1 00:00:01,720 --> 00:00:02,880 Speaker 1: All Media. 2 00:00:05,040 --> 00:00:07,880 Speaker 2: Welcome to kit Appy here a podcast where I Mia 3 00:00:07,960 --> 00:00:13,480 Speaker 2: Wong have read Kamala Harris's dad. Donald Harris's book. This 4 00:00:13,640 --> 00:00:16,400 Speaker 2: is the podcast that you're listening to now with me 5 00:00:16,600 --> 00:00:22,320 Speaker 2: to experience this actually genuinely fairly interesting work of political 6 00:00:22,360 --> 00:00:23,880 Speaker 2: economy is James Stout. 7 00:00:24,640 --> 00:00:27,040 Speaker 3: Hi, man, I'm so excited to know what Donald has 8 00:00:27,080 --> 00:00:29,160 Speaker 3: for us today. Me too. 9 00:00:29,400 --> 00:00:32,080 Speaker 2: I'm you know, I'm I'm of a bunch of minds 10 00:00:32,120 --> 00:00:35,720 Speaker 2: of this book because I think the actual key element 11 00:00:36,680 --> 00:00:40,760 Speaker 2: of this book, which is called Capital Accumulation and Income Distribution, 12 00:00:40,920 --> 00:00:44,840 Speaker 2: is that it is unbelievably technically dense. You know. Okay, 13 00:00:44,840 --> 00:00:46,720 Speaker 2: we're gonna get into the book. First, we sort of 14 00:00:46,760 --> 00:00:49,640 Speaker 2: we should talk a bit about who Donald Harris is. 15 00:00:50,000 --> 00:00:53,240 Speaker 2: So a lot of the focus around this is Kamala 16 00:00:53,280 --> 00:00:57,720 Speaker 2: Harris is the presumptive Democratic nominees dad, so a lot 17 00:00:57,760 --> 00:01:00,640 Speaker 2: of the media coverage around him is around him being 18 00:01:00,680 --> 00:01:05,440 Speaker 2: a Marxist. This is debatable, obviously, is what I like 19 00:01:05,720 --> 00:01:07,240 Speaker 2: conclusion I'm going to come out of this with. 20 00:01:07,880 --> 00:01:10,160 Speaker 3: I am shocked that people in our media today might 21 00:01:10,200 --> 00:01:13,160 Speaker 3: misunderstand basic things about Marxism and who is and he's 22 00:01:13,200 --> 00:01:13,960 Speaker 3: not a Marxist. 23 00:01:14,400 --> 00:01:17,240 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think. But so the thing about 24 00:01:17,240 --> 00:01:19,759 Speaker 2: this book, so this book is from nineteen seventy eight, 25 00:01:19,760 --> 00:01:22,640 Speaker 2: which is actually after he had broken up with Kamala's mom, 26 00:01:22,840 --> 00:01:26,640 Speaker 2: and so Kamala doesn't like know him super well. 27 00:01:27,240 --> 00:01:29,240 Speaker 3: Was he like not present in her younger life. 28 00:01:29,800 --> 00:01:32,440 Speaker 2: Kamala's mom and dad divorced when she was like five, 29 00:01:32,720 --> 00:01:34,240 Speaker 2: was like four or five. So this is this is 30 00:01:34,280 --> 00:01:35,880 Speaker 2: written about a decade after that. 31 00:01:36,560 --> 00:01:39,080 Speaker 3: Yeah, much like the New American Communist Party, like a 32 00:01:39,120 --> 00:01:42,240 Speaker 3: lot a lot of divorce guys just love to be communist. 33 00:01:42,280 --> 00:01:43,679 Speaker 3: It's a thing about divorce guys. 34 00:01:43,880 --> 00:01:48,320 Speaker 2: Oh god. Yeah. So you know, one of the sort 35 00:01:48,320 --> 00:01:51,400 Speaker 2: of the thing everyone kind of cites about, like Tom 36 00:01:51,440 --> 00:01:54,160 Speaker 2: Harris's politics, that he was in this sort of like 37 00:01:54,200 --> 00:01:56,640 Speaker 2: Black Studies, like I guess proto Black Studies group that 38 00:01:56,680 --> 00:01:58,640 Speaker 2: produced a bunch of like black panthers, produced a lot 39 00:01:58,640 --> 00:02:03,560 Speaker 2: of very radical people. But you know, the interesting thing 40 00:02:03,800 --> 00:02:07,440 Speaker 2: about Donald Harris is that he is not the Marxist 41 00:02:07,480 --> 00:02:10,320 Speaker 2: that you would expect to see coming out of sort 42 00:02:10,360 --> 00:02:13,640 Speaker 2: of like that Miliu because those people's Marxism, you know, 43 00:02:13,800 --> 00:02:16,040 Speaker 2: I mean, he is very interested in sort of underdevelopment 44 00:02:16,280 --> 00:02:20,679 Speaker 2: and you know, sort of like imperialism. But he's he's 45 00:02:20,800 --> 00:02:22,960 Speaker 2: not well from one of the sort of like Baoist 46 00:02:23,040 --> 00:02:26,120 Speaker 2: inflected kinds of Marxism, which are the kinds that tended 47 00:02:26,120 --> 00:02:30,840 Speaker 2: to be sort of floating around like that time. He 48 00:02:31,120 --> 00:02:34,160 Speaker 2: in fact, he is a very very rare kind of Marxist, 49 00:02:34,200 --> 00:02:36,480 Speaker 2: which is to say, well, A, he doesn't call himself 50 00:02:36,480 --> 00:02:38,480 Speaker 2: a Marxist. He calls himself a Marxi in the entire time. 51 00:02:39,160 --> 00:02:43,720 Speaker 2: But b yeah, intolerable and we don't understand what this is. 52 00:02:43,840 --> 00:02:47,359 Speaker 2: So there's a very famous marx quote where he's complaining 53 00:02:47,400 --> 00:02:49,280 Speaker 2: about I think it was something the German Social Democratic 54 00:02:49,280 --> 00:02:51,160 Speaker 2: Party did or something where he where people are calling 55 00:02:51,160 --> 00:02:53,480 Speaker 2: themselves Marxists, and he goes, and this is what if 56 00:02:53,480 --> 00:02:55,639 Speaker 2: this is what Marxism is, and I am not a Marxist. 57 00:02:55,960 --> 00:02:58,600 Speaker 2: And so for one hundred years since then, one hundred 58 00:02:58,600 --> 00:03:00,919 Speaker 2: and fifty years, people have been calling them those Marxians 59 00:03:00,960 --> 00:03:03,760 Speaker 2: instead of Marxists. This is all over that book. 60 00:03:03,960 --> 00:03:06,680 Speaker 3: I'm developing a picture of a kind of guy, Oh yeah, 61 00:03:07,440 --> 00:03:08,840 Speaker 3: panting maat Rich portrait man. 62 00:03:09,360 --> 00:03:11,919 Speaker 2: Yeah. So but the interesting part is he's what's known 63 00:03:11,919 --> 00:03:15,440 Speaker 2: as a post Kanesian. And weirdly, dear listeners, you are 64 00:03:15,639 --> 00:03:18,079 Speaker 2: you are some of the only people in this entire country. 65 00:03:18,120 --> 00:03:20,120 Speaker 2: You have a prayer of knowing who these people are, 66 00:03:20,160 --> 00:03:22,080 Speaker 2: because we've actually had a bunch of them on the show. 67 00:03:22,919 --> 00:03:26,079 Speaker 2: If people remember the episodes that I did about inflation 68 00:03:26,680 --> 00:03:28,840 Speaker 2: over the last sort of like year, I guess, like 69 00:03:28,960 --> 00:03:30,919 Speaker 2: two years. I don't know's it's been a long time, 70 00:03:30,919 --> 00:03:33,640 Speaker 2: but the episode's about inflation that we did with with 71 00:03:33,680 --> 00:03:36,720 Speaker 2: the folks over at Strange Matters. Those people are the 72 00:03:36,840 --> 00:03:38,480 Speaker 2: sort of the int one of one of the groups 73 00:03:38,520 --> 00:03:41,160 Speaker 2: that are the intellectual heirs to sort of post Kanesianism. 74 00:03:41,600 --> 00:03:44,920 Speaker 2: It's a you know, I guess it's post Kansianism is 75 00:03:45,000 --> 00:03:47,280 Speaker 2: kind of it's I guess it's like the largest of 76 00:03:47,320 --> 00:03:51,720 Speaker 2: what's called the heterodox economics uh schools. We're going to 77 00:03:51,800 --> 00:03:54,119 Speaker 2: get more into what it is later because it's not 78 00:03:54,280 --> 00:03:56,320 Speaker 2: just like, you know, so it's post Kanesian after like 79 00:03:56,400 --> 00:04:00,680 Speaker 2: John Vader Kines, it's not really Canes and that's gonna 80 00:04:00,680 --> 00:04:03,520 Speaker 2: become very important as second. But you know, this this 81 00:04:03,560 --> 00:04:05,200 Speaker 2: is sort of an issue because it means that it's 82 00:04:05,200 --> 00:04:07,320 Speaker 2: actually it's really really hard for a normal person to 83 00:04:07,320 --> 00:04:09,080 Speaker 2: figure out what the fuck is going on with this book. 84 00:04:09,120 --> 00:04:11,720 Speaker 2: And this is something that I discovered, you know, partially 85 00:04:11,880 --> 00:04:14,480 Speaker 2: just from reading it, and partially also I mean this like, 86 00:04:14,520 --> 00:04:17,160 Speaker 2: I have a pretty good background to do this, because 87 00:04:17,160 --> 00:04:19,239 Speaker 2: I know a lot of postcinsine economics and I also 88 00:04:19,480 --> 00:04:21,080 Speaker 2: have studied a lot of marks, and you need both 89 00:04:21,120 --> 00:04:23,480 Speaker 2: of those to be able to write about this. However, 90 00:04:23,560 --> 00:04:26,560 Speaker 2: come I discovered two hours before this recording. I discovered 91 00:04:26,839 --> 00:04:30,120 Speaker 2: that the economist had set some hack who they refused 92 00:04:30,120 --> 00:04:35,479 Speaker 2: to name, to write about this book, and this person managed, okay, 93 00:04:35,480 --> 00:04:39,440 Speaker 2: on top of just like straight up, like not literally, 94 00:04:39,480 --> 00:04:42,479 Speaker 2: their explanation of what the book is about is simply wrong. 95 00:04:42,920 --> 00:04:45,640 Speaker 2: In just four paragraphs, they managed to make an error 96 00:04:45,680 --> 00:04:47,479 Speaker 2: so egregious that I if I had turned this shit 97 00:04:47,480 --> 00:04:49,720 Speaker 2: into my professor's in college, you would have failed before it. 98 00:04:50,320 --> 00:04:53,479 Speaker 2: So okay, okay. So one of the things the author 99 00:04:53,520 --> 00:04:56,360 Speaker 2: talks about is this thing called the Cambridge Capital controversy, 100 00:04:56,960 --> 00:04:59,640 Speaker 2: and this author claims that this controversy was fought between 101 00:04:59,640 --> 00:05:02,760 Speaker 2: the ne and post Kansians. Now, this is probably gibberish 102 00:05:02,800 --> 00:05:04,479 Speaker 2: to like ninety nine percent of people listening to this, 103 00:05:04,600 --> 00:05:07,880 Speaker 2: but in terms of heterodox economics, this is the equivalent 104 00:05:07,960 --> 00:05:10,920 Speaker 2: of not knowing who fought in World War Two, Like 105 00:05:11,279 --> 00:05:14,919 Speaker 2: this is the Cambridge Catro controversy. Is it's it's basically 106 00:05:14,960 --> 00:05:17,159 Speaker 2: these single moments in which this kind of like, this 107 00:05:17,240 --> 00:05:20,320 Speaker 2: kind of heterodox economics appears onto the economic scene in 108 00:05:20,320 --> 00:05:23,240 Speaker 2: a way that like they were able to force the 109 00:05:23,320 --> 00:05:26,800 Speaker 2: sort of mainstream neoclassical economists to take to pay attention to. 110 00:05:27,600 --> 00:05:32,560 Speaker 2: And this battle should, like intellectually should have completely destroyed 111 00:05:32,560 --> 00:05:35,719 Speaker 2: all of neoclassical economics. Right, everything you've ever heard about 112 00:05:35,720 --> 00:05:38,479 Speaker 2: how price equal supply and demand like so all those curves, 113 00:05:38,839 --> 00:05:41,320 Speaker 2: all of that is fucking bullshit. All of it was 114 00:05:41,360 --> 00:05:44,640 Speaker 2: destroyed by one single happened about the course of a 115 00:05:44,640 --> 00:05:47,360 Speaker 2: decade between the sort of post Kanesians mostly Sarrappha but 116 00:05:47,440 --> 00:05:49,960 Speaker 2: also Joe and Robinson I think actually started it. We're 117 00:05:49,960 --> 00:05:51,760 Speaker 2: gonna talk about those people more later. This is a 118 00:05:51,760 --> 00:05:55,599 Speaker 2: battle between them and there is specifically the neoclassical economists, 119 00:05:56,240 --> 00:05:58,719 Speaker 2: and by the end of it, the neoclassical economists were 120 00:05:58,760 --> 00:06:01,960 Speaker 2: forced to admit that they couldn't they couldn't figure out 121 00:06:02,000 --> 00:06:05,120 Speaker 2: a way to like measure the value of a bundle 122 00:06:05,120 --> 00:06:07,960 Speaker 2: of like capital goods. So if you have two different machines, 123 00:06:08,080 --> 00:06:12,520 Speaker 2: neoclassical economics cannot tell you the value of machines, and this, 124 00:06:12,520 --> 00:06:15,960 Speaker 2: this completely annihilates neoclassical economics. All of it is fucking 125 00:06:15,960 --> 00:06:18,400 Speaker 2: fake because you know, they need this for the production function. 126 00:06:18,440 --> 00:06:20,880 Speaker 2: Without the production function, like you can't even get to 127 00:06:20,880 --> 00:06:24,160 Speaker 2: supply and demand, right, every literally everything, all of their 128 00:06:24,160 --> 00:06:27,800 Speaker 2: stuff immediately falls apart. I'm not going to like attempt 129 00:06:27,800 --> 00:06:30,240 Speaker 2: to do an explanation of the Cambridge capital controversy what 130 00:06:30,279 --> 00:06:32,080 Speaker 2: was what it was actually about here, because it's it's 131 00:06:32,120 --> 00:06:34,840 Speaker 2: a little bit it's something that you can understand, but 132 00:06:34,880 --> 00:06:36,560 Speaker 2: it's a little bit technical and it's hard to explain 133 00:06:36,600 --> 00:06:39,360 Speaker 2: in podcast form if you if you're really curious about this, 134 00:06:39,880 --> 00:06:43,960 Speaker 2: the book Capital as Power. Capital as Power has a 135 00:06:44,000 --> 00:06:46,480 Speaker 2: really great explanation of it in chapter five that's pretty short. 136 00:06:46,720 --> 00:06:49,200 Speaker 2: You can just literally find a PDF of Capital as 137 00:06:49,279 --> 00:06:51,800 Speaker 2: Power by just googling it. But this is the level 138 00:06:51,880 --> 00:06:54,000 Speaker 2: of sort of like confusion we're getting with here. We're 139 00:06:54,000 --> 00:06:57,160 Speaker 2: like the person the economists assigned to write this like 140 00:06:57,800 --> 00:06:59,520 Speaker 2: knows so little about it that and you know the 141 00:06:59,560 --> 00:07:01,440 Speaker 2: other thing about about this, this whole controversy is that 142 00:07:01,839 --> 00:07:05,040 Speaker 2: the Cambridge capital capital controversy is in the book and 143 00:07:05,120 --> 00:07:09,160 Speaker 2: in the book Donald Harris very specifically talks about there's 144 00:07:09,200 --> 00:07:11,160 Speaker 2: an entire chapter of the book that it's just him 145 00:07:11,640 --> 00:07:14,120 Speaker 2: using the products of the Cambridge capital controversy to completely 146 00:07:14,120 --> 00:07:17,360 Speaker 2: destroy new classical economics. This is an entire chapter of 147 00:07:17,400 --> 00:07:19,840 Speaker 2: the book. And this guy got who was about wrong? Right, 148 00:07:19,920 --> 00:07:22,520 Speaker 2: So this is a book that is is very very 149 00:07:22,520 --> 00:07:25,000 Speaker 2: easy to misinterpret and very very easy to sort of 150 00:07:25,360 --> 00:07:28,440 Speaker 2: not like you know, just to sort of like completely 151 00:07:28,440 --> 00:07:30,200 Speaker 2: misunderstand or bounce off of. 152 00:07:30,320 --> 00:07:30,760 Speaker 3: I it was. 153 00:07:30,920 --> 00:07:32,840 Speaker 2: It was hard for me, and like, I'm pretty well 154 00:07:32,840 --> 00:07:36,480 Speaker 2: set up to deal with it. So, Okay, what what 155 00:07:36,640 --> 00:07:39,440 Speaker 2: the fuck is this book about? The very the shortest 156 00:07:39,480 --> 00:07:43,080 Speaker 2: answer I can possibly give is it's an attempt to 157 00:07:43,240 --> 00:07:49,080 Speaker 2: build a sort of mathematical model of how of how 158 00:07:49,480 --> 00:07:51,240 Speaker 2: of of sort of like that measures the growth of 159 00:07:51,240 --> 00:07:55,840 Speaker 2: an economy and can sort of like determine based on 160 00:07:56,160 --> 00:07:59,560 Speaker 2: like different sort of inputs of uh, you know, we'll 161 00:07:59,560 --> 00:08:01,320 Speaker 2: get to the or the second and like in terms 162 00:08:01,320 --> 00:08:03,880 Speaker 2: of like inputs of capital and like parts of labor, 163 00:08:03,920 --> 00:08:06,120 Speaker 2: like how you can have an economy that grows stably 164 00:08:06,160 --> 00:08:09,880 Speaker 2: over time. But in order to get into really what 165 00:08:09,960 --> 00:08:12,480 Speaker 2: this is, we need to do something that actually is 166 00:08:12,720 --> 00:08:14,440 Speaker 2: the first part of this book. We need to do 167 00:08:14,600 --> 00:08:19,920 Speaker 2: a brief survey of the last two hundred and thirty 168 00:08:19,960 --> 00:08:24,360 Speaker 2: two hundred and forty years of economics. But before we 169 00:08:24,400 --> 00:08:27,400 Speaker 2: do that, do you know what economics exist to sell you? 170 00:08:28,120 --> 00:08:31,520 Speaker 3: I do. Actually, that is a fantastic transition, mayah. That 171 00:08:31,760 --> 00:08:32,960 Speaker 3: is it goods and services. 172 00:08:33,920 --> 00:08:38,440 Speaker 2: It is in fact goods and services, priceless capital goods. 173 00:08:48,640 --> 00:08:51,160 Speaker 2: All right, and we are back, so okay, And in 174 00:08:51,240 --> 00:08:54,719 Speaker 2: order to understand literally what this fundamental project is, we 175 00:08:54,840 --> 00:08:59,600 Speaker 2: have to talk about sort of the three broad categories 176 00:08:59,720 --> 00:09:03,959 Speaker 2: of of economists. So the first sort of original and 177 00:09:04,480 --> 00:09:06,440 Speaker 2: we're not gonnare there's a couple there's some people before this, 178 00:09:06,520 --> 00:09:09,640 Speaker 2: but like the the in terms of like economists whose 179 00:09:09,679 --> 00:09:12,880 Speaker 2: work is important to now there's three broad categories, and 180 00:09:12,920 --> 00:09:16,280 Speaker 2: we're gonna start with the classical economists broadly. There's also 181 00:09:16,320 --> 00:09:20,120 Speaker 2: about three important classical economists. This is This is an argument, 182 00:09:20,120 --> 00:09:21,600 Speaker 2: and this is one of the arguments that Donald Harris 183 00:09:21,600 --> 00:09:23,200 Speaker 2: makes in the opening of this book is about who 184 00:09:23,200 --> 00:09:26,760 Speaker 2: these people are. So his argument is it's Adam Smith, Malthus, 185 00:09:26,760 --> 00:09:29,240 Speaker 2: and Ricardo. We don't care about Mauthis for our purposes. 186 00:09:29,760 --> 00:09:33,760 Speaker 2: He's most well known for being the like the the 187 00:09:34,200 --> 00:09:36,400 Speaker 2: like out of control population growth will kill every one 188 00:09:36,440 --> 00:09:38,760 Speaker 2: on earth. We need to like slow populate. Stuff like 189 00:09:39,120 --> 00:09:42,719 Speaker 2: that's not super relevant for us. Everyone, I think kind 190 00:09:42,800 --> 00:09:45,280 Speaker 2: of has a has a basic familiarity with Adam Smith. 191 00:09:45,640 --> 00:09:48,520 Speaker 2: But for our purposes, the important one is Ricardo, who 192 00:09:48,600 --> 00:09:51,560 Speaker 2: is not very well known at all. Ricardo is sort 193 00:09:51,600 --> 00:09:58,880 Speaker 2: of concerned with basically the distribution of surpluses between the classes. 194 00:09:59,160 --> 00:10:01,240 Speaker 2: So for him, that there's there's three major classes, right, 195 00:10:01,280 --> 00:10:03,880 Speaker 2: there's landloardsers, capitalists, and there's workers. And he's concerned about 196 00:10:03,880 --> 00:10:08,920 Speaker 2: how the sort of the surplus product of a society, 197 00:10:08,920 --> 00:10:11,520 Speaker 2: which is like all of the sort of stuff that's 198 00:10:11,520 --> 00:10:14,680 Speaker 2: producing in an economy that isn't literally directly necessary for 199 00:10:14,720 --> 00:10:18,119 Speaker 2: everyone to survive, how is that sort of surplus like distributed, 200 00:10:18,160 --> 00:10:20,400 Speaker 2: and how does this sort of impact economic growth? The 201 00:10:20,440 --> 00:10:23,679 Speaker 2: post Kanesian tradition that Donald Harris is in is in 202 00:10:23,720 --> 00:10:27,120 Speaker 2: a real sense, there are successors to Ricardo, right, A 203 00:10:27,120 --> 00:10:30,440 Speaker 2: lot of I've mentioned Piero Siraffa, who is like probably 204 00:10:30,440 --> 00:10:33,560 Speaker 2: the central figure of post Kanesian economics. He's a really 205 00:10:33,600 --> 00:10:37,360 Speaker 2: interesting guy. He knows like everyone, like he knew Canes. 206 00:10:37,920 --> 00:10:41,400 Speaker 2: He was weirdly friends with Antonio GRAMPSI the former head 207 00:10:41,440 --> 00:10:45,000 Speaker 2: of the Italian Communist Party, who's enormously influential work was 208 00:10:45,040 --> 00:10:48,080 Speaker 2: like new him. And a lot of what Sarafa's work 209 00:10:48,160 --> 00:10:51,400 Speaker 2: is is kind of like getting Ricardo's economics to like 210 00:10:51,559 --> 00:10:54,560 Speaker 2: work properly and then turning that into sort of a 211 00:10:54,559 --> 00:10:58,120 Speaker 2: new framework for how you model economies. Now, the other 212 00:10:58,360 --> 00:11:03,480 Speaker 2: part of this, you know, so, okay, who isn't isn't 213 00:11:03,480 --> 00:11:06,000 Speaker 2: a classical economist is also a huge source of debate 214 00:11:06,000 --> 00:11:07,560 Speaker 2: because there's a lot of people who throw Marx in 215 00:11:07,760 --> 00:11:10,679 Speaker 2: as part of the classical economists, that's a traditional way 216 00:11:10,679 --> 00:11:13,480 Speaker 2: to view it. Harris doesn't think that he's a classical economist. 217 00:11:13,520 --> 00:11:17,760 Speaker 2: He thinks that he's his own thing. So for our purposes, 218 00:11:17,800 --> 00:11:20,800 Speaker 2: you know, it's and and Harris is also I mean, 219 00:11:20,840 --> 00:11:23,840 Speaker 2: I think he considers himself a Marxist even in this period, 220 00:11:24,160 --> 00:11:26,440 Speaker 2: And a lot of this book is an attempt to 221 00:11:26,520 --> 00:11:30,559 Speaker 2: sort of merge Marxian political economy with like the sort 222 00:11:30,559 --> 00:11:32,640 Speaker 2: of neo Ricardi and stuff that's Raffa is doing. 223 00:11:32,960 --> 00:11:35,920 Speaker 3: Does he change later? Do you know? Is Harris one 224 00:11:35,960 --> 00:11:38,440 Speaker 3: of these guys who goes on like intellectual journey and 225 00:11:38,480 --> 00:11:39,120 Speaker 3: becomes oh. 226 00:11:39,000 --> 00:11:41,480 Speaker 2: We'll get there, okay, we'll get we'll get to where 227 00:11:41,520 --> 00:11:43,760 Speaker 2: all this ends up at the end of this episode. 228 00:11:43,840 --> 00:11:46,080 Speaker 2: But you know, it's interesting because you can actually see 229 00:11:46,080 --> 00:11:47,920 Speaker 2: it kind of happening in the middle of this book 230 00:11:47,920 --> 00:11:48,880 Speaker 2: in ways that we're going to get to. 231 00:11:49,160 --> 00:11:51,640 Speaker 3: So I love that. I love a book where your 232 00:11:51,720 --> 00:11:53,080 Speaker 3: thickerest of a personal journey. 233 00:11:53,559 --> 00:11:55,240 Speaker 2: It's also very funny because the economist guy, I was like, 234 00:11:55,280 --> 00:11:57,199 Speaker 2: oh my god, he's so Marxist. He's concerned with the 235 00:11:57,240 --> 00:12:00,760 Speaker 2: value for him and like, okay, I to put my 236 00:12:00,840 --> 00:12:03,880 Speaker 2: Marxist cards on the table. Maybe six people will understand this. 237 00:12:03,920 --> 00:12:06,080 Speaker 2: But like I was like brought up in terms of 238 00:12:06,120 --> 00:12:09,720 Speaker 2: learning like Marxist theory, like through the through the value 239 00:12:09,720 --> 00:12:12,200 Speaker 2: form school. He is not a value form guy. He 240 00:12:12,240 --> 00:12:15,680 Speaker 2: plays really fast and loose. What value is? Uh? It's 241 00:12:16,000 --> 00:12:18,400 Speaker 2: it's I was reading this and I was going, oh god, 242 00:12:18,559 --> 00:12:21,640 Speaker 2: oh no, what is this. He's so wrong. He's so 243 00:12:21,840 --> 00:12:22,880 Speaker 2: bafflingly wrong. 244 00:12:25,720 --> 00:12:30,520 Speaker 3: The What the Economists is subtitled a Combative Marxist Economists 245 00:12:30,559 --> 00:12:32,280 Speaker 3: with White House Influence, which like. 246 00:12:34,520 --> 00:12:39,000 Speaker 2: Thanks God, yeah, okay, so so the the the basis 247 00:12:39,080 --> 00:12:42,720 Speaker 2: of Marxist Marxian political economy is the labor theory of value. 248 00:12:42,760 --> 00:12:45,320 Speaker 2: We're gonna explain this briefly because it actually winds up 249 00:12:45,320 --> 00:12:47,920 Speaker 2: mattering a lot to this book. So value is the 250 00:12:47,960 --> 00:12:51,199 Speaker 2: product of the labor time socially necessary to produce a commodity. Right, 251 00:12:51,240 --> 00:12:53,760 Speaker 2: It's like how long does it take like a specific 252 00:12:53,840 --> 00:12:56,720 Speaker 2: place to produce a watch. You know, workers are paid 253 00:12:56,800 --> 00:12:58,839 Speaker 2: enough to reproduce themselves, so they're paid enough to sort 254 00:12:58,880 --> 00:13:02,360 Speaker 2: of like eat, sleep and like have kids. There are 255 00:13:02,360 --> 00:13:04,679 Speaker 2: more workers, but the rest of their labor time is 256 00:13:04,679 --> 00:13:08,280 Speaker 2: stolen by capitalists and is thus unremunerated. This unpaid labor 257 00:13:08,320 --> 00:13:10,600 Speaker 2: time is called surplus value. And this is what capital 258 00:13:10,720 --> 00:13:12,160 Speaker 2: is made out. So this is like a very very 259 00:13:12,160 --> 00:13:15,000 Speaker 2: basis of sort of what Marxism is and you know, 260 00:13:15,120 --> 00:13:17,000 Speaker 2: in in sort of Marxism, and this is sort of 261 00:13:17,000 --> 00:13:21,400 Speaker 2: different than Riccardo, which is like work. Ricardo understands that 262 00:13:21,440 --> 00:13:23,480 Speaker 2: there are classes and that they are in conflict to 263 00:13:23,480 --> 00:13:27,520 Speaker 2: some extent. But you know, from Marx the central dynamics 264 00:13:27,520 --> 00:13:29,880 Speaker 2: of capitalism is, you know, is the conflict between the 265 00:13:29,880 --> 00:13:32,280 Speaker 2: bourgeoisie or the capitalists who owned the means of production 266 00:13:32,480 --> 00:13:35,240 Speaker 2: and then you know and buy that ownership, like extract 267 00:13:35,280 --> 00:13:37,800 Speaker 2: surplus value from the proletariat and the proletariat or the 268 00:13:37,840 --> 00:13:39,880 Speaker 2: working class are forced to sell their labor to capitalists, 269 00:13:39,880 --> 00:13:44,080 Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera. Something very interesting two ideas run 270 00:13:44,120 --> 00:13:48,280 Speaker 2: into each other very quickly in Harris's work, because you know, 271 00:13:48,360 --> 00:13:52,199 Speaker 2: so there is a thing called surplus in the tradition 272 00:13:52,240 --> 00:13:54,440 Speaker 2: of sort of Ricardo and in the tradition of like 273 00:13:54,520 --> 00:13:57,880 Speaker 2: Serapha and this of the post Kansians, right, and that 274 00:13:58,000 --> 00:14:00,559 Speaker 2: surplus is very critically not the same same thing as 275 00:14:00,559 --> 00:14:06,120 Speaker 2: Marxian surplus value. So you know what part of part 276 00:14:06,120 --> 00:14:07,880 Speaker 2: of what's happening here is that Harris is trying to 277 00:14:07,920 --> 00:14:11,360 Speaker 2: square the circle basically between these two approaches to like 278 00:14:11,760 --> 00:14:13,920 Speaker 2: to what surplus is and sort of what the nature 279 00:14:13,960 --> 00:14:18,120 Speaker 2: of value is. So you know, in the Marxist tradition, right, 280 00:14:19,080 --> 00:14:21,720 Speaker 2: surplus value is still in labor time, and the value 281 00:14:21,720 --> 00:14:23,640 Speaker 2: of producer sort of flows through the economy and it's 282 00:14:23,640 --> 00:14:25,480 Speaker 2: what turned you know, like stealing this labor time is 283 00:14:25,480 --> 00:14:29,040 Speaker 2: what turns capital into more capital. Right in the post 284 00:14:29,240 --> 00:14:35,280 Speaker 2: in post Cantine economics, surplus is you know, so so 285 00:14:35,520 --> 00:14:38,440 Speaker 2: in in sort of like a seraph in work or 286 00:14:38,480 --> 00:14:41,160 Speaker 2: in this book too, right, you have basically a production 287 00:14:41,280 --> 00:14:44,920 Speaker 2: matrix which is like as a matric that models how 288 00:14:44,960 --> 00:14:47,400 Speaker 2: production works, and it's what it's doing is modeling the 289 00:14:47,560 --> 00:14:51,280 Speaker 2: entire output of society at one time. And in this model, 290 00:14:51,440 --> 00:14:54,120 Speaker 2: so they're there's sort of like, you know, there's all 291 00:14:54,120 --> 00:14:56,400 Speaker 2: the commodity and labor inputs that compose the economy and 292 00:14:56,400 --> 00:14:59,360 Speaker 2: they come back out and there's a certain amount of commodities. 293 00:14:59,400 --> 00:15:00,840 Speaker 2: This is the thing we talk about with a card, right, 294 00:15:00,840 --> 00:15:02,840 Speaker 2: There's there's certain amount of commodities you need to produce 295 00:15:02,920 --> 00:15:06,040 Speaker 2: so that everyone can the entire system can reproduce itself, 296 00:15:06,160 --> 00:15:09,520 Speaker 2: and beyond that is surplus. So what you're dealing with 297 00:15:09,680 --> 00:15:12,200 Speaker 2: is this weird mixture because Harris is trying to work 298 00:15:12,240 --> 00:15:13,720 Speaker 2: with both of these at the same time. Where Like, 299 00:15:14,080 --> 00:15:17,240 Speaker 2: on the one hand, you have surplus as like like 300 00:15:17,320 --> 00:15:19,560 Speaker 2: stolen value in a form of like stolen labor time, 301 00:15:19,560 --> 00:15:21,720 Speaker 2: and on the other hand, you have it in this 302 00:15:21,760 --> 00:15:23,960 Speaker 2: regarded sense of like there's a bunch of commodities that 303 00:15:23,960 --> 00:15:27,800 Speaker 2: we've produced that's like access to our like ability to 304 00:15:27,800 --> 00:15:31,120 Speaker 2: to like our needs to reproduce ourselves. And he's trying 305 00:15:31,160 --> 00:15:36,840 Speaker 2: to square these and it doesn't work. It just sort 306 00:15:36,840 --> 00:15:37,800 Speaker 2: of breaks down. 307 00:15:38,920 --> 00:15:41,360 Speaker 3: Does he like, does he like actively address this like 308 00:15:42,320 --> 00:15:44,360 Speaker 3: dual meaning and then explain like. 309 00:15:44,760 --> 00:15:51,800 Speaker 2: Ye, yeah, well so his basic issue is that so 310 00:15:52,000 --> 00:15:53,960 Speaker 2: the way he does this mostly is by just moving 311 00:15:54,000 --> 00:15:57,960 Speaker 2: back and forth between the two systems and not trying 312 00:15:57,960 --> 00:15:59,680 Speaker 2: to reconcile them. And then the one time he has 313 00:15:59,720 --> 00:16:02,880 Speaker 2: to kind of do it, he has to, oh God, 314 00:16:02,880 --> 00:16:05,320 Speaker 2: don't want to try to explain the transformation problem. He 315 00:16:05,440 --> 00:16:11,240 Speaker 2: has to do this thing where Okay, so if theoretically, 316 00:16:11,320 --> 00:16:14,840 Speaker 2: if you want to convert surplus value, like in the 317 00:16:14,840 --> 00:16:18,240 Speaker 2: Marxist Marxian sense, into this sort of like neo Ricardian thing, 318 00:16:18,400 --> 00:16:21,360 Speaker 2: you need to turn it into prices. And there's there's 319 00:16:21,400 --> 00:16:24,800 Speaker 2: a long running controversy in in Marxism over whether or 320 00:16:24,840 --> 00:16:27,920 Speaker 2: not you can actually do that because the math is weird, 321 00:16:27,960 --> 00:16:31,480 Speaker 2: it doesn't work very well. I'm not gonna he doesn't 322 00:16:31,520 --> 00:16:33,280 Speaker 2: solve it. He just gives up and says that you 323 00:16:33,280 --> 00:16:36,440 Speaker 2: can't do it because they're in two separate spheres, which 324 00:16:36,480 --> 00:16:38,360 Speaker 2: is the most compound answer I've ever seen in my 325 00:16:38,640 --> 00:16:39,360 Speaker 2: entire life. 326 00:16:39,960 --> 00:16:42,960 Speaker 3: It's I love that. 327 00:16:43,960 --> 00:16:48,880 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's it's it's wild. But you know, so, 328 00:16:48,880 --> 00:16:51,360 Speaker 2: so back to the sort of main arc of what 329 00:16:51,360 --> 00:16:54,480 Speaker 2: the fuck is smoke about here, I'm probably probably I problems. 330 00:16:55,040 --> 00:16:56,880 Speaker 2: We're reaching the promised lamp. We have to do this 331 00:16:56,880 --> 00:17:00,960 Speaker 2: stuff first. Okay, so those are you know, the two 332 00:17:01,040 --> 00:17:04,320 Speaker 2: kinds of economics that Donald Harris is trying to work 333 00:17:04,359 --> 00:17:06,840 Speaker 2: with are this sort of post Canesian stuff, which is 334 00:17:06,840 --> 00:17:09,960 Speaker 2: derived from like Ricardo and classical economists, and then like 335 00:17:10,040 --> 00:17:14,040 Speaker 2: Marxian stuff. There's also the third school, which is neoclassical economics, 336 00:17:14,080 --> 00:17:16,520 Speaker 2: which this is all the economics that you've learned in school, right, 337 00:17:16,640 --> 00:17:20,400 Speaker 2: This is supplied demand. This is like your production functions. 338 00:17:20,520 --> 00:17:22,719 Speaker 2: This is your like every time someone starts lecturing you 339 00:17:22,800 --> 00:17:27,240 Speaker 2: about how the economy works. This is all this stuff. Yeah, 340 00:17:27,359 --> 00:17:29,600 Speaker 2: what's very important for our purposes. This is something that 341 00:17:29,640 --> 00:17:35,080 Speaker 2: Harris brings up is the single largest difference between neoclassical 342 00:17:35,160 --> 00:17:38,720 Speaker 2: economics and whatever came before. It isn't that like, I 343 00:17:38,760 --> 00:17:41,440 Speaker 2: don't know, everything's about marginal utility or whatever the fuck. 344 00:17:41,720 --> 00:17:46,080 Speaker 2: It's that. It's that in neoclassical economics there are no classes. 345 00:17:47,160 --> 00:17:49,280 Speaker 2: They just pretend that classes don't exist. 346 00:17:49,920 --> 00:17:56,399 Speaker 3: Yeah, and in much of American politics, yeah, Germany politics 347 00:17:56,400 --> 00:17:57,720 Speaker 3: sadly well. 348 00:17:57,760 --> 00:17:59,879 Speaker 2: And this is also why like the American conception of 349 00:18:00,040 --> 00:18:03,000 Speaker 2: class is so nuts, and why everyone's running around in circles, 350 00:18:03,000 --> 00:18:05,280 Speaker 2: trying to measure it by like income levels, because all 351 00:18:05,320 --> 00:18:08,679 Speaker 2: the economics they use don't have a thing that establishes 352 00:18:08,720 --> 00:18:09,560 Speaker 2: what class is. 353 00:18:10,160 --> 00:18:14,480 Speaker 3: And it's one of the jarring differences between the United 354 00:18:14,560 --> 00:18:18,240 Speaker 3: Kingdom and the United States, how like we are hyper 355 00:18:18,320 --> 00:18:22,400 Speaker 3: aware of class and like it's something that like arguably, 356 00:18:22,560 --> 00:18:25,960 Speaker 3: like Britain is obsessed with to detriment of other Like yes, 357 00:18:26,760 --> 00:18:29,199 Speaker 3: but and you go to America and fucking like like 358 00:18:29,240 --> 00:18:31,080 Speaker 3: if if you have a job that pays you occasionally, 359 00:18:31,119 --> 00:18:33,760 Speaker 3: your middle class and then fucking everyone is apparently and 360 00:18:33,840 --> 00:18:36,320 Speaker 3: like it becomes a meaningless term. 361 00:18:36,400 --> 00:18:38,560 Speaker 2: I guess, yeah, this is this is very explicitly for 362 00:18:38,560 --> 00:18:41,440 Speaker 2: political reasons, right Neoclassical economics is developed as an attack 363 00:18:41,480 --> 00:18:43,399 Speaker 2: on Marxism, Like this is this is this is its 364 00:18:43,440 --> 00:18:46,760 Speaker 2: actual sort of origin, and it's originators are like very 365 00:18:46,760 --> 00:18:49,879 Speaker 2: explicit about this right now. And this is where we 366 00:18:49,920 --> 00:18:54,040 Speaker 2: get back to Sarrafa, because Saraffa's work effectively is an 367 00:18:54,040 --> 00:18:58,479 Speaker 2: attack on neoclassical economics, and Sarraffa in ninety nine pages 368 00:18:58,920 --> 00:19:03,840 Speaker 2: literally destroy everything they'd ever produced. But you know, the 369 00:19:04,359 --> 00:19:06,320 Speaker 2: new classical solution to this is basically to get everyone 370 00:19:06,320 --> 00:19:08,520 Speaker 2: who talked about it fired and this actually worked, like 371 00:19:08,520 --> 00:19:11,080 Speaker 2: they did, is basically massive social cleansing campaign of like 372 00:19:11,119 --> 00:19:13,399 Speaker 2: all of the sort of heterodox economists they got they 373 00:19:13,400 --> 00:19:15,960 Speaker 2: got the ball fired and it worked. And Harris actually 374 00:19:16,000 --> 00:19:17,480 Speaker 2: weirdly was kind of was like one of the last 375 00:19:17,480 --> 00:19:21,439 Speaker 2: holdouts into the nineties. But he just like retires in 376 00:19:21,480 --> 00:19:25,480 Speaker 2: like the late nineties and that's like basically every all 377 00:19:25,520 --> 00:19:28,280 Speaker 2: of them get rent out. Uh, there's a good we'll 378 00:19:28,280 --> 00:19:31,840 Speaker 2: talk about him later. There's there's another Postcanesian economists named 379 00:19:31,840 --> 00:19:34,520 Speaker 2: Frederick Lee, who my friends estrange matter really like, who's 380 00:19:34,560 --> 00:19:37,159 Speaker 2: an anarchist who's in this school, and he has like 381 00:19:37,240 --> 00:19:41,280 Speaker 2: an excruciatingly detailed account of all of these economists getting 382 00:19:41,320 --> 00:19:43,600 Speaker 2: run out by the new classical people. And so, you know, 383 00:19:43,680 --> 00:19:50,280 Speaker 2: like neoclassical economists like in in some sense they there there. 384 00:19:50,480 --> 00:19:53,320 Speaker 2: Their strategy is a strategy of capitalism, which is like, 385 00:19:53,440 --> 00:19:55,960 Speaker 2: obviously we're not right here, but we have money and 386 00:19:56,000 --> 00:19:59,600 Speaker 2: we have force, so we're going to defeat your ideas 387 00:19:59,640 --> 00:20:03,760 Speaker 2: by SI destroying you all rightly actual physical force. 388 00:20:04,359 --> 00:20:08,520 Speaker 3: So incredible, Yeah, the cultural revolution in economics. 389 00:20:09,040 --> 00:20:11,639 Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's interesting because Harris Harris is writing this 390 00:20:11,680 --> 00:20:14,760 Speaker 2: in seventy eight, and in seventy eight it's still the 391 00:20:14,800 --> 00:20:17,959 Speaker 2: battle hasn't been settled yet, right, there's still kind of 392 00:20:17,960 --> 00:20:20,280 Speaker 2: like the fight going on between like who is going 393 00:20:20,320 --> 00:20:23,040 Speaker 2: to be like in control of economics. And I mean, 394 00:20:23,080 --> 00:20:25,119 Speaker 2: the you know, the answer is to Theokanzian is that 395 00:20:25,160 --> 00:20:28,600 Speaker 2: the post Kansians lose. But you know that wasn't necessarily 396 00:20:28,640 --> 00:20:30,359 Speaker 2: the case of this time. There's also a really weird 397 00:20:30,440 --> 00:20:32,520 Speaker 2: artifact of this that I want to talk about a 398 00:20:32,520 --> 00:20:35,200 Speaker 2: little bit, which is that, like, you know, so remember 399 00:20:35,280 --> 00:20:37,320 Speaker 2: at the beginning of this, I said that that stupid 400 00:20:37,359 --> 00:20:39,760 Speaker 2: economist person has said that it was neo Kandians versus 401 00:20:39,760 --> 00:20:43,520 Speaker 2: post Kansians. So those two groups are not the same thing. 402 00:20:44,560 --> 00:20:46,360 Speaker 2: The post Kandians are the people who we've been talking 403 00:20:46,400 --> 00:20:48,080 Speaker 2: about this whole time, right like they're they're like they're 404 00:20:48,080 --> 00:20:51,359 Speaker 2: basically neo Ricardans right there. They're like based on classical economics. 405 00:20:51,720 --> 00:20:55,360 Speaker 2: The neo Kansians are just regular Kansians basically, but they 406 00:20:55,359 --> 00:20:57,800 Speaker 2: had to change the math to be shittier and make 407 00:20:57,840 --> 00:21:00,040 Speaker 2: themselves more right wing to like survive. 408 00:21:01,480 --> 00:21:04,440 Speaker 3: To re explained like John Maynard Keynes and supply side economics. 409 00:21:04,520 --> 00:21:05,840 Speaker 2: Yeah, if you if you want to Yeah, if you 410 00:21:05,840 --> 00:21:07,639 Speaker 2: want to give, I mean, go ahead. 411 00:21:08,400 --> 00:21:10,800 Speaker 3: I don't know, I'm fucking I am a historian, but 412 00:21:11,640 --> 00:21:15,080 Speaker 3: it's a it differs from classical economics. I guess in 413 00:21:15,119 --> 00:21:19,080 Speaker 3: the idea that the state can make interventions am Ukutumbi, 414 00:21:19,200 --> 00:21:21,800 Speaker 3: after as I fucked up, the state interventions can beneficial 415 00:21:21,840 --> 00:21:25,639 Speaker 3: for the economy. And it emerges like in the I 416 00:21:25,640 --> 00:21:29,280 Speaker 3: guess post Great Depression, Like I guess maybe from the 417 00:21:29,560 --> 00:21:31,600 Speaker 3: from like you know, the New Deal and these these, 418 00:21:31,760 --> 00:21:33,920 Speaker 3: and then post World War two, right, like it's very 419 00:21:33,960 --> 00:21:36,159 Speaker 3: influential in the kind of build up after World War Two. 420 00:21:36,240 --> 00:21:38,800 Speaker 3: The idea that like the state shouldn't necessarily be like 421 00:21:39,400 --> 00:21:41,960 Speaker 3: what's happening Adam hand, the invisible hand, the fucking invisible 422 00:21:41,960 --> 00:21:44,159 Speaker 3: hand maybe isn't killing it and we needn't said the 423 00:21:44,200 --> 00:21:44,840 Speaker 3: hand of the state. 424 00:21:46,080 --> 00:21:47,920 Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean, well, you know, it's worth mentioning 425 00:21:47,960 --> 00:21:49,840 Speaker 2: that like in Adam Smith, the hand of the state 426 00:21:49,920 --> 00:21:55,639 Speaker 2: is explicitly God, sorry, explicitly God. Unfortunately, unfortunately, there was 427 00:21:55,640 --> 00:21:57,719 Speaker 2: no God to bail out the markets of the nineteen twenties, 428 00:21:57,960 --> 00:22:00,720 Speaker 2: so kids was like shit, yeah, and I'm mean, you know, 429 00:22:00,800 --> 00:22:02,760 Speaker 2: his is like in sort of like more detail, like 430 00:22:02,800 --> 00:22:06,280 Speaker 2: his thing basically is about like he's he's obsessed with 431 00:22:06,320 --> 00:22:10,680 Speaker 2: sort of like like like basically cyclically counteracting crises by 432 00:22:10,760 --> 00:22:13,040 Speaker 2: using states of betting to like, you know, like his 433 00:22:13,080 --> 00:22:15,639 Speaker 2: things basically is that, like capital will misallocate resources, you 434 00:22:15,720 --> 00:22:18,160 Speaker 2: have to use the state to like kick the bastards 435 00:22:18,160 --> 00:22:21,159 Speaker 2: into line, like the stable economy. And the problem is 436 00:22:21,200 --> 00:22:24,320 Speaker 2: that by by the late seventies, the Kansians are in 437 00:22:24,480 --> 00:22:28,919 Speaker 2: crisis because in original like Kansian theory, it wasn't supposed 438 00:22:28,920 --> 00:22:31,040 Speaker 2: to be possible for there to be both rising unemployment 439 00:22:31,080 --> 00:22:34,560 Speaker 2: and rising inflation, but that was like happening over the 440 00:22:34,720 --> 00:22:36,800 Speaker 2: entire world, and so they got kind of annihilated. And 441 00:22:36,880 --> 00:22:38,760 Speaker 2: this is the thing that like the neoliberals used to 442 00:22:38,840 --> 00:22:42,160 Speaker 2: like take power. And it's interesting because the post Kansians 443 00:22:42,240 --> 00:22:45,000 Speaker 2: like they use and you know, and like the beginning 444 00:22:45,040 --> 00:22:48,520 Speaker 2: of this book is a bit of of like Kansian stuff. 445 00:22:48,520 --> 00:22:50,360 Speaker 2: But then he just like you know, they go off 446 00:22:50,359 --> 00:22:52,920 Speaker 2: and do other more interesting things. But it's very funny 447 00:22:52,960 --> 00:22:58,200 Speaker 2: because because this is still seventy eight, he Harris calls 448 00:22:58,280 --> 00:23:00,439 Speaker 2: himself a neo Kansian, and he called all of his 449 00:23:00,480 --> 00:23:04,879 Speaker 2: collaborators Neokansians because the real Neo Kansians hadn't like developed yet. 450 00:23:05,720 --> 00:23:08,800 Speaker 3: Oh so he's just trying to he's just trying to 451 00:23:08,800 --> 00:23:11,040 Speaker 3: fucking claim it, like he's trying to get his like 452 00:23:11,200 --> 00:23:12,280 Speaker 3: stick in the ground. First. 453 00:23:12,760 --> 00:23:14,280 Speaker 2: Yeah, well, but I mean that's the thing, like at 454 00:23:14,280 --> 00:23:17,320 Speaker 2: that point they were the neo like the there. There 455 00:23:17,440 --> 00:23:19,920 Speaker 2: wasn't like there. Their school had had as good a 456 00:23:20,000 --> 00:23:21,840 Speaker 2: claim to it as anyone. It's just that they got 457 00:23:21,880 --> 00:23:24,840 Speaker 2: kicked out later by the sort of board Like, yeah, 458 00:23:24,920 --> 00:23:27,920 Speaker 2: makes sense, ones, Yeah, it's also a thing. It's also 459 00:23:27,920 --> 00:23:29,720 Speaker 2: important about this, for reasons we're gonna get to in 460 00:23:29,720 --> 00:23:32,560 Speaker 2: a second, is that the post Kansian tradition also has 461 00:23:32,600 --> 00:23:35,280 Speaker 2: a lot of very eclectic Marxists in it. We're gonna 462 00:23:35,280 --> 00:23:38,280 Speaker 2: get the Joe and Robinson who's a very close collaborator 463 00:23:38,480 --> 00:23:40,800 Speaker 2: of a very good Marxis philosopher. She's actually the person 464 00:23:40,840 --> 00:23:44,359 Speaker 2: who like kicks off the Cambridge Captural capital controversy, and 465 00:23:44,440 --> 00:23:47,119 Speaker 2: she's she's a very kind of esoteric Marxist kind of 466 00:23:47,119 --> 00:23:50,320 Speaker 2: in a similar way to uh uh, to what Donald 467 00:23:50,359 --> 00:23:52,600 Speaker 2: Harris is. But you know, you know what Marxism in 468 00:23:52,640 --> 00:23:53,800 Speaker 2: theory isn't supposed to support. 469 00:23:55,359 --> 00:23:57,560 Speaker 3: Would that be the sale of goods? And services. 470 00:23:57,880 --> 00:23:58,080 Speaker 1: Yeah. 471 00:23:58,119 --> 00:24:00,360 Speaker 2: Yeahs product and services that support this podcast. 472 00:24:00,600 --> 00:24:13,200 Speaker 3: Distributing them using the price mechanism. 473 00:24:13,280 --> 00:24:17,119 Speaker 2: Yeah, we're back. So yeah, there's there. There's also you know, 474 00:24:17,119 --> 00:24:19,760 Speaker 2: there's got a Galecki who's very important to this too, 475 00:24:20,200 --> 00:24:22,440 Speaker 2: so that there are Marxists kind of on the ground 476 00:24:22,480 --> 00:24:25,440 Speaker 2: of this, and they're they're trying to sort of their 477 00:24:25,520 --> 00:24:27,960 Speaker 2: their goal is to try to like explain an economy 478 00:24:27,960 --> 00:24:30,520 Speaker 2: that has monopolies in it, because Marxist theory sort of 479 00:24:30,560 --> 00:24:32,320 Speaker 2: like assumed that there weren't and that there was like 480 00:24:32,359 --> 00:24:36,760 Speaker 2: actual competition in markets and so part of what but 481 00:24:37,000 --> 00:24:39,200 Speaker 2: this this comes to the sort of fundamental project of 482 00:24:39,200 --> 00:24:41,400 Speaker 2: of what this book is about, which is that it's 483 00:24:41,480 --> 00:24:44,800 Speaker 2: it's it's about developing a sort of growth model that 484 00:24:44,960 --> 00:24:46,639 Speaker 2: you can sort of you know, that that that that 485 00:24:46,880 --> 00:24:49,200 Speaker 2: accounts that that can be modified to account for all 486 00:24:49,200 --> 00:24:51,120 Speaker 2: of these things. So the initial thing that they're trying 487 00:24:51,119 --> 00:24:52,760 Speaker 2: to produce is is like a model of what they 488 00:24:52,800 --> 00:24:55,480 Speaker 2: call a Golden Age, which is a thing that's from 489 00:24:55,880 --> 00:24:59,959 Speaker 2: Joe and Robinson. Yeah, that's basically like it's the goal name, 490 00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:03,359 Speaker 2: which is a theoretical like economic configuration. You have you 491 00:25:03,400 --> 00:25:05,960 Speaker 2: have full employment, you have constant, stable economic growth and 492 00:25:06,000 --> 00:25:12,080 Speaker 2: the system can reproduce itself. And you know, I'm going 493 00:25:12,119 --> 00:25:14,479 Speaker 2: to read a passage from this book so you can understand. 494 00:25:14,560 --> 00:25:16,960 Speaker 2: Partially so you can because it's about this, right, and 495 00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:19,600 Speaker 2: partially so you can understand. Like this isn't even a 496 00:25:19,600 --> 00:25:22,280 Speaker 2: particularly technical paragraph. 497 00:25:23,400 --> 00:25:24,480 Speaker 3: You're talking about hit. 498 00:25:24,359 --> 00:25:28,199 Speaker 2: Me steady state. Yeah, Golden Age is also kind of 499 00:25:28,480 --> 00:25:31,680 Speaker 2: similar thing to a concept called steady state economies he's 500 00:25:31,720 --> 00:25:35,240 Speaker 2: writing about. A particular steady state is based on a 501 00:25:35,280 --> 00:25:38,480 Speaker 2: given set of conditions and interrelations among them, a given 502 00:25:38,560 --> 00:25:41,720 Speaker 2: rate of accumulation of capital, given rates of savings from 503 00:25:41,720 --> 00:25:44,360 Speaker 2: the stream of net income, a given state of technological 504 00:25:44,400 --> 00:25:47,639 Speaker 2: knowledge or rate of technological innovation, a given rate of 505 00:25:47,680 --> 00:25:50,639 Speaker 2: increase of the labor force, and a given set of expectations. 506 00:25:50,960 --> 00:25:54,360 Speaker 2: To ask whether such a situation exists is to ask 507 00:25:54,400 --> 00:25:58,240 Speaker 2: whether the conditions which define it are mutually compatible or 508 00:25:58,280 --> 00:26:01,800 Speaker 2: self consistent. So this, this is basically what he's doing, right, 509 00:26:01,960 --> 00:26:05,240 Speaker 2: is you can you can build these like models of 510 00:26:05,480 --> 00:26:07,480 Speaker 2: like these sort of Kanzian models that like and I 511 00:26:07,520 --> 00:26:11,720 Speaker 2: started post Kansian models that you know, if you if you, 512 00:26:11,760 --> 00:26:13,359 Speaker 2: if you set up all the elements right, you can 513 00:26:13,400 --> 00:26:17,040 Speaker 2: theoretically generate stable growth. But then you know, obviously his 514 00:26:17,080 --> 00:26:20,520 Speaker 2: thing is like this doesn't work, right, Like, no, no, 515 00:26:20,520 --> 00:26:22,840 Speaker 2: no economy will ever generate this because there's there's only 516 00:26:22,960 --> 00:26:26,679 Speaker 2: really like it's extremely hard to actually get you know, 517 00:26:26,800 --> 00:26:31,280 Speaker 2: your sort of like input levels and your technological development 518 00:26:31,359 --> 00:26:33,439 Speaker 2: whatever the fuck like at the same rate to do this. 519 00:26:34,359 --> 00:26:37,160 Speaker 2: But he's he's using this as basically the model for 520 00:26:37,600 --> 00:26:39,439 Speaker 2: as like as like a sort of toy model that 521 00:26:39,480 --> 00:26:41,920 Speaker 2: you can then sort of warp to fit the rest 522 00:26:41,920 --> 00:26:44,640 Speaker 2: of the sort of the rest of the capitalist economy. 523 00:26:45,480 --> 00:26:47,800 Speaker 2: But in order to do this, he has to generate 524 00:26:47,840 --> 00:26:49,639 Speaker 2: a crisis theory. And this is where he's just like 525 00:26:49,760 --> 00:26:51,919 Speaker 2: suddenly all the marks comes back in and he's like, 526 00:26:51,960 --> 00:26:53,600 Speaker 2: so his he's the product he's trying to do is 527 00:26:53,600 --> 00:26:56,520 Speaker 2: he's trying to use a post Kanzian model of how 528 00:26:56,520 --> 00:26:58,639 Speaker 2: economic growth works and then and then combine that with 529 00:26:58,720 --> 00:27:04,479 Speaker 2: Marxist crisis theory to produce basically a model of you know, 530 00:27:04,520 --> 00:27:08,280 Speaker 2: what kinds of conditions in an economy will cause like 531 00:27:08,359 --> 00:27:10,840 Speaker 2: crisis states. Now, ooka, the every thing is very weird 532 00:27:10,880 --> 00:27:15,679 Speaker 2: about this, right, It's like he doesn't do normal Like 533 00:27:15,720 --> 00:27:18,440 Speaker 2: there's like an entire school of Marxist crisis theory, and 534 00:27:18,480 --> 00:27:22,040 Speaker 2: he doesn't do it. He instead like rewrites a bunch 535 00:27:22,080 --> 00:27:24,760 Speaker 2: of Marxist equations and then comes up with his own 536 00:27:25,119 --> 00:27:28,400 Speaker 2: like version of crisis theory of like different kinds of crises. 537 00:27:28,400 --> 00:27:33,000 Speaker 2: And I like, what, it's so weird, it's so bad. 538 00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:36,280 Speaker 3: Like maybe he wanted to make him make his mock 539 00:27:36,440 --> 00:27:36,639 Speaker 3: you know. 540 00:27:37,160 --> 00:27:39,680 Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess it's weird because it's like this whole 541 00:27:39,680 --> 00:27:41,399 Speaker 2: thing is interesting, but it's like I don't think anyone 542 00:27:41,440 --> 00:27:42,760 Speaker 2: ever followed up on it really. 543 00:27:43,680 --> 00:27:45,960 Speaker 3: Right, It's just like this dead end of academic theory. 544 00:27:46,600 --> 00:27:50,200 Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I think it's also you know, I mean 545 00:27:50,400 --> 00:27:53,120 Speaker 2: it's partially like a rudnut travel thing. It's partially because 546 00:27:54,040 --> 00:27:56,440 Speaker 2: as as the post Kanesians went on, they got less 547 00:27:56,440 --> 00:27:58,919 Speaker 2: and less Marxists. So like a lot of the original 548 00:27:58,960 --> 00:28:00,800 Speaker 2: people are like Seraphus on Marxist, but like a lot 549 00:28:00,800 --> 00:28:02,720 Speaker 2: of the original like Joan Robinson is definitely a Marxist, 550 00:28:02,720 --> 00:28:04,359 Speaker 2: but they get like less and less over time, and 551 00:28:04,359 --> 00:28:06,320 Speaker 2: so there's less interest in kind of like folding in 552 00:28:06,400 --> 00:28:07,199 Speaker 2: Marxism to it. 553 00:28:07,920 --> 00:28:09,520 Speaker 3: Yeah, so he's lose interest in that. 554 00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:12,440 Speaker 2: Yeah. But this is where we get to the final question, 555 00:28:12,520 --> 00:28:14,600 Speaker 2: like is he a Marxist and My answer is I 556 00:28:14,600 --> 00:28:17,040 Speaker 2: don't even in even in sixty eight and seventy eight, 557 00:28:17,040 --> 00:28:19,199 Speaker 2: which is pretty early, I don't think he's a Marxist. 558 00:28:19,240 --> 00:28:20,399 Speaker 2: I don't think he's a Marxist in this book. I 559 00:28:20,440 --> 00:28:23,360 Speaker 2: think he's using Marxist theory, but I don't think he's 560 00:28:23,440 --> 00:28:26,160 Speaker 2: actually a Marxist like politically. And the reason I don't 561 00:28:26,160 --> 00:28:29,320 Speaker 2: think this is because, you know, so we talk about 562 00:28:29,520 --> 00:28:32,280 Speaker 2: surplus value, right, So surplus value is supposed to be 563 00:28:32,280 --> 00:28:35,119 Speaker 2: this value it's extracted, but it's the magnitude of it. 564 00:28:35,160 --> 00:28:37,080 Speaker 2: One of the things, like how much value you extract, 565 00:28:37,160 --> 00:28:38,880 Speaker 2: like how many hours of the day you can steal 566 00:28:38,920 --> 00:28:41,520 Speaker 2: from a worker, depends on how many hours of the 567 00:28:41,600 --> 00:28:43,640 Speaker 2: day you'd need to pay them for in order for 568 00:28:43,680 --> 00:28:44,280 Speaker 2: them to survive. 569 00:28:44,640 --> 00:28:44,800 Speaker 3: Right. 570 00:28:45,880 --> 00:28:48,360 Speaker 2: And one of the crucial things about this is that 571 00:28:48,360 --> 00:28:51,400 Speaker 2: that Marx is very explicit about this, that rate of 572 00:28:51,440 --> 00:28:52,959 Speaker 2: like how much you need to pay them to survive 573 00:28:53,120 --> 00:28:56,239 Speaker 2: is determined by social struggle, right, because like you know 574 00:28:56,280 --> 00:28:59,120 Speaker 2: what what a worker quote unquote needs to survive in 575 00:28:59,520 --> 00:29:01,880 Speaker 2: like a different places in context is different, and you 576 00:29:01,920 --> 00:29:04,600 Speaker 2: can fight in order for that rate to be higher. 577 00:29:06,160 --> 00:29:09,880 Speaker 2: And this is like an incredibly basic part of Marxism right, 578 00:29:09,960 --> 00:29:13,520 Speaker 2: it's the part of Marxism where the economy is also determed, 579 00:29:13,560 --> 00:29:16,160 Speaker 2: like the function of the capitalist economy is produced by 580 00:29:16,160 --> 00:29:19,560 Speaker 2: class struggle. This is like, this is like this is 581 00:29:19,600 --> 00:29:22,960 Speaker 2: even one. This is Marxism zero zero zero like this 582 00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:24,680 Speaker 2: this is this is the shit they hand you on 583 00:29:24,720 --> 00:29:27,640 Speaker 2: the flo on like your fucking tour of Marxism school 584 00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:29,320 Speaker 2: before you holding classes. 585 00:29:30,280 --> 00:29:31,840 Speaker 3: Yeah, so when you get that very you know, there's 586 00:29:31,920 --> 00:29:35,000 Speaker 3: very short introductions you can get where it's like like 587 00:29:35,040 --> 00:29:38,320 Speaker 3: a tiny little booklet that explains so like the sene 588 00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:40,320 Speaker 3: Quan on the little elements of things. 589 00:29:40,880 --> 00:29:44,680 Speaker 2: Yeah, and Harris writes pages and pages and pages of 590 00:29:44,720 --> 00:29:47,680 Speaker 2: stuff about like about about like the rate of surplus 591 00:29:47,760 --> 00:29:51,200 Speaker 2: value extraction, and do you know how many times he 592 00:29:51,360 --> 00:29:56,040 Speaker 2: mentions class fucking once in like and it's it's like 593 00:29:56,040 --> 00:29:58,440 Speaker 2: the thirty eight thing he mentions after like the technical 594 00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:01,680 Speaker 2: compensation of capital and like it's some other crisis like 595 00:30:01,720 --> 00:30:04,520 Speaker 2: this all of this ship and he just doesn't mention it. 596 00:30:04,560 --> 00:30:06,440 Speaker 2: And this is this is the thing that like fundamentally 597 00:30:06,520 --> 00:30:14,520 Speaker 2: has convinced me that what what he's doing isn't substantively Marxism. 598 00:30:14,560 --> 00:30:19,920 Speaker 2: He's using the tools of merchant political economy but he's 599 00:30:20,480 --> 00:30:24,120 Speaker 2: he's he's he's viewing capitalism as purely a sort of 600 00:30:24,120 --> 00:30:26,720 Speaker 2: like top down thing, right as and not something that's 601 00:30:26,760 --> 00:30:29,000 Speaker 2: actually like you know, like he acknowledges there are classes, 602 00:30:29,560 --> 00:30:33,440 Speaker 2: but he doesn't see them as actors at all. 603 00:30:34,160 --> 00:30:36,920 Speaker 3: Yeah, so, like the struggle between the classes is is 604 00:30:37,840 --> 00:30:38,200 Speaker 3: And it's. 605 00:30:38,040 --> 00:30:39,360 Speaker 2: Funny because he has this thing that he calls the 606 00:30:39,440 --> 00:30:42,000 Speaker 2: rate of exploitation, right, which is this calculation of sort 607 00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:45,080 Speaker 2: of surplus value extraction. But he's like, well, obviously because 608 00:30:45,080 --> 00:30:46,440 Speaker 2: the rate is going to change over time due to 609 00:30:46,440 --> 00:30:48,080 Speaker 2: the condition to struggle. But he's like an oscar, I'm 610 00:30:48,080 --> 00:30:52,800 Speaker 2: just putting his one number. Like it's just like this, right, Yeah, 611 00:30:53,840 --> 00:30:55,320 Speaker 2: I don't kind of interpin it. I'm too lazy to 612 00:30:55,320 --> 00:30:58,120 Speaker 2: figure that out. And I'm like, what what are you doing? 613 00:30:58,280 --> 00:31:00,000 Speaker 2: Like you this is this is the basis of Marxism. 614 00:31:00,600 --> 00:31:03,120 Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean maybe he was just an economics guy, 615 00:31:03,200 --> 00:31:04,040 Speaker 3: but even still, no. 616 00:31:04,120 --> 00:31:05,520 Speaker 2: Yeah, this is this is This is the thing that 617 00:31:05,560 --> 00:31:07,840 Speaker 2: I've been sort of realizing because one of the issues 618 00:31:08,880 --> 00:31:12,840 Speaker 2: with Sarafa is that, you know, Sarafa is a genius economist, right, 619 00:31:12,880 --> 00:31:17,400 Speaker 2: he is genuinely, unbelievably brilliant, but he's also a pure economist. 620 00:31:18,200 --> 00:31:20,560 Speaker 2: Like here's here is how the start of his most 621 00:31:20,560 --> 00:31:23,600 Speaker 2: influential book, Production of Commodities and Means of Commodities starts. 622 00:31:25,120 --> 00:31:28,400 Speaker 2: Let us consider an extremely simple society which produces just 623 00:31:28,520 --> 00:31:32,120 Speaker 2: enough to maintain itself. Commodities are produced by separate industries 624 00:31:32,160 --> 00:31:35,840 Speaker 2: and are exchanged for one another, et cetera. Cut So, okay, 625 00:31:36,320 --> 00:31:39,560 Speaker 2: what is he he? He he just has like created 626 00:31:39,600 --> 00:31:41,680 Speaker 2: a mental model. And this is the basis of like 627 00:31:41,760 --> 00:31:44,000 Speaker 2: of his major economic theories. Him just creating a mental 628 00:31:44,040 --> 00:31:49,160 Speaker 2: model where somehow, out of nowhere has appeared a simple 629 00:31:49,200 --> 00:31:51,840 Speaker 2: society that produces like one commodity, which is like just 630 00:31:51,960 --> 00:31:56,440 Speaker 2: enough commodities, separduties. And you know, if you think about 631 00:31:56,440 --> 00:31:59,640 Speaker 2: sort of like Marx, right, Marx is also a sociologist. Right. 632 00:31:59,760 --> 00:32:03,400 Speaker 2: He cares about you know, like like the actual point 633 00:32:03,400 --> 00:32:03,880 Speaker 2: of production. 634 00:32:03,960 --> 00:32:04,120 Speaker 1: Right. 635 00:32:04,120 --> 00:32:06,520 Speaker 2: He cares about the production process. He cares about the 636 00:32:06,560 --> 00:32:08,760 Speaker 2: sort of like like that there are He cares that 637 00:32:08,800 --> 00:32:11,760 Speaker 2: there are workers that are doing the production. He cares 638 00:32:11,800 --> 00:32:15,080 Speaker 2: about the sort of historical conditions that created you know, 639 00:32:15,120 --> 00:32:17,880 Speaker 2: these these things. Don't like as Kamala Harris's mom, this 640 00:32:17,920 --> 00:32:20,240 Speaker 2: is actually very important. The Kamala Harris, you didn't just 641 00:32:20,280 --> 00:32:21,760 Speaker 2: follow out of the coconut tree. You exist in the 642 00:32:21,760 --> 00:32:24,640 Speaker 2: context of all that came before you. That's Kamala Harris's mom, 643 00:32:24,680 --> 00:32:27,640 Speaker 2: who is like, I think a better Marxist than Donel 644 00:32:27,680 --> 00:32:30,840 Speaker 2: Harris's and Harris will occasionally, like Donald Harris WI occasionally 645 00:32:30,920 --> 00:32:32,520 Speaker 2: gesture to this one. He'd be like, well, yeah, obviously 646 00:32:32,520 --> 00:32:34,920 Speaker 2: this is all determined by historical conditions. And then he 647 00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:36,920 Speaker 2: just has no interest in ever pursuing any of that. 648 00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:38,560 Speaker 2: He's just like, yeah, this is we left a later 649 00:32:38,560 --> 00:32:41,000 Speaker 2: book that he never wrote. And what you get to 650 00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:43,160 Speaker 2: is is this and this is like a real issue 651 00:32:43,200 --> 00:32:45,600 Speaker 2: with sort of post Kansianism is that it doesn't have 652 00:32:46,640 --> 00:32:49,480 Speaker 2: like Marxism, at least in theory, has politics embedded into it. 653 00:32:49,520 --> 00:32:51,080 Speaker 2: Post Kannsianism kind of doesn't. 654 00:32:51,760 --> 00:32:53,920 Speaker 3: It's just like I have a. 655 00:32:53,880 --> 00:32:55,680 Speaker 2: Lot of friends who I like, I deeply care about 656 00:32:55,680 --> 00:32:58,600 Speaker 2: who are post Kansian's right, they are political, like you know, 657 00:32:58,600 --> 00:33:01,960 Speaker 2: they're they're leftist because they're right, Like it's it's not 658 00:33:02,000 --> 00:33:04,120 Speaker 2: something as an automatic generation of your theory, and you 659 00:33:04,160 --> 00:33:06,200 Speaker 2: know you can kind of write it that way, right, 660 00:33:06,200 --> 00:33:07,880 Speaker 2: Like this is the thing about Frederick Lee, who's the 661 00:33:07,920 --> 00:33:09,920 Speaker 2: sort of the guy. A lot of my like a 662 00:33:09,920 --> 00:33:12,120 Speaker 2: lot of the Traine writers, people sort of like learn 663 00:33:12,160 --> 00:33:14,680 Speaker 2: economics from like I mean indirectly, but like through his book. 664 00:33:14,760 --> 00:33:17,040 Speaker 2: But you know, Lee Lee is a committed anarchist and 665 00:33:17,080 --> 00:33:18,480 Speaker 2: that shows up at his work. But he has to 666 00:33:18,520 --> 00:33:22,520 Speaker 2: like add that in pure like pure sir rafa. By itself, 667 00:33:22,560 --> 00:33:25,040 Speaker 2: you could theoretically like run any form of government you 668 00:33:25,040 --> 00:33:29,320 Speaker 2: want with it. Right. And I think I've been vindicated 669 00:33:29,400 --> 00:33:32,120 Speaker 2: in this whole process because Donald Harris writes a couple 670 00:33:32,240 --> 00:33:34,840 Speaker 2: more books on one of which is a book that 671 00:33:35,000 --> 00:33:36,880 Speaker 2: is like commissioned by the Jamaican government. 672 00:33:38,200 --> 00:33:43,200 Speaker 3: Okay, he's Jamaican descent or he was born himself directly 673 00:33:43,480 --> 00:33:44,360 Speaker 3: in Jamaica, you. 674 00:33:44,280 --> 00:33:45,920 Speaker 2: Know, Like he's just like he's he's Jamaica and he 675 00:33:45,920 --> 00:33:50,040 Speaker 2: lives in Jamaica. Okay, I think I think he currently 676 00:33:50,080 --> 00:33:50,640 Speaker 2: lives in Jamaica. 677 00:33:50,680 --> 00:33:52,960 Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure this came to the US for his 678 00:33:53,040 --> 00:33:55,320 Speaker 3: graduate like for his academic Yeah. 679 00:33:55,320 --> 00:33:56,680 Speaker 2: One, one he lived in the US for a long 680 00:33:56,720 --> 00:33:58,320 Speaker 2: time because he's at Stanford, but then he kind of 681 00:33:58,440 --> 00:34:02,200 Speaker 2: like left and one I think back at Jamaica. I'm 682 00:34:02,240 --> 00:34:05,240 Speaker 2: going to read. So he wrote a book called a Growth. 683 00:34:05,240 --> 00:34:07,760 Speaker 2: This is in twenty eleven a growth inducement strategy for 684 00:34:07,840 --> 00:34:10,560 Speaker 2: Jamaica and the shortened medium term. I'm going to read 685 00:34:10,600 --> 00:34:15,680 Speaker 2: you the bullet points under a section called guiding Principles. Okay, 686 00:34:16,280 --> 00:34:21,120 Speaker 2: unleash entrepreneurial dynamism by unlocking latent wealth, tied up and 687 00:34:21,160 --> 00:34:25,359 Speaker 2: idle assets. Infrastructure investments is catalysm for job creation through 688 00:34:25,360 --> 00:34:29,799 Speaker 2: strengthening resiliency of the built in natural environments. Build an 689 00:34:29,800 --> 00:34:33,640 Speaker 2: innovative and competitive modern economy of big and small firms 690 00:34:33,880 --> 00:34:38,239 Speaker 2: by strengthening business networks and removing supply side constraints. Modernize 691 00:34:38,280 --> 00:34:42,320 Speaker 2: and improve the efficiency of government. Social inclusion through community renewal, 692 00:34:42,320 --> 00:34:45,840 Speaker 2: expand as south agency in equity, and proactive partnership between 693 00:34:45,880 --> 00:34:49,759 Speaker 2: government and private sector. Also a giant thing in this 694 00:34:49,840 --> 00:34:53,480 Speaker 2: about crime. So what has happened is that these two 695 00:34:53,480 --> 00:34:56,520 Speaker 2: people have circled back around and they now have the 696 00:34:56,600 --> 00:35:03,560 Speaker 2: same politics, which is like tough on crime, austerity, uh. 697 00:35:02,719 --> 00:35:06,080 Speaker 3: Public private partnership, fucking infrastructure spending. 698 00:35:06,960 --> 00:35:10,120 Speaker 2: Yea, yeah, they circled back around. It's funny because the 699 00:35:10,719 --> 00:35:12,680 Speaker 2: person writing the economists was like, oh, yeah, they actually 700 00:35:12,719 --> 00:35:14,680 Speaker 2: have circled back around because they're both They're both concerned 701 00:35:14,680 --> 00:35:17,480 Speaker 2: about wealth inequality. And this book is not concerned about 702 00:35:17,520 --> 00:35:19,520 Speaker 2: wealth inequality at all, Like that's not that's not what 703 00:35:19,560 --> 00:35:23,319 Speaker 2: it's about. It's about like capital accumulation, and you know, 704 00:35:23,320 --> 00:35:26,400 Speaker 2: it's sort of about distribution of surplus, but it's it 705 00:35:26,440 --> 00:35:29,440 Speaker 2: doesn't it's concerned with a distribution of surplus. Is that 706 00:35:29,440 --> 00:35:34,640 Speaker 2: seraphan economics like doesn't have a fixed race like way 707 00:35:34,640 --> 00:35:36,400 Speaker 2: for it to be distributed. It can be distributed in 708 00:35:36,640 --> 00:35:39,279 Speaker 2: an enormous number of ways. And the trick is finding 709 00:35:39,320 --> 00:35:40,719 Speaker 2: out how it's actually done. 710 00:35:41,880 --> 00:35:44,640 Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, there's. 711 00:35:44,040 --> 00:35:45,439 Speaker 2: A point in here. There's a point in this book 712 00:35:45,480 --> 00:35:47,799 Speaker 2: too that like is the thing that's like really first 713 00:35:47,800 --> 00:35:50,640 Speaker 2: struck me about it where he's talking about how he's 714 00:35:50,680 --> 00:35:52,840 Speaker 2: talking about surplus value and he's talking about how this 715 00:35:52,920 --> 00:35:56,400 Speaker 2: is an objective measure of exploitation. But then he goes 716 00:35:56,520 --> 00:36:00,640 Speaker 2: and he says, contrary to vulgar reading, is this does 717 00:36:00,680 --> 00:36:04,560 Speaker 2: not actually indicate who deserves Like it's not it's not 718 00:36:04,600 --> 00:36:08,960 Speaker 2: a moral argument about who should have the value that's 719 00:36:09,000 --> 00:36:13,960 Speaker 2: been stolen. And this this right here, this, this is 720 00:36:14,000 --> 00:36:15,840 Speaker 2: the road. This is the road that is going to 721 00:36:15,920 --> 00:36:18,960 Speaker 2: lead this man from a kind of interesting book about 722 00:36:19,040 --> 00:36:22,000 Speaker 2: like the dynamics of of of economic growth and like 723 00:36:22,000 --> 00:36:24,319 Speaker 2: building economic models and like using marks in theory does 724 00:36:24,360 --> 00:36:27,320 Speaker 2: sort of make it work to straight up I writing 725 00:36:27,360 --> 00:36:29,800 Speaker 2: investment documents for the Jamaican government. 726 00:36:30,520 --> 00:36:34,880 Speaker 3: Yeah, Like he seems like it's very like in a way, like, 727 00:36:35,160 --> 00:36:37,120 Speaker 3: you know, there are looks like Admitler band stabbers and 728 00:36:37,200 --> 00:36:39,319 Speaker 3: Marxist right, but it reminds me a lot of like 729 00:36:39,360 --> 00:36:41,799 Speaker 3: the New Labor thing in the UK, you know, which 730 00:36:41,920 --> 00:36:44,120 Speaker 3: grew out of a party which genuinely had a commitment 731 00:36:44,120 --> 00:36:48,080 Speaker 3: to socialism and became like, yeah, this sort of very 732 00:36:48,239 --> 00:36:52,680 Speaker 3: neoliberal like like sort of really like peak neoliberal kind 733 00:36:52,680 --> 00:36:56,320 Speaker 3: of Yeah. That there with some Keynesian influence, I guess, 734 00:36:57,040 --> 00:36:59,640 Speaker 3: but certainly nothing that one would call combius or even 735 00:36:59,680 --> 00:37:01,720 Speaker 3: really so list Yeah. 736 00:37:01,880 --> 00:37:04,680 Speaker 2: Yeah, And I don't know. It's it's sad because it's 737 00:37:04,719 --> 00:37:06,799 Speaker 2: like because the interesting thing about. 738 00:37:07,000 --> 00:37:09,879 Speaker 3: That was twenty twelve, he wrote the growth inducement strategy. 739 00:37:10,080 --> 00:37:13,800 Speaker 3: Fuck me, okay's in the game, Like yeah. 740 00:37:13,440 --> 00:37:15,359 Speaker 2: But he's still the game in the sense that he's 741 00:37:15,440 --> 00:37:21,600 Speaker 2: doing like this is you know, reading that, it very 742 00:37:21,680 --> 00:37:23,800 Speaker 2: much felt like I was reading like a modern Chinese 743 00:37:23,840 --> 00:37:28,080 Speaker 2: five year plan, except it was like less weird slogans. 744 00:37:28,680 --> 00:37:30,640 Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it reads like a like a fucking 745 00:37:30,840 --> 00:37:34,719 Speaker 3: like a new labor policy document, like a think tank. 746 00:37:35,400 --> 00:37:38,399 Speaker 3: It's a lot of like a analyst guy, think tank 747 00:37:38,480 --> 00:37:42,360 Speaker 3: guy kind of talk right, like which was extremely like 748 00:37:42,400 --> 00:37:44,520 Speaker 3: it looks like he left stand for in the late nineties, 749 00:37:44,560 --> 00:37:47,719 Speaker 3: which is when this ship was fucking everywhere, right, Like 750 00:37:49,480 --> 00:37:52,319 Speaker 3: what is he called Joseph Stiglitz? Is that right? And 751 00:37:52,400 --> 00:37:56,480 Speaker 3: like yeah, yeah, yeah, like yeah, this was the economic 752 00:37:56,600 --> 00:37:58,960 Speaker 3: fucking theory of the day. You know, this was very 753 00:37:59,000 --> 00:38:03,319 Speaker 3: popular then. But it's absolutely just like this. This is 754 00:38:03,360 --> 00:38:07,560 Speaker 3: not like black panther, black panther inflected Marxism. This is 755 00:38:07,560 --> 00:38:10,640 Speaker 3: not what is characteristized by the economists here. 756 00:38:10,960 --> 00:38:14,400 Speaker 2: Yeah, no, this is this is this is something genuinely 757 00:38:14,520 --> 00:38:18,439 Speaker 2: very sad because it doesn't have to go that. We 758 00:38:18,719 --> 00:38:20,759 Speaker 2: know that it's possible to like do this kind of 759 00:38:20,760 --> 00:38:23,279 Speaker 2: economics not be like this because Frederick Lee was an 760 00:38:23,280 --> 00:38:26,439 Speaker 2: IWW member until the day he died. Like he's he's 761 00:38:26,520 --> 00:38:28,600 Speaker 2: like out there at Occupy given like like in the 762 00:38:28,600 --> 00:38:30,560 Speaker 2: first days of all like not like he's out there, 763 00:38:30,560 --> 00:38:32,600 Speaker 2: like there are videos of him giving speeches to crowds 764 00:38:32,600 --> 00:38:35,480 Speaker 2: that occupy right, Like, you don't have to do this, 765 00:38:35,880 --> 00:38:40,400 Speaker 2: but he did. And this is also, like, you know, 766 00:38:40,480 --> 00:38:42,680 Speaker 2: I think that this kind of political trajectory is kind 767 00:38:42,680 --> 00:38:45,839 Speaker 2: of also you can see in it like how his child, 768 00:38:45,920 --> 00:38:47,919 Speaker 2: even though he wasn't in her life, Munch is going 769 00:38:47,920 --> 00:38:50,160 Speaker 2: to end up as the person she is. And I 770 00:38:50,200 --> 00:38:52,600 Speaker 2: think that's my that's my final conclusion from this is 771 00:38:52,640 --> 00:38:57,799 Speaker 2: he's not a Marxist and him and his childer lives. 772 00:38:58,360 --> 00:39:00,960 Speaker 3: Yeah, the thing's a ten year as to a motherfucker. 773 00:39:01,080 --> 00:39:03,759 Speaker 3: They you start to hang out with a bunch of 774 00:39:03,840 --> 00:39:05,319 Speaker 3: other rich people who have ten and you'd be in 775 00:39:05,320 --> 00:39:08,520 Speaker 3: too identify with him and you know, stripped you away 776 00:39:08,640 --> 00:39:11,040 Speaker 3: from who you Yeah. 777 00:39:10,920 --> 00:39:13,200 Speaker 2: So this this has been It could happen here. Don't 778 00:39:13,239 --> 00:39:16,760 Speaker 2: become a daughter and capitalist bastard and your old. 779 00:39:16,600 --> 00:39:20,160 Speaker 3: Age, yeah or your young age. 780 00:39:20,360 --> 00:39:28,759 Speaker 1: Yeah, it could happen here. As a production of cool 781 00:39:28,800 --> 00:39:31,719 Speaker 1: Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit 782 00:39:31,760 --> 00:39:34,359 Speaker 1: our website cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out 783 00:39:34,360 --> 00:39:37,319 Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen 784 00:39:37,360 --> 00:39:40,080 Speaker 1: to podcasts. You can find sources for it could happen here, 785 00:39:40,160 --> 00:39:44,120 Speaker 1: updated monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks 786 00:39:44,120 --> 00:39:44,680 Speaker 1: for listening,