WWII - A New Perspective?

[RF]

Basically I'm a leftist liberal who is by nature attracted to Vic's arguments.

You cannot be both a liberal and a marxist. The two terms are mutually exclusive.

[RF]

( b ) I agree with RF that trade unions are actually capitalist institutions but disagree with the reason he gives, which is investing their pension and other funds in stock markets. The fundamental reason why labor unions are capitalistic in nature is that they gather all of the workers together in a cartel or monopoly which strengthens their bargaining power because a threat to stop all work also threatens to deprive capital of ongoing profits. Thus the base principal of organized labor is one of the base tendencies of capitalism.

I actually gave the investment of trade union funds as an example of trade unions being capitalist institutions, not as a reason. Essentially you are right in saying that unions are a device to force up the price of labour, to exercise market control. It is actually an imperfection in a freely clearing market, not a ''base tendency of capitalism.'' I repeat, you cannot be both marxist and liberal, you are either one or the other. I am a liberal. But not as you apparently understand it.

[RF]

( e ) Vic argues that Hitler artificially skewed the economic system in favor of Capitalists by inter alia indemnifying them against losses due to following his directions and suppressing production to keep prices high. LWD generally countered this by saying Hitler's policies used common tools for managing market economies, and in any case, they were not skewed in favor of Capitalists. I think LWD got the better of this for a political reason that starts with something that may be new and provocative but then draws on ( a ), ( c ) and ( d ) above.

Lets be clear on this point. Hitler did not personally run the German economy or operate any personal economic policy.

The German economy was placed in the hands of firstly Schacht, then Funk and then Goering, with his five year plan, whilst Ley was Minister of Labour and Schwerin-Krosgik was finance minister, in charge of taxcation policies. They ran the German economy between them, subject to Hitler's requirement that Germany be prepared for total war at some vaguely defined date.

Hitler had no interest or understanding of either economics or logistics. Neither did he bother much, after 1934, with cabinet meetings. Each mininster was left to administer his department subject to Hitler's general directives. Hitler was only concerned with expansion and war. Running the economy was a chore for minions, not a job for a Fuhrer.

Now Nazi Germany was a capitalist economy, Hitler himself was a capitalist - he pocketed his salary as Reich Chancellor, he received royalties for his book Mein Kampf. He let Max Amman run his personal bank account and probably was unaware how rich he actually became because as Fuhrer he never had to put his hand in his pocket to pay for anything.

[Byron Angel]

Outstanding discussion, both for its insights and its collegiality. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the distinctions between the following economic states, which I attempt to briefly define in ( ):


pure market capitalism (economic activity uninfluenced by governmental inputs).

political capitalism (economic activity manipulated by government inputs or interference).

socialism (economic activity overseen or managed by government regulation).


Byron

[RF]

Well lets see:

pure market capitalism = this is what economists refer to as perfect competition. This is a microeconomics model that has never existed anywhere in the real world. It assumes no monopoly or market power, perfect mobility of land, labour, capital and enterprise, and perfect information, with no advertising, and no barriers to entering the market. This means that the market will always clear by the mechanism of a universally known price of the goods and services traded which equates to the point where demand and supply quantities are the same, that it is impossible to have any spare capacity or unemployment in the economy. This model is used basically to explain how markets should work, being concerned with resource allocation between competing wants. The most basic example used is the production possibilities curve, to illustrate opportunity costs. This model is completely value free, it is apolitical. This is the traditional liberal view as defined by Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Mill and Jeremy Bentham, which is now often described as conservative.

political capitalism and socialism as you define it are basically the same thing. That is a capitalist based economy in which the government makes the major decisions over resource allocation, through taxation, government expenditure, and statutory price and wage controls. Here the government acts as the controller or manipulator of the market. All economies conform to this model to a greater or lessor degree, the subject matter being the concern of macroeconomics. Compare that to perfect competition, where there is no government intervention -''laissez faire.''

[lwd]

Basically I'm a leftist liberal who is by nature attracted to Vic's arguments.

You cannot be both a liberal and a marxist. The two terms are mutually exclusive.

They may be if you use the European defintion of liberal. They are not if you use the US defintion.

[lwd]

Outstanding discussion, both for its insights and its collegiality. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the distinctions between the following economic states, which I attempt to briefly define in ( ):
pure market capitalism (economic activity uninfluenced by governmental inputs).
political capitalism (economic activity manipulated by government inputs or interference).
socialism (economic activity overseen or managed by government regulation).

One problem with these statments is they seem not to acknowledge the fact that goverments are significant consumers. IE they are a fundamental component of any economic system. They may also, indeed do in many (most? all?) systems also participate in the production arena as well. This alone means that the first cannot exist.

[RF]

lwd, I'm not quite sure what a US definition of marxism amounts to but having studied marxist political economy and marxist ideology on my degree I can say that marxism insists on a dialectic version of history in which capitalism inevitably faces legitimation crisis and will be replaced by a proletarian revolution as an inevitable course of history. Liberalism as originally defined believes in a pluralist society and by definition rejects holoistic concepts.
You cannot believe in holoism and non holoism together, it is one or the other. This is made clear in the writings of Karl Popper, in his book ''The Poverty of Historicism.''

[RF]

One problem with these statments is they seem not to acknowledge the fact that goverments are significant consumers. IE they are a fundamental component of any economic system. They may also, indeed do in many (most? all?) systems also participate in the production arena as well. This alone means that the first cannot exist.

The key here is that the options offered by Byron all feature economies using money in the process of production, exchange and distribution of the outputs of an economy. With money being used as a medium of exchange the venue for that exchange is a market. As all these options include capital accumulation (as defined by economists) and money values these economies are by definition capitalist, even if it is the state itself which acts as a capitalist, such as in the Soviet Union. And the USSR did have a private sector, both legal and black market......

Only an economy without money values can be non capitalist, such as the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia.........

[Bgile]

I'm having trouble with the word "Holoism". A person who has done related academic work must surely be spelling it right, but I confess not to know what it means. I have previously encountered "Holism", and "Holistic", but not "Holoism".

[RF]

Holoism is a concept used by non-marxist philosophers such as Karl Popper to debunk what they refer to as the totalitarian nature of the ideologies of fascism, nazism and communism.
Holoism believes that society must inevitably follow a certain course of history, either due to the class structure in capitalist society (marxism) or because of the superior predominance of a culture or species of the human race over its inferior peers (fascism), which because of this inevitability justifies the particular ideology in question. The holoism prevents any contradictary thought within the ideology, as the set goals are ordered by nature (fascism) or by the ordained structure of class (communism). Thus any events in human history are explainable within the interpretation of that ideology, as if defines the agenda of discussion.
These concepts are used within ideologies to justify any actions which may otherwise be regarded as a crime. Such as the systematic murders of millions of people. They can also be used to attack the basis of these ideologies as Popper deos with his ''falsification test'' approach.

Holoism I believe is the English spelling, which may be different from that in the US.

[lwd]

...marxist ideology on my degree I can say that marxism insists on a dialectic version of history in which capitalism inevitably faces legitimation crisis and will be replaced by a proletarian revolution as an inevitable course of history. Liberalism as originally defined believes in a pluralist society and by definition rejects holoistic concepts. ...'

What makes you think the current defition of liberalism in the US has anything to do with the original defintion. Marism is probably less changed from it's original defintion but of course the original poster didn't even claim to be a "marxist" but a "leftist".

[Bgile]

Holoism I believe is the English spelling, which may be different from that in the US.

Thanks for the definition; in any case I understand now.