Robert Paul Wolff — "The Future of Socialism" (article)

I  (Tom Hickey) recommend reading this paper now that "socialism" is the new buzz word. You may recall Professor Wolff from The Poverty of Liberalism, In Defense of Anarchy, and A Critique of Pure Tolerance (with Herbert Marcuse and Barrington Moore, Jr.), which were popular at the time of the "countercultural revolution" in the Sixties and Seventies. He also published scholarly works on Emmanuel Kant and Karl Marx. He blogs at The Philosopher's Stone, which I follow and occasionally offer comment.

In what follows, I propose to take as my text a famous statement from Marx’s A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy—a sort of preliminary sketch of Das Kapital—and see what it can tell us about the capitalism of our day. I shall try to show you that Marx was fundamentally right about the direction in which capitalism would devel- op, but that because of his failure to anticipate three important features of the mature capitalist world, his optimism concerning the outcome of that development was misplaced. Along the way, I shall take a fruitful detour through the arid desert of financial accounting theory.

Here is the famous passage, from the preface of the Contribution, published in 1859:

"No social order ever disappears before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have been developed, and new, higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society."

"The Future of Socialism"
Robert Paul Wolff | Professor Emeritus, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Published in Seattle University Law Review [Vol. 35:1403-1428]

Matt Bruenig — What Tax Puzzles Tells Us About Economic Justice

Carney is therefore totally correct to say that: "When the whole system is rigged, there’s often no good way to unrig just one part." This is precisely the point made by legal realists and made by Nagel and Murphy in their sweeping book The Myth of Ownership. 

You can't just look at one single piece of the economic or tax system, whether that's the carried interest loophole, income tax rates, economic regulations, or anything else. The "whole system is rigged" together into one big edifice of production and distribution and it all fits together. From our system of property and contract law to our system of capital income taxation, we've constructed an entire economic system, and analyzing small pieces of it in isolation for their fairness makes no real sense. 

What we have to do instead is analyze the whole system. When we set out to determine how to construct our economic institutions, we have to ask ourselves: what are we trying to do here in broad terms? 

For me, the answer is to invent an economy that ensures everyone has access to the resources and capabilities necessary for them to flourish and pursue their personal projects. Instead, we've constructed a system that unnecessarilly generates widespread poverty, inequality, economic insecurity, and social immobility, all of which frustrate flourishing for huge swaths of those subject to our economic institutions.

"When the whole system is rigged, there’s often no good way to unrig just one part."  Exactly.

Demos
What Tax Puzzles Tells Us About Economic Justice
Matt Bruenig

Peter Cooper — Inviting Visions of a Better World

Peter Cooper invites all to contribute their thoughts on creating a better world. Certainly a worth endeavor as we begin a new year.

Here's an opportunity to join a vision quest based on thinking out of the box.

Heteconomist

Inviting Visions of a Better World
peterc