citations and sources which never existed.  A system user may quickly work out that the information offered is false (in this case meaning ‘generated’ with very different connotations), but then they may not and end up unknowingly ‘citing’ some fictitious work (or ‘case’ as some young lawyers have recently been caught doing).

The Librarian as Essay ’Author’

It was not the primary role of monastic scribes and librarians to write new works.  Some would develop, through rigid rhetorical processes, and become senior office holders within rigid academic structures – the mediaeval university with its hierarchy of professorial chairs (logic > natural philosophy > moral philosophy > theology) where those deemed most worthy would study divinity.  These few would become permitted or sanctioned scholars with a licence to lecture and write new works.  Jorge of Borgo, of course, was circumventing that process of learning through rhetoric by secretly ‘writing’ new works via his censorship of what could be known (accessed) about existing knowledge and the past.

That was one way in which the librarian could be considered a writer or co-writer of what scriptorium monks were doing, but it is doubtful they would have turned to Jorge for help in the copying or editing of texts they are tasked with.

Fast forward to the university library of the 19th and 20th centuries and we could argue that the librarian’s role has not changed that much whilst the copyists’ existence (mode of living) has disappeared (smashed by the printing press).  Of course, their presence in reading rooms has been replaced by researchers, editors, lecturers, students, readers, and writers.  Most of these would be engaged in some form of note-taking or writing.  They would expect help from the librarian to find works they already know about (from their own research), provide lists of new books coming into publication, maintain subscriptions to renowned and important journals, and produce and revise catalogues of all works in the collection.  But they would not expect the librarian to take notes for them, develop an essay plan, and write sections of their ‘work’ on a bespoke service basis.

Conclusion

A key question may be: who knows the subject under examination better?  The student of that subject or the librarian?  An experienced, qualified, and skilled librarian may well know more than the novice, undergrad researcher, which would make the librarian a great source of help.  But, how would the novice know if they are dealing with Jorge of Burgo? And, so, it comes down to questions of trust and political (and division of labour) interests.  Why should any student trust generative AI?  More specifically, why should any student of the social sciences (what is contemporary parlance are now ‘social studies’) trust AI when it is programmatically biased towards the promotion of private interests? In short, AI may be able to ‘replace’ librarians, but that’s hardly the point. As a replacement your ‘AI’ bot maybe worse than Brother Jorge.

by doctormcgrail

Theses on the Mirage of “Left” Unity

Introduction

A teaching and union colleague recently pointed out that one of the 2025 Reith Lectures claimed disunity on the “Left” was incapacitating struggle against the new authoritarianism. This disunity leaves the “Left” unable to combat the rise of the Far Right. Like most theories, this claim contains its moment of truth. There seems to be little obvious opposition to the politics of isolation. Self-immolation in an era of capitalist crises and state austerity stands unchallenged.

However, such calls to arms overlook or ignore not just the historical reasons for “Left” disunity. They neglect to consider why, philosophically, there have been incompatible positions on the “Left”. Indeed, we should ask this question. Has there ever been such a thing as “Left unity” (producing a unified position, movement, group, or identity)?

The Left should be associated with ‘radicalism’ (a desire to change the status quo). This creates its ‘identity’ in opposition to ‘conservatism’ (a desire to maintain the status quo). However, there has never been agreement amongst “the Left” as to what counts as the ‘status quo’. Hence, what is it that needs to be ‘changed’? If this cannot be agreed upon, radicals (change seekers) face a crossroads. They are bound to head off in different directions. Thus, disunity is built into the so-called ‘march of progress’!

Analysing the Options

Here I will argue there are 3 fundamental positions on “the Left”. Everyone involved may want to ‘change society’ (and clearly they hope to do this ‘for the better’). But, as noted, their positions are fundamentally, in both theoretical and practical terms, incompatible. I call these three positions: (1) State Takers, (2) State Makers, and (3) State Breakers.

All three stand in relation to ‘capitalism’ as the currently existing mode of production. And each wants to present their own position as the ‘best way forward’ or ‘best available option … in reality’. I say ‘stand in relation to’ and not ‘stand against’. The first major division arises between those ‘radicals’ who see capitalist relations of production grounded in ‘human nature’ (and thereby inevitable or insurmountable). Others see capitalism as running against ‘human nature’ (and thereby flawed and historically dangerous; working its way towards barbarism). Yet, things are never this ‘neat’ and sub-positions emerge as there are those who ‘think’ they are overthrowing capitalism whenever the state nationalises or incorporates services and institutions, despite widespread awareness of the modern nation state’s role in advancing capitalist relations of production (i.e., the wage labour form, laws on community dispossession, the promotion of monetary command over life).

What is a ‘State’?

First I am required to give a definition of what I mean by ‘state’. I understand a ‘state’ to be a permanent structure or condition which entails a political division between rulers and ruled. Typically, there are politicians and non-politicians. One section of the social totality (the polity) makes decisions in relation to the other (who take instruction).

A classic account of a ‘state’ is Plato’s Republic. In this account, the community is divided into three distinct classes: (a) philosophers, (b) soldiers, and (c) traders (techne). Plato argued against democracy. He did not envision a properly functioning society where everyone (within the polity) had the capacity, skills, time, or inclination to govern. Rulers (the government or governors) had to be ‘trained’ to rule properly. Indeed, the most effective rulers had to be philosophers. And these philosophers had to be communists not ‘corrupted’ by private interests. Philosophers were placed above techne. They were not ‘encumbered’ with everyday requirements, such as producing the material needs of the polity. Their sole job was to ‘rule’.

Of course, Plato’s arrangements involved permanent classes reproduced through genetic isolation from each other. The philosophers were a nobility, though a physically weak one which needed protecting by a second class (level or layer) of ‘rulers’, the soldier guardians, who had physical strength. Naturally, the head (philosophy or wisdom) ruled the body (might) and in Plato’s Republic it was ‘impossible’ for individuals to move between classes (defined by ‘birth’).

Our contemporary ‘states’ differ in so far as everyone is abstractly ‘equal’ before the law. Anyone, under the American Dream, has the ability to rise among the ‘ranks’ and become a ‘ruler’ (politician). But this social mobility does not mean there is no permanent division between rulers and ruled in modern society. Whilst ‘individuals’ can change rank and swap places, at any moment in time/space rulers (politicians) are still a class apart from the ruled. Each empowered individual has temporary privileges (the ability to take part in meaningful votes) which others do not, but as a ruling class politicians are a ‘permanent’ feature and division.

Whereas in Plato’s Republic both the individuals and their class divisions are permanent, with modern states individuals are ‘free’ to move between or across classes, becoming ‘temporary’ rulers. But the classes themselves (politicians versus non-politicians) remain ‘permanent’. An individual can be elected or co-opted into the ruling (governing) class. And they can also exploit their way into being a desirable and co-optable character via accumulation of monetary wealth (capital).

Elections give a semblance of democratic engagement (in contrast to Plato’s Republic). As the philosopher Hegel notes, there is democracy merely one day every 4 years; an event through which a temporary tyrant or oligarch is selected to serve ‘their’ term. During that term the elected are a class apart. Democratic events (‘the election’) are rarer than the 29th of February (1 in 1,461 days). Such is ‘the state’ we are in!

(1) State Takers

The first position on “the Left’ is populated by those willing to work with the ‘existing’ class-divided system and its peculiar arrangements. They put themselves forward to be selected as one of the temporary dictators (or club of would-be dictators) under such a system. [A kind of reversal of The Hunger Games, in which a champion for the exploiting class – to carry it forward – is chosen by and from amongst the exploited class.]

The aim is to ‘take over’ the state in its current condition, with our ‘champions’ firmly believing they are ‘the one’ – an incorruptible Messianic ‘ruler’ who will represent and govern in the interests of ‘the workers’ (the working class or techne). There are clear echoes of Plato in this; minus the preference for ‘democratic’ selection of the philosopher-guardians. Plato’s philosophical machinations were all about coping with the potential for guardians to be ‘corrupted’. But with a social system which eulogises the corruptible there is no need to bother with Plato’s concerns.

Meanwhile, modern political science knows too much about familial and genetic corruption (via primogeniture) and, consequently, desires to draw the polity’s governors from what it perceives as the endless ‘talent pool’ of a mass population that has been legally and commercially equalised through market trading (i.e., every commodity owner is formally equal – the same – except those who do get ‘chosen’ tend to have socially desirable exploitative ‘talents’ indicating they deserve a chance at power and ‘ruling’).

Whilst the “Left” State Taker position may be widely identified with social democracy, it also covers democratic socialism, Fabianism, and movements such as social liberalism and market socialism. Figures and characters range (in UK politics) from Tony Blair to Jeremy Corbyn, from Jenny Lee to George Galloway. Some appear more ‘radical’ than others, but the primary goal has always been to take charge of the existing state apparatus and run it ‘for the good’ or ‘the betterment’ of the lower orders.

After all, can such a state (as the existing one) remain in the hands of Right-wingers or even Centrists? Wouldn’t that be worse for ‘the working class’? Aren’t State Taker arguments reasonable? Don’t they make sense? Let’s ‘take the state’! Couldn’t anything be more obvious?

The criticism is that after more than two centuries of such ‘Left’ (radical) reformist argumentation and action the tension (or contradiction) between progress and regress is nothing except heightened. There is no lack of food, but use of food banks continues to rise. And the arrival of state welfare has introduced another control mechanism with which to discipline and punish the universal working class (constantly filtering people into deserving and undeserving ‘classes’ despite movement of the ‘means testing’ slide ruler). There has always been a ‘dark side’ to social democratic politics – a complicity with ‘the beast’ through which the permanent class division perseveres.

(2) State Makers

This has always been considered a ‘more radical’ stance on the existing state, and its promises features more fundamental change. There are a range of methods involved, from the democratic ‘take over’ (which quickly aims to become a ‘make over’), through guerrilla movement (often based on ethnic, national, cultural, or racial differences in a supposedly ‘cosmopolitan’ colony), to the militaristic General’s coup d’état.

Having read Robert Service’s work on the Russian Revolution, I am never sure how to treat and place Lenin. He wore a civilian suit but, at the same time, was the puppet master of Bolshevik action undertaken by armed units managed by Trotsky. Though the real coup took place after the only free elections returned a majority of Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries to the post-provisional Assembly. So, Lenin and the Bolsheviks ‘suspended’ the Assembly (at gun point).

The Russian Revolution (as Arendt, 1963, notes: ‘modelled’ on the French and not the American Revolution) is a clear example of state making. This was no mere ‘take over’ of the old apparatus and its class divisions. The monarchy was executed (multiple generations), the nobility fled overseas, and the peasants refused to be subservient (to anyone: Kerensky and Lenin included). For about six months (Feb-Oct) there was what Ernst Bloch would call an ‘opening’. If there was a ‘state’ it was one of flux (so really a ‘non-state’ given the absence of permanency [see my definition of ‘state’ above]).

Then Lenin and Bolshevik Co., stepped into build up a ‘new state’. Despite the theoretical proposal that this would be a state which would ‘wither away’, it never did. Or, it took 70 years and then ‘withered’ into an “illiberal” oligarchic state and not ‘away’. The Bolsheviks were classic state makers. They ‘radically’ changed the structural components and ‘classes’ of the Russian (Imperial) state. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat was the new ruling class. But since this particular class could not be found outside the major cities of Imperial Russia, it was Bolshevik Party membership (and obedience to Party organs, structured in a strict hierarchy) that defined the ‘new’ permanent ruling class.

As a piece of state making this became a proven success which, subsequently, was followed, copied and mimicked across the globe (primarily for its acclaimed ‘success’): China; North Korea; Cuba, Vietnam; Syria; Libya; Afghanistan; Venezuela. Therefore, as a ‘model’ for “Left” (radical) politics it remains prominent and powerful if not as predominant as it used to be.

And, of course, this kind of state making (overthrowing one state system and replacing it with another) does not have to be “Left” wing. Unlike Socialist Afghanistan, ‘socialist’ Iran never made it beyond the revolutionary period due to the radical Clerics and their supporters becoming the ‘vanguard’ which remade the state. The Islamic Caliphate in Iraq/Syria (ISIS) is another example of such ‘regressive’ radicalism.

Contemporary ‘successful’ Leftist state making may be associated with ‘civic nationalist’ movements or with the downtrodden / wretched ‘side’ in civil and colonialist wars. But in what manner do the remade nation ‘states’ of Ireland, Tanzania or Bosnia-Herzegovina now count as “Left” good causes? And what of advocates for a Palestinian State? Surely this is a contemporary highly-reasonable case for “Leftist” ‘state making’? But the history of hitherto state making does not sit well with any prefigurative attempts to make ‘the state’ work for the people.

(3) State Breakers

Finally, we reach the anarchist “Left”. In that the ‘state’ is a permanent division between ‘rulers’ and ‘ruled’, no matter what form that class division takes (e.g., ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’; plutocracy; meritocratic and labour aristocracy), the state breaker’s aim is to do away with permanent social division – to create an indivisible political community, a true ‘polity’ (where the people rule in the people’s interest). Out go ‘charismatic’ “leaders of the people” and “representative” forms of democracy, with their election of one part of the population into positions of power over another.

The state breaker “Left” is, therefore, associated with the more extreme forms of democracy; so-called direct democracy involving participatory action, delegation, and consensus. The latter forms need to be grassroots based, such that the local is free to engage with the federal and global (which are nothing except the conglomeration of local polities).

The objections to state breaking are that it is ‘impractical’ and will lead to ‘anarchy’ (objectors mean ‘chaos’, since ‘anarchy’ is, indeed, the goal). But anarchy simply means ‘without a state’ (so, without a permanent division between rulers and ruled). Used pejoratively, ‘anarchy’ is shouted by those within an existing ruling class as a form of defense against change. That is, their own removal from power.

Of course, given a history of state makers managing to produce even worse systems that what preceded them, the real ‘chaos’ in modern history has been produced by a perpetuation of ruler/ruled divisions (a ‘state’) that promote ‘terror’ (and what is ‘war’ if not terror) in order to ‘keep the state going’.

State breaking remains ‘fanciful’ – the most utopian of the three “Leftist” positions. But it does exist, and always has, bubbling away and percolating through historically-made institutions (which would rather pretend, and do pretend, they are an outcome of ‘nature’). We find remnants of delegatory democracy in trade unions – where the ‘branch’ and not the ‘representative’ votes at conference. Such leftovers are a reminder of past attempts to break the state (during the French Revolution, the Paris Commune, the post-World War 1 revolutions – see Tomba).

Conclusion

Given the above positions, what does “Left” unity look like? There may be some ‘abstract’ desires which ‘all’ can agree upon (remember: these do not even include an ‘end to capitalism’), but what are concrete examples of these? An example might be ‘an end to poverty’? Everyone on the “Left”, surely, will agree to this as ‘an end’ of the “Left”?

But then we simply move on to differences over action and ‘policy’ (‘the means’), where the above positions once more make themselves felt as disunity. Furthermore, the latter ‘assertion’ soon becomes a ‘charge’ against any ‘opposing’ position, such that ‘dissent’ from a policy or strategy enables the charge of disunity to become a ‘control’ mechanism!

What then becomes of “Left” unity? Does it mean ‘everyone’ getting behind a (state taker) “representative” of “all”, such as Starmer, Corbyn, Mélenchon, or Saunders? Or does it mean signing up to a specific ‘leadership’ organisation (the vanguard party or a rainbow coalition), in the hope of ‘changing the system’ by creating an alternate system?

Such demands for “Left” unity can ultimately become ‘suspect’ within themselves – a means of disabling certain forms of resistance and refusal. Hence, calls for ‘unity’ are but mirages – the unreachable sites of an ‘identity group’ formed purely in opposition to the “Right”, and not by any autonomous agenda. Instead of trying to “unite” the mutually exclusive positions of the “Left”, would it not be better to work out what is required for real emancipation?

by doctormcgrail

Marx’s Anarchism and the Politics of Capitalism

On the relevance of Marx in times of ‘Zombie Capitalism?’

Studying an author hermeneutically refers to understanding a writer by standing in their shoes and seeing the world from their perspective.  Studying political writings in such a manner was advanced in the mid-20th century by scholars like those in the ‘Cambridge School’ of history of political thought.  

When Karl Marx was writing Capital, in mid 19th century, the term ‘left’ (on the political spectrum) meant being ‘radical’ whilst ‘right’ referred to being ‘conservative’.  The designations (literally positions or ’wings’) were taken from the post-revolutionary Constituent Assembly of France, with the colours derived from the Republican tricolour flag. 

However, by the mid 20th century, during the post-war consensus, ‘the left’ was associated with support for state control of the economy and government social intervention whilst ‘the right’ had come to be associated with anti-state individualism and ‘liberalism’ (or Hayekian ‘market non-interventionism’).  By the 1970s and ‘80s a new breed of ‘post-consensus’ right-wing politicians emerged who were deemed (in many respects correctly) ‘radical’.

Reagan and Thatcher were the most prominent ’radicals’ to have ideologies named after them (Reaganism and Thatcherism).  Such radical right-wingers wanted to tear down what they saw as a ’statist’ establishment which, of course, many left-wingers wanted to ‘conserve’.  The switch in meanings of left and right was completed in the form of conservative left-wingers (whether Bolsheviks, Maoists, Post-colonialists, Keynesians, Swedish Social Democrats, British reformers, or any other version of left ’state power’ grabbers who felt they had something to preserve, a status quo).

This kind of ‘conservative’ left statism was not unknown to Marx.  Marx’s awareness can be detected in his many critiques of ‘utopian’ socialists during his lifetime, from Robert Owen to his Critique of the Gotha Programme (of the German Social Democratic Party, SPD). But Marx describes workers taking control of (rather than power over) society on very few occasions, with his most prominent account featured in news articles published (later) by Engels as The Civil Wars in France (1871).

This was Marx’s account of the rise and fall of the Paris Commune (1870).  Importantly, what he describes in these articles is a delegate-based anti-statist workers’ council or commune system (the word ‘commune’ meaning grassroots council).  ’Councils’ were both local (geographically-centred – the rural village) and vocational (workplace or activity centred – e.g., a weavers’ collective) to ensure different elements of society were heard, but significantly that no-one living off the private expropriation of production (performed by others) would be (easily) heard.  This was a reversal of the prior situation where a separate class of politicians (who expropriated or represented expropriators, and even proprietors of private ‘labour power’) formed the state and government. 

Furthermore, when Marx was asked if the ‘stage’ between pre-capitalist and communist societies could be by-passed or skipped, he eventually nodded to a positive answer regarding the development of existing Russian ‘communes’ (in a letter to a Narodniki).  To be clear, I consider him hinting that ‘industrialisation’ and ‘urbanisation’ were not prerequisites to the fulfilment of some objectified ’inevitable’ historical progression working ‘at the backs of people’ towards ‘socialism’ and then ‘communism’ in a compulsory stadial trajectory.

As ‘communes’ already existed in Russia they could form the basis of an emancipated society, without a deranged detour through ‘capitalism’!  However, Marx still thought that the experience of capitalism would be more likely to produce a social revolution, given the nascent conservatism of the rural commune – put another way, more advanced industrial countries should see a revolution first given the (contradictory) life conditions they generate.  Also, given capitalism’s existence (historical arrival, even by accident) hopes of a direct transition from peasant communes were, simply, after the fact even in the mid-Victorian era.  The social form that gave rise to such hopes (the peasant village eulogised by the Narodniki) was already disappearing, specifically in the advanced and developing industrial nations who had the power to colonise and suppress every other type of social form or mode of production. 

Nevertheless, and this is a salient point, I would argue that for most (if not all) of his political life Marx was what would be known, in both 19th and 20th centuries, as an ‘anarchist’!  The point of the Paris Commune’s mandatory delegation system was to ensure there would be no separation between a (professional) political class and the rest of the population.  Thus, parliamentary ‘representation’ with its political leadership (elites or vanguards) was simply not good enough since it would reproduce one of the fundamental social / political divisions which Marx wished to see the back of.

Indeed, one way of outlining how Marx understood the ‘politics’ of capitalism, compared to feudalist and ancient slave modes of production, was that capitalism makes what was obvious in the others (direct political domination) an inconspicuous, or ‘hidden’, process (via indirect economic domination under the ‘guise’ of ‘fair’ trade – see Ellen Meiskins Wood, 2002).

But how did the previously noted transition in meaning, from the 19th century radical left / conservative right to the 20th century conservative left / radical right, take place?  The answer, not surprisingly, was via successful social revolution in the early 20th century!  The conceptual and analytical problem here is that all too often activists (those present at the time) and commentators (contemporary or later) have focused attention on the ‘trees’ whilst failing to see the ’wood’!  Hence, we end up with histories and analyses of ‘The Russian Revolution’ (1917), ‘The German Revolution’ (1918-19), ‘The Hungarian Revolution’ (1919-20), but don’t hear much about ‘The Irish Revolution’ (1916), the Syrian democratic constitution (1919-20), ‘The Finnish Revolution’ (1917-22) nor ‘The British Revolution’ (1918-22).  Generally, a global move towards universal suffrage, imposed from below as part of a working class revolution in political practice (namely, direct democracy), gets overlooked. 

The dominant analytical time frames and intellectual interests tend to be centred on what can be described as moments of coup d’etat (significant but fleeting changes within forms of political ‘representation’) which merely punctuated much broader social changes.  With the latter including changes in working practices, shifts in artistic practices and possibilities in communication, but also developments in social roles and recognition – the rise of married women in the workplace, the emergence of state welfare recipients (like working-class ‘pensioners’ in Britain), the emergence of ‘childhood’, and the extended legal reach of the state (such as compulsory purchase of land, military conscription, and nationalisation of banking). 

One way of taking a wider survey of the workers’ revolution is to frame it in terms of all those socio-politico-economic changes taking place between the start of the Great War (1914) and a final capitulation of ‘traditional’ (pre-fiat money) capitalism in the Wall Street Crash (1929); a fifteen year period after which things can never go back to the way they were before though the desire to do so (right-wing radicalism) continues to be felt as an echo – the march of the Zombies.

Whether we understand ‘the revolution’ as having succeeded (the eventual emergence of the Soviet Union as a ‘workers’ state’) or failed (the crushing of the German Revolution by the freikorp in 1919), by the early 1930s states (and/or public, centralised institutions associated with them, such as central banks) are everywhere taking the lead role in forming (and/or reforming) the most advanced ’capitalist?’ economies.  From here on, I place a question mark on ‘capitalism?’ to indicate the far-away hills distance of the classic liberal model or mode.  Both the ideology and practice of classical ‘liberal’ political-economy was ’dead’ but also ‘alive’ as a zombie.

Whereas before 1914 capitalist enterprises mostly got on with the job of reproducing, disciplining, exploiting workers in an autonomous manner (with little to no state intervention), by the early 1930s the state becomes, increasingly, an integral part of the social process, including the production of surplus value (profit) via a national organisation of surplus labour time (e.g. how to manage unemployment).  States did take different forms, such as ’total‘ states (a singularity, as in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany) compared to ‘hegemonic’ ones (pluralities dominated by mass cultures and technocratic control), but the main task of all states / governments was to reproduce (provide subsistence to), discipline, and (successfully) exploit workers directly as the key means of sustaining the wage-labour mode of production. The purpose of the modern nation-state, after all, is to ensure the compliance of the population (whether worker, manager, capitalist, or politburo member) under its territorial control with the accumulation of capital.

By exploitation, of course, I include the ideological elements of emotional exploitation (something Gramsci picked up on as hegemonic cultural domination): “Heave away lads, put your backs into it, for the benefit and sake of the nation!”  A new ‘social contract’ between political elite (the state) and the people (workers) was being founded, and in many experimental forms – Soviet Communism, Italian Fascism, Japanese Imperialism, Irish and Finnish nationalism, German Nazism, the American New Deal, Jewish Zionism, and ‘Greater’ Britishness (re-modelling the Empire as ‘Commonwealth’).  The last of these was even mooted, at one point, as a new country, called Greater Britain.

Some of these were ethno-nationalist (Nazism / Zionism) whilst others were pan- or trans-nationalist (the Soviet federation and British unionism), but almost all (excepting the smaller nations) led to expansionism (ultimately, war).  In contrast with the era of joint-stock ‘liberalism’, state-control of economic and social life was now in the driving seat.  Many of these subsequently failed (losers to others in war) and the leading ideologies emerged as those of (Western) ‘Keynesianism’ and (Eastern) ‘Communism’, with a common connection in ‘state-led’ social formation.  It is not inaccurate to describe the outcome as socialism, with socialism as the natural religion (‘binding’) of capitalist alienation.

In this sense, ‘a’ social revolution did take place in the early 20th century, but one with a compromised, synthetic outcome.  In Gunn and Wilding’s (2022) Hegelian terms: mis-recognition pertained.  Workers gaining universal suffrage in Britain was ‘a revolution’, but one that is almost always overlooked!  Sometimes the achievement of suffrage is deemed a mere ‘concession’ by a ruling class determined to retain their power through more subtle methods (the hegemonic control of education and broadcast media, as pinpointed by Gramsci’s early analysis of Italian Fascism).  But to rob the period and Gramsci of their ‘openness’ produces an historiography which makes the ruling class ‘oh-so clever’, as if it was their ‘Revolution’. 

More tellingly, the same social revolution produced a crisis in surplus value production (and the rate at which accumulation could proceed) – the Wall Street Crash both questioned the emerging fascist conceptions of a ‘New Man’ (much admired by elite figures such as the British Royals: Edward Prince of Wales and Albert Duke of York) whilst also hastening change.  As Thomas Piketty’s (2018) empirical data has demonstrated, before 1914 capital accumulation grew at a rate faster than wage growth, but throughout the mid-20th century the reverse was true (wages grew faster than profits).  ‘Capitalism?’ had been saved by socialist collectivism (the amalgamation of multiple capitals into a singularity), but at massive economic and social (status) cost to the conventional ruling class and its practices.  Workers, in their role as waged workers (subjects central to the accumulation system), had imposed their interests and gained decision-making power within the capitalist state mechanism, even if their so-called ‘class consciousness’ remained ‘corrupted’.

In his overview of Keynes’ theoretical work, and reformation of capitalist strategy, Negri, in Revolution Retrieved (1988), coins the term positive Keynesianism to refer to the immediate post-war period (1945-1973) when state welfare benefits and full employment policies were used to encourage and entice employees to work hard and raise their productivity.  This ever-rising productivity was central to the strategy and was baked-in to a social necessity for endless economic growth and, so long as the economy could be grown at a sufficient rate, the fact wage earners (as property owners) were making distributional ground on recipients of profits, rents and taxes was an acceptable trade-off, especially as any class relying on unearned income was on the back foot.  But with ‘stagnation’ in the 1970s the situation grew desperate for profiteers, rentiers and public servants (tax-takers) meaning something needed to be done – the rise of the right-wing radical was witnessed just as open ‘class conflict’ surfaced or re-emerged.

This conflict produced a shift in the social contract, but not one from Keynesianism back to Liberalism, despite the hopes of the radical right-wing ideology known as ‘Neoliberalism’.  Rather, Negri describes the shift as one towards negative Keynesianism.  That is, rather than the state taking a reduced and fading (or to use Marx’s phrase, vanishing) role in ‘the economy’, which is what Neoliberals like Thatcher may have ‘thought’ was going to happen (or wished would happen in a return to the ‘classic’ era), negative Keynesianism maintained levels of state intervention in social life (and its prominence in guaranteeing the reproduction, discipline, and exploitation of the working class).

Instead of positive encouragements (material benefits; socialised myths of ‘we are all in it together’), negative Keynesianism ‘liberated’ the representatives of monied-capital only by ‘oppressing’ worker dissent to capital’s imposition that people remain ’waged labour’.  Militarisation of society (higher prison populations; investment in security, securitisation, and surveillance), the piling on of indebtedness (for housing, education, and health), and creeping isolation (social individualisation and insulation: gated communities; financial ‘independence’) were the negative Keynesian modes of operation.

So, what is the importance of the above analysis of social change over the last 100 years with regards to studying Marx’s Capital?  On the one hand, when we read Marx via his original writings his anti-statist (radical) position must be kept in mind – his anarchism means he was against political systems containing social divisions between rulers and ruled.  He would have been appalled by the ‘Soviet’ regime produced not just by ‘Stalin’ (that is too easy a cop-out) but Bolshevism from its inception (in 1892). Marx would have recognised the ‘council communist’ and even ’liberal democratic’ revolution that occurred in Russia in Feb (or March) 1917 as progressive whilst reserving criticism for remnants of expropriator influence and power. 

Whilst Bolshevism did get a ‘populist’ upper-hand on (the more ‘reformist’) Menshivist movement (largely related to ending the war immediately), leading to the ‘October Revolution’ (a coup d’etat), the dismantling of the Soviet (‘council’) system and democratic ‘reforms’ happened very quickly under Lenin’s centralisation of political institutions.  The democratic arrangements of Feb-Oct 1917 may not have led to a ‘non-statist’ system, as Marx would have desired, but they could have produced a different outcome for both Russia and Germany in the 1920s (Luxembourg did not feel the time was right for the kind of ‘coup’ attempted by workers in Germany).  Probably the ‘revolution’ would have developed more along lines of what happened in the Western world.  Marx reserves his ‘ire’ for statist politicians of all shades in his political writings, as well as those who try to ‘force’ history and recognition forward (e.g., the professional ‘revolutionary’)!

On the other hand, a standard objection to taking Marx seriously is that, given all the social and technical ‘change’ that took place during the 20th century, surely Marx’s writings are limited to the kind of 19th century capitalism he witnessed (of the classic liberal type)?  Namely, he is good at excoriating Mr MoneyBags, the woefully selfish carpetbagger and child-exploitative industrialist of Victorian slum cities, but modern capitalist corporations are operated by equality, diversity and inclusion-qualified executives who are socially aware and just don’t operate in the same way as the Victorian businessman!  I would point out that whilst Marx is often associated with writing a ‘grand narrative’ (an overarching account of the large sweep of history, a la The Communist Manifesto) his study in Capital is highly specific. 

Capital is an examination of just one type of social relation (or mode of production) – the wage labour / capital relationship.  Marx’s work analyses (breaks down) this relationship and identifies its complex and multifarious derivative forms – that is, if we find ‘the commodity’ (which is produced and appears everywhere in daily life – part of our immediate experience) then we will also find both mutual recognition and value (defined as socially necessary labour) – anyone producing ‘commodities’ must recognise others as equivalents (owners) and produce at a socially-recognised rate (e.g., items per hour).

If we then find that human ‘labour power’ is one of the commodities available for purchase, then we will find ‘surplus value’, which is produced via ‘absolute’ and ’relative’ processes, and so on.  The argument in Capital Is not an ‘historical’ story but Marx’s way of laying out a conceptual ‘unfolding’.  One difficulty, compared to earlier classical political economists, is in getting the order of conceptual presentation correct, so that the reader does not go off on the wrong foot by starting with something which is ‘derivative’ (e.g., ‘profit’).

In summary, Capital is a study of one kind of social relation, and wherever that social relation (waged labour) is found then Marx’s analysis remains applicable, no matter how technologically-advanced or different a ‘society’ might happen to appear.  The main question, therefore: is ‘our society’ still based on waged labour (capital)?  If so, then Marx’s Capital is [remains] relevant. The flesh of the elephant may have fallen away, but to the trained anatomist what stands before them is still an elephant.

Publication Note:

I wrote (started) this article in February 2024, but it then lay dormant and unfinished (on my cloud drive) until September 2025. Reading my friend Werner Bonefeld’s (2023) book (A Critical Theory of Economic Compulsion Routledge) inspired me to return to it and at least publish, in a still unfinished form (the referencing is incomplete; if / when I get the time I will return to this element).

References:

Bonefeld, W. (2023) A Critical Theory of Economic Compulsion: Wealth, Suffering, Negation London: Rutledge.

Gunn, R. & Wilding, A. (2022) Revolutionary Recognition

Negri, T. (1988) Revolution Retrieved

Piketty, T. (2018) Capital in the 21st Century

Wood, E. M. (2002) The Origins of Capitalism: A Longer View