Marx, Keynes and Ancestors

[Ed Weick]

Ray:   >I don't mean to complain or flame you Ed, but these stories are >stereotypes and myths that have been used to put a group of >people, who I don't feel deserve what they have, above all others. I don't feel flamed.  I must say that I feel a little overwhelmed.  I was only trying to make a couple of points.  One is that neither Marx nor Keynes intended war to be an outcome of their theorizing.  Keynes's advocated cyclical fiscal policy, meaning, essentially, that it was wrong for governments to be parsimonious during a recession and free spending during a period of inflation.  Government's role is to stabilize.  I don't recall ever reading anything by him or any commentary on him that increased (not 'massive' as you put it) spending during a recession should be on armaments or on warfare.  Marx was concerned with the exploitation of the proletariat by the capitalists.  But, again, nothing I've read by or on Marx has ever suggested that once the proletariat has taken over, it should develop the weapons of war.  Politicians have used the ideas of both men to fulfill their own purposes, but in doing so, they have often distorted them into something they were not intended to be.   My other point was almost a question.  We in the western world are now rich beyond measure.  Even the poor live to a higher standard than was typical of the well to do a hundred and fifty years ago.  Whom should we thank for this, if anyone?  I suggested that we thank our ancestors who had no options but lifelong work in factories and mines.  We have benefited because they were exploited.  The fact that, in Marxist terms, they produced 'surplus value' that capitalists could then use to create more capital and exploit more of our ancestors has been fundamental to creating the wealth we enjoy today.  I do recognize, however, that other things, such as the growing application of science to production and to daily life, were also important.  I also recognize that our affluence has not come without growing environmental and social costs, and that capital built on the backs of our ancestors has not only produced abundance but also weapons of mass destruction.   What is sad about 'progress', or whatever one wants to call it, is that something is gained but something is also lost.  Some fifty years ago, the Inuit of northern Canada still lived migratory lives on the land.  An anthropologist friend told me that on northern Baffin Island, where he spent a year among them, they had some seventy different words for snow.  Inuit now live in fixed villages.  They still venture out in hunting parties, but do not spend nearly as much time on the land as they once did.  Many young Inuit can barely speak their language, let alone name snow in seventy different ways.  In our Indian villages, I've seen old grannies scold children in the native language, which the children no longer understand, and besides, it's alright to ignore old grannies now.  At one time, it was strictly taboo.  The gains have been many.  The ill-mannered children stand a much greater chance of survival to a ripe old age, being educated (as we understand education) and earning a good living than their ancestors of even a generation ago.  Yet much that is irreplaceable has also been lost.  That is the price people pay, usually without knowing it, for something they think we are getting without any real idea of what it is.   Ed Weick