One of the shortcomings in this post is that it is not careful to distinguish leftism, which is a very broad umbrella term, from Marxism, which is a specific political philosophy or theory of economics which is not particularly popular in Western, developed liberal democracies today. This post seems to attempt to summarize Karl Marxâs theory of surplus value, but then says most or all leftists think of the economy in these terms. There may be a grain of truth to this, but the way itâs stated in this post is not really accurate.
The postâs reply to the summarized version of Marxâs theory of surplus value also has a problem. It doesnât make a clear enough distinction between labour and capital. White collar workers, managers, and owners/âinvestors are all lumped into capital, and⌠physical labour is the only kind of labour considered? Very strange. Not only is this not accurate to the Marxist view, itâs also not accurate to how mainstream orthodox capitalist economics sees the capital/âlabour distinction.
There are a number of problems of this kind in the post. I fear that if I tried to describe them all, I would end up with a comment longer than the post itself. Iâll just quickly name one more.
The part about education is such a strange and inaccurate superficial gloss on the topic. First, who says education is the only relevant (non-genetic) factor in economic inequality or class mobility? If this is supposed to be a response to some real political factionâs views, it should accurately represent those views. And, ideally, engage with economics research.
Second, thereâs the idea that education can be reduced down to an âeducational techniqueâ that, I suppose, can be infinitely replicated by any competent adult anywhere just by following a simple set of instructions. To think education works this way would seem to imply that surely all schools, including all colleges and universities must give an equally good education, since any of them can just copy the best educational techniques. But that is a strange oversimplification and abstract reduction of what education is. By comparison, doing parenting well is not as simple as just reading a book or a pamphlet explaining the optimal parenting technique. Nor are many things in life, such as research, management, government, or art. So, why education?
The section that goes, âBtw, if youâre preparing an outraged denial at this point, it may be because you are more focused on how statements make people feel than on how statements relate to reality. ⌠If this upsets you, then reality upsets you,â that section is borderline anti-intellectualist. Or maybe Iâm saying âborderline anti-intellectualistâ when I just mean intellectually dishonest, or all rhetorical bluster with no argumentative substance. Itâs certainly not a serious engagement with economics scholarship. When I read something that bad in a post, I feel assured I can safely discard the whole thing.
Overall, this post makes such an oversimplistic and inaccurate gloss of âleftistâ views that they donât truthfully represent real peopleâs views and it gives such a strange and unrealistic gloss of how the world works that its own account isnât true either. Itâs a fantasy of what leftistsâ views are and a fantasy about the world in response to that fantasy. There is no intellectual value here, and Iâm kind of surprised to see such meagre fare even get posted on this forum.
For any topic discussed in this post, such as the capital/âlabour distinction, economic inequality and class mobility, or education, I recommend just looking up what the mainstream orthodox capitalist economics scholarship has to say about it. It would be exhausting to try to go over everything point by point and give a good retelling of what mainstream economics says. But that knowledge is available online and not hard to find, and there is a lot of explainer journalism and economics journalism that makes it accessible to a general audience.
Economics is a science â a social science â and we should treat it like one. We should view posts like this one as the equivalent of a layperson trying to reason based on first principles, intuition, and anecdote about which medicines can treat which diseases, while ignoring sources like medical journals, government health departments, the Mayo Clinic, WebMD, Encyclopedia Britannica, and so on. This simply isnât good enough, and itâs so easy to do so much better.
Thanks for the perspective, Yarrow. Note the post is supposed to be about âThe simplified stereotype leftist viewâ, and âThe simplified stereotype rightist viewâ, not about the median, or strongest leftist and rightist views.
I would say itâs much worse than just a simplification or a stereotype, itâs just plain wrong.
If someone writes a post arguing that doctors are fools to prescribe anti-biotics to prevent novel coronavirus infections because of the respective properties of anti-biotics and viruses, that error in understanding what doctors are really recommending â mRNA vaccines â is more than a simplification or a stereotype. That person is just confused about what doctors are really saying. They are getting the details on which everything depends wrong, in such a way that their argument makes no sense as a result.
Saying that most or all leftists are Marxists (which is not close to true, itâs probably less than 1%) and then getting even the Marxist view wrong is a huge error. And also getting the mainstream orthodox capitalist economistsâ view wrong too! And the post is filled with other huge errors of this kind.
It would be so time-intensive to explain everything wrong with this post, itâs better to just say people should start from scratch and learn about these kind of economic debates from reliable sources. And then youâll see for yourself how wrong this post is.
While reading this post, I had a twinge of horror imagining what it would be like if civilization collapsed and, while we still had possession of books, knowledge transmission and intellectual traditions broke down so that all our views on economics, science, technology, history, politics, philosophy, ethics, medicine, and so on were as twisted and distorted as what you see in this post. A sort of broken telephone version of the original ideas.
One of the shortcomings in this post is that it is not careful to distinguish leftism, which is a very broad umbrella term, from Marxism, which is a specific political philosophy or theory of economics which is not particularly popular in Western, developed liberal democracies today. This post seems to attempt to summarize Karl Marxâs theory of surplus value, but then says most or all leftists think of the economy in these terms. There may be a grain of truth to this, but the way itâs stated in this post is not really accurate.
The postâs reply to the summarized version of Marxâs theory of surplus value also has a problem. It doesnât make a clear enough distinction between labour and capital. White collar workers, managers, and owners/âinvestors are all lumped into capital, and⌠physical labour is the only kind of labour considered? Very strange. Not only is this not accurate to the Marxist view, itâs also not accurate to how mainstream orthodox capitalist economics sees the capital/âlabour distinction.
There are a number of problems of this kind in the post. I fear that if I tried to describe them all, I would end up with a comment longer than the post itself. Iâll just quickly name one more.
The part about education is such a strange and inaccurate superficial gloss on the topic. First, who says education is the only relevant (non-genetic) factor in economic inequality or class mobility? If this is supposed to be a response to some real political factionâs views, it should accurately represent those views. And, ideally, engage with economics research.
Second, thereâs the idea that education can be reduced down to an âeducational techniqueâ that, I suppose, can be infinitely replicated by any competent adult anywhere just by following a simple set of instructions. To think education works this way would seem to imply that surely all schools, including all colleges and universities must give an equally good education, since any of them can just copy the best educational techniques. But that is a strange oversimplification and abstract reduction of what education is. By comparison, doing parenting well is not as simple as just reading a book or a pamphlet explaining the optimal parenting technique. Nor are many things in life, such as research, management, government, or art. So, why education?
The section that goes, âBtw, if youâre preparing an outraged denial at this point, it may be because you are more focused on how statements make people feel than on how statements relate to reality. ⌠If this upsets you, then reality upsets you,â that section is borderline anti-intellectualist. Or maybe Iâm saying âborderline anti-intellectualistâ when I just mean intellectually dishonest, or all rhetorical bluster with no argumentative substance. Itâs certainly not a serious engagement with economics scholarship. When I read something that bad in a post, I feel assured I can safely discard the whole thing.
Overall, this post makes such an oversimplistic and inaccurate gloss of âleftistâ views that they donât truthfully represent real peopleâs views and it gives such a strange and unrealistic gloss of how the world works that its own account isnât true either. Itâs a fantasy of what leftistsâ views are and a fantasy about the world in response to that fantasy. There is no intellectual value here, and Iâm kind of surprised to see such meagre fare even get posted on this forum.
For any topic discussed in this post, such as the capital/âlabour distinction, economic inequality and class mobility, or education, I recommend just looking up what the mainstream orthodox capitalist economics scholarship has to say about it. It would be exhausting to try to go over everything point by point and give a good retelling of what mainstream economics says. But that knowledge is available online and not hard to find, and there is a lot of explainer journalism and economics journalism that makes it accessible to a general audience.
Economics is a science â a social science â and we should treat it like one. We should view posts like this one as the equivalent of a layperson trying to reason based on first principles, intuition, and anecdote about which medicines can treat which diseases, while ignoring sources like medical journals, government health departments, the Mayo Clinic, WebMD, Encyclopedia Britannica, and so on. This simply isnât good enough, and itâs so easy to do so much better.
Thanks for the perspective, Yarrow. Note the post is supposed to be about âThe simplified stereotype leftist viewâ, and âThe simplified stereotype rightist viewâ, not about the median, or strongest leftist and rightist views.
I would say itâs much worse than just a simplification or a stereotype, itâs just plain wrong.
If someone writes a post arguing that doctors are fools to prescribe anti-biotics to prevent novel coronavirus infections because of the respective properties of anti-biotics and viruses, that error in understanding what doctors are really recommending â mRNA vaccines â is more than a simplification or a stereotype. That person is just confused about what doctors are really saying. They are getting the details on which everything depends wrong, in such a way that their argument makes no sense as a result.
Saying that most or all leftists are Marxists (which is not close to true, itâs probably less than 1%) and then getting even the Marxist view wrong is a huge error. And also getting the mainstream orthodox capitalist economistsâ view wrong too! And the post is filled with other huge errors of this kind.
It would be so time-intensive to explain everything wrong with this post, itâs better to just say people should start from scratch and learn about these kind of economic debates from reliable sources. And then youâll see for yourself how wrong this post is.
While reading this post, I had a twinge of horror imagining what it would be like if civilization collapsed and, while we still had possession of books, knowledge transmission and intellectual traditions broke down so that all our views on economics, science, technology, history, politics, philosophy, ethics, medicine, and so on were as twisted and distorted as what you see in this post. A sort of broken telephone version of the original ideas.