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A discourse on Euthyphro

Since this exchange concerning the classic dialogue took place on Chad Orzel’s blog more than four years ago, a lot of you never had the chance to read it.  I think it’s worth posting here in its entirety because it is very nearly a textbook example of the way half-educated midwits who can’t believe they are not smarter than their intellectual superiors behave.  Notice how at every step along the way, there are repeated attempts to disengage, attempts to avoid having to support the naked assertions without recanting them, pointless passive-aggressive shots, and in general, a consistent effort avoid dealing with the actual subject at hand.  And, in the end, the hapless midwit simply runs away, still clinging to his now-exposed assertions, appealing to others in the hopes that they will pat him on the head and tell him that he is still a smart and good boy.

This behavior is quite typical when dealing with the moderately intelligent.  They are so accustomed to being superior that they literally cannot grasp the idea that the thinking of the highly intelligent is as far beyond them as they are beyond those they regard as ignorant mouth-breathers.  Anyone who disagrees with them must be stupid and a bad thinker; the possibility that they are in over their heads despite their ability to even follow, much less address, the salient points genuinely does not occur to them.  This particular discourse began with a throwaway comment by one Jasper in reference to The Irrational Atheist.

[T]here’s no reason not to allow him to continue to maintain those
particular beliefs – although not necessarily the beliefs in the book
itself, most of which are a little sad, insofar as he genuinely appears
to think that he’s resolved the Euthyphro dilemma. (A clue: he hasn’t.)

As usual, nothing but safely general comments… because you can’t make
the specific case. Regarding Euthyphro, you’re about the 20th atheist
to claim this. And yet, every time I ask the person to explain
precisely how my resolution of the dilemma on either Christian or
Socrates’s own terms is mistaken, they fall silent. Every single time.
So, by all means, Jasper, please show how my resolutions of it are
flawed, as I always like to improve my arguments. Post your critique on
my blog or email it to me, I’ll post it in its entirety and we’ll see
how valid it is.

In seeking to resolve the dilemma, you state that At first
glance, this looks easy enough, as simply substituting “obedience” for
“the pious” will destroy the dilemma because it eliminates the tautology
posed. One can’t do this since it’s not right to simply substitute
whatever terms one likes and declare the problem solved. Later in the argument, you then say: At
this point we can reach three conclusions: 1. The Euthyphro “dilemma”
is defeated by shifting the focus from “the pious” to “obedience,”
therefore it is an inappropriate criticism of Christian morality that is
founded on obedience to God’s Will. So this point is based on you doing something that you have previously declared is not allowed.

You also state that it can only be considered a genuine problem
for those who insist that a fixed principle cannot be arbitrary. In
other words, for those paying absolutely no attention to reality. There
are a panoply of fixed variables which, if they were different than they
are, would radically alter the reality of our universe. Here you
conflate moral principles with physical variables; but they are not the
same, and consequently this point is irrelevant.

You finally state that The section about disagreement between gods
regarding the pious and impious does not apply to a monotheistic god or
a Supreme God who rules over other, lesser gods and deines their
morality for them. Socrates and Euthyphro agree in the course of the dialogue to discuss that “what all the gods love is pious and holy, and the opposite which they all hate, impious” – in all respects, a situation identical to being under a monotheistic god. So this point is irrelevant.

The rest of your refutation rests on a misunderstanding of what
actually constitutes the Euthyphro dilemma. You focus obsessively on a
literal translation of the language, rather than attempting to
understand the underlying argument. In modern terms, this is phrased as:
Is something moral because god commands it, or does god command it
because it is moral? You simply don’t address this at all in your
supposed refutation, as far as I can see; I may be missing the point
entirely, but in that case you have not managed to convey your argument
well. You may then say that you are not prepared to compromise your
writing in order to make yourself understood; but then why did you
bother to write in the first place?

Jasper, thank you very much for presenting your response to my critique
of the Euthyphro “Dilemma”. In summary, yes, you did miss the point, in
fact, you managed to successfully miss the point on all four issues you
raised. As promised, I will explain this in whatever detail is
necessary on the blog tomorrow, so please consider stopping by.

Vox: if that’s the case, I’ll withdraw my points, so there’s no need to
post them on your blog. Since you accuse nearly everybody that disagrees
with you of missing the point, your only problem is that you appear to
be unable to communicate fairly simple points, which I would have
thought was a pretty crippling problem for a writer.

Incidentally, why are you not prepared to address my response on this blog? It’s all very Sun Tzu, but a little bit childish.

“Vox: if that’s the case, I’ll withdraw my points, so there’s no need to post them on your blog.”

Please tell me you’re kidding. You don’t seriously expect me to
believe that you’re willing to just take my word that your critique is
flawed after you’ve informed us how my arguments are mostly sad and my
Euthyphro refutation is a failure?

“Since you accuse nearly everybody that disagrees with you of
missing the point, your only problem is that you appear to be unable to
communicate fairly simple points, which I would have thought was a
pretty crippling problem for a writer.”

I don’t accuse anyone of anything I can’t demonstrate. I don’t
pretend to be a particularly good writer, so fortunately, it’s merely a
pasttime. Perhaps if I really concentrate and write really well, I’ll
be able to demonstrate why the Euthyphro refutations are solid.

“Incidentally, why are you not prepared to address my response on this blog? It’s all very Sun Tzu, but a little bit childish.”

I’ll post it here too if you like. I just assumed that no one would
see it if I post it here tomorrow.

You didn’t say that my critique was flawed, you said that I’d
completely missed the point of your argument. If I’ve missed the point
of your argument, that means that my critique is not of your argument.
Nobody knows your argument better than you, so why wouldn’t I take your
word on it?

Since we’ve already established that you can’t convey relatively
simple points, why on earth do you think you’re “demonstration” will be
any more comprehensible than your original text? There are two
possibilities here – either you’re a poor thinker or a poor writer –
but in either case, why would anybody read your work?

“In seeking to resolve the dilemma, you state that “At first
glance, this looks easy enough, as simply substituting “obedience” for
“the pious” will destroy the dilemma because it eliminates the tautology
posed. One can’t do this since it’s not right to simply substitute
whatever terms one likes and declare the problem solved.” Later in the
argument, you then say: “At this point we can reach three conclusions:
1. The Euthyphro “dilemma” is defeated by shifting the focus from “the
pious” to “obedience,” therefore it is an inappropriate criticism of
Christian morality that is founded on obedience to God’s Will.” So this
point is based on you doing something that you have previously declared
is not allowed.”

You’re skipping over the extremely relevant section wherein I
distinguish between refuting the Euthyphro dilemma on its own terms and
refuting its mistaken application to Christian morality because the
definition of that morality precludes the second horn of the dilemma.
Ergo, no tautology and no dilemma. One cannot simply change Socrates’s
definitions and claim to be attacking the dilemma on its own terms,
while on the other hand, one cannot apply the dilemma to a specific morality such as the Christian moral standard without
first changing those definitions.

“You also state that it can only be considered a genuine problem
for those who insist that a fixed principle cannot be arbitrary. In
other words, for those paying absolutely no attention to reality. There
are a panoply of fixed variables which, if they were different than they
are, would radically alter the reality of our universe. Here you
conflate moral principles with physical variables; but they are not the
same, and consequently this point is irrelevant.”

Conflate? Combine into one? Not at all. You’re forgetting the
rather obvious fact that whereas the necessary physical variables of
this universe are fixed, moral principles vary even within it.
Therefore, it is a massive logical error on multiple levels to assume
that in the universe next door, moral principles must be the same as
they are in this universe, while physical variables are assumed to be
different. In fact, given the competing moral principles currently on
offer in this universe, one couldn’t possibly even say which of them
must be the fixed ones next door.

“You finally state that The section about disagreement between gods
regarding the pious and impious does not apply to a monotheistic god or
a Supreme God who rules over other, lesser gods and deines their
morality for them. Socrates and Euthyphro agree in the course of the
dialogue to discuss that “what all the gods love is pious and holy, and
the opposite which they all hate, impious” – in all respects, a
situation identical to being under a monotheistic god. So this point is
irrelevant.”

You’re incorrect. If you read the dialogue more closely, you will
see that the situations are not identical because in the one case, the
net result of “what all the gods love” is a drastically restricted set of
polytheistic divine preferences reduced to the lowest common denominator,
whereas in the monotheistic case, the preferences are singular and exercised in full.
For example, Athena’s love for Athens would have to be excised in the former
case, but retained were she the sole god in the latter one.

“The rest of your refutation rests on a misunderstanding of what
actually constitutes the Euthyphro dilemma. You focus obsessively on a
literal translation of the language, rather than attempting to
understand the underlying argument. In modern terms, this is phrased as:
Is something moral because god commands it, or does god command it
because it is moral? You simply don’t address this at all in your
supposed refutation, as far as I can see; I may be missing the point
entirely, but in that case you have not managed to convey your argument
well.”

This is a false statement based on intellectual laziness. There is
no “underlying argument”, Socrates makes a specific and detailed
argument which contains various assertions and assumptions along the way, and as I
have shown, some of them are not logically justifiable. Now, if you want an
answer to what you describe as the modern terms, it is that something
is moral because god commands it. God’s game, god’s rules. Now, you
can still argue that God doesn’t exist or that his rules are imperfectly
understood by Man, but that’s a tangential subject that cannot be
reasonably used to defend the dilemma.

I think we’ll have a problem with continuing the dialogue. It seems
fairly clear that – whether I have missed your points or not – you
genuinely don’t understand either my comments or – more worryingly – the
Euthyphro dilemma itself.

For example, your response to my first point appears to be completely
unrelated to the point that I’ve actually made – which was that you
said “one could defeat it by doing X, but obviously one can’t do X” and
then later said “by doing X, I’ve defeated the argument.” On the
“drastically reduced” set of preferences – it’s irrelevant to the
discussion. If there’s only one thing on the menu of divine command, it
still poses exactly the same problem for theists. On the “variable
morals”: well, you’re the one arguing that there is in fact only one set
of fixed morals in this universe (your god’s) – and since some physical
variables in this universe do vary depending on context, it seems that
your point is defeated on both sides. To be brutally honest, though,
your writing is poor enough that it’s possible that even you’re not sure
what your argument is.

Euthyphro stands. If you honestly don’t see that, there isn’t really
anywhere for the discussion to go – we can just leave it here and other
readers can decide for themselves. 

If you want an answer to what you describe as the modern terms,
it is that something is moral because god commands it. God’s game, god’s
rules.

Quod Erat Demonstrandum! It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.

 “I think we’ll have a problem with continuing the dialogue. It
seems fairly clear that – whether I have missed your points or not – you
genuinely don’t understand either my comments or – more worryingly –
the Euthyphro dilemma itself.”


Actually, Jasper, you omitted what has become the most obvious
conclusion, which is that you’re simply not very intelligent. The fact
that you are having trouble understanding this doesn’t mean everyone is.
But do keep making those little passive-aggressive statements, I’m
sure they’re very convincing.

“For example, your response to my first point appears to be
completely unrelated to the point that I’ve actually made – which was
that you said “one could defeat it by doing X, but obviously one can’t
do X” and then later said “by doing X, I’ve defeated the argument.””

It’s not unrelated and I didn’t write “by doing X, I’ve defeated the
argument”, I wrote “The Euthyphro “dilemma” is defeated by shifting the
focus from “the pious” to “obedience,” therefore it is an inappropriate
criticism of Christian morality that is founded on obedience to God’s
Will”. It is not only appropriate to amend the relevant terms in order
to correspond with a religion that differs from the original, it is
necessary. You are clearly having problems understanding the
distinction between refuting the dilemma on its own terms and explaining
why the dilemma can’t successfully be applied to Christian morality.
Christian morality != “the pious” or “what God loves”.

“On the “drastically reduced” set of preferences – it’s irrelevant
to the discussion. If there’s only one thing on the menu of divine
command, it still poses exactly the same problem for theists.”

No, it isn’t because the second horn of the dilemma depends upon
this “irrelevancy”. You clearly haven’t read the dialogue closely
enough. Socrates even admits that he is amending his original
definition because he has to narrow it so closely that all individual
preferences are removed in order to maintain the viability of his
argument. This is why the second horn could be a problem for
polytheists, (although it really shouldn’t, due to the bait-and-switch
on Socrates’s part), but it is no problem for monotheists or those who
worship one supreme God.

“On the “variable morals”: well, you’re the one arguing that there
is in fact only one set of fixed morals in this universe (your god’s) –
and since some physical variables in this universe do vary depending on
context, it seems that your point is defeated on both sides. To be
brutally honest, though, your writing is poor enough that it’s possible
that even you’re not sure what your argument is.”

You’re dancing to avoid the obvious. Physical constants are assumed
to vary from universe to universe. There is absolutely no logical
reason to declare that moral principles could not vary as well, whether
the Creator God is the same in both universes or not.

“Euthyphro stands…. Quod Erat Demonstrandum! It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.”

It doesn’t stand in either modern or Greek terms. Do you also find
William of Ockham’s logic to be funny and sad, given that he reached
precisely the same conclusion I did?

Where do you go with these kinds of discussions, when somebody misses
the point of a basic philosophical argument so completely – and defends
himself by accusing everybody who disagrees with him of missing the
point? I begin to see what you were getting at in your original post…

Perhaps, after reading this, one will better understand why I am so often forced to tell people that they are missing a relevant point. Now, perhaps it is because I am a bad thinker, or because I am a bad writer and my points are so often insufficiently clear. Or, alternatively, perhaps Most People Are Idiots.
I leave it to you to decide which explanation is more strongly supported by the documentary and scientific evidence.

Hence the nerves

A little math should help put things in perspective for those who are convinced that the gun owners of America can’t possibly stand up to the military might that is under the control of the federal government:

In November a record 2 million guns were sold in America.  This was followed up by another record in December.  2.7 million guns were sold in America in the last month of 2012…. There are 2.29 active members in the Chinese Army. There are 1.13 active members in the Indian Army.

The U.S. Army has 561,984 active personnel.  Keep in mind that 600,000 men armed with rifles were sufficient to dissuade the 16 million-strong German Heer from attacking Switzerland.

Are all of those 4.7 million new guns bought by people willing to kill in order to protect their God-given liberties?  No.  But many, perhaps even most, were.  And that is why the current media drums being pounded for gun control are going to dwindle away to silence again soon.

The first shots are fired

However, at the moment, it’s not violence, merely very loud political protest:

Rifle shots were fired early Monday into the Athens offices of Greece’s conservative party, which leads the fragile coalition government, causing no injuries but intensifying a wave of political violence in the debt-wracked country. 

Remember, the US is actually worse off than Greece, by some financial measures.  The only significant difference is that Greece can’t print money because the ECB won’t permit it, while the US can’t print money because the Fed won’t permit it.

I suspect these are the first shots to be fired in the great wave of political dissolution that is about to sweep over the world.

Attn: SFWA members

First, I have nominated two works for the 2012 Nebula award.  If you have not yet read The Apocalypse Codex by Charles Stross or Wool 5: The Stranded by Hugh Howey, I recommend you do so and consider adding your own nomination.

Second, if you are an author or a publisher and wish me to consider nominating one of your 2012-eligible works, feel free to query me by email.  Please note that I do most of my reading electronically and prefer either epub or mobi format.  I don’t read PDF or DRM-protected files and I don’t wish to be sent printed material.

Third, if you wish to read A THRONE OF BONES for the purposes of considering a Nebula nomination, I have uploaded a zipfile to the Novel 2012 repository in the SFWA Forum containing both epub and mobi formats which you can download.  Please note that your Forum login and password will be required to download the file.
 
UPDATE: John Scalzi announced today that he will not be seeking a fourth term as SFWA President.  One can only conclude that he heard the news of my candidacy and was afraid to face me in the scheduled series of debates on CNN, MSNBC, and the Book Channel.

A failure in mass propaganda

The New York Times gives up on the global warming scam:

The New York Times will close its environment desk in the next few weeks and assign its seven reporters and two editors to other departments. The positions of environment editor and deputy environment editor are being eliminated. No decision has been made about the fate of the Green Blog, which is edited from the environment desk.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but we’ve been hearing less and less about “global warming” and “climate change” over the last year.  It’s not too hard to figure out why the New York Times suddenly decided that riding the AGW/CC charade in support of its big government ideology wasn’t going to work any longer, as James Delingpole’s victory dance on the corpse of the Met Office’s scientific credibility demonstrates:

Was there ever a government quango quite so useless as the Met Office?

From its infamous ‘barbecue summer’ washout of 2009 to the snowbound winter it failed to predict in 2010 and the recent forecast-defying floods, our £200 million-a-year official weather forecaster has become a national joke.

But of all its recent embarrassments, none come close to matching the Met Office’s latest one.

Without fanfare — apparently in the desperate hope no one would notice — it has finally conceded what other scientists have known for ages: there is no evidence that ‘global warming’ is happening.

When the predictive models fail, as all of the global warming and climate change models have, it is clear that the science behind it, such as it is, is junk.  Now, the various bureaucracies that have been formed and funded to address the nonexistent problem will fight furiously to survive and maintain their existence, (which is to say their government funding), but the verdict of history is already clear.

There is no man-made global warming.  There is no anthropogenic global climate change.  The skeptics were right and the “scientific consensus” was completely wrong.  Remember that the next time an interlocutor attempts to appeal to a scientific consensus.

The Curse of Tebow

The amusing thing about yesterday’s AFC divisional playoff game is that if Tim Tebow had been playing quarterback for the Denver Broncos instead of Peyton Manning, the Broncos probably would have won that game.  Manning’s two interceptions, the first returned for a touchdown, absolutely killed the Broncos.  There is no way that a team that benefits from not one, but two, special teams touchdowns should lose a game at home.

And Champ Bailey’s career as a starting cornerback appears to be all but over in light of his extreme toasting by Torrey Smith.  It’s time to move to the nickle, Champ.  Or safety.  The fifth gear, it is gone.  My condolences.

It is looking like we’ll see a Patriots-49ers Super Bowl, with one last ring for Tom Brady and Bill Belichick.  But this is the NFL, and we all know that anything can happen on any given Sunday.

This should also settle the 2012 MVP question conclusively in the favor of AD.

Of language versus substance

Let me be first perfectly clear about one thing.  I could not care less about the so-called “Christian” market.  I have never been a CBA author, I will never be a CBA author, and while I am an evangelical Christian, I am not of the evangelical Christian culture.  I am almost entirely unfamiliar with the works of the modern authors who are popular within that world, and as a writer, I consider my peers to be George R. R. Martin, Brandon Sanderson, and Steven Erikson, not Jerry Jenkins, Ted Dekker, or whoever happens to be writing the books du jour in that market.

To me, a Christian novel is one that is written from a worldview perspective that contains the idea that Jesus Christ is the Lord and Savior of Man in some form.  It doesn’t matter if the idea is overt or an analogy.  That’s it. The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia are clearly Christian works, as is Ray Bradbury’s excellent short story, “The Man”.  And yet, none of these three works ever so much as mention the words “Jesus Christ” or even portray various Christian activities such as baptism or communion.

My view is clearly not the most common opinion.  And while I certainly respect the right of my fellow Christians to place a more stringent series of requirements on what they believe is, or is not, Christian fiction, I really don’t care in the slightest what their opinion happens to be.  To a certain extent, I suspect that the divide centers on the idea that a Chinese novel must be either a) written by a Chinese man and set, at least in part, in China, or b) written in the Chinese language.

Now, I am a Christian, and the various books and stories in the Arts of Dark and Light series overtly utilize something that is clearly recognizable as Christianity in a manner that is historically consistent with the medieval milieu.  Some characters are observably “Christian”, others are pagan, others are simply… something else.  But I don’t write in what could be described as the contemporary Christian language.  And therein lies the difference.

I hadn’t intended to say anything about what happened right before A THRONE OF BONES was published, but as it happens, my publisher at Hinterlands has broached the subject in a surprisingly candid article about his decision to publish the book on the Speculative Faith Blog.  He writes:

Things were going along pretty well until two days before the book was to release. I got a note from the folks at a prominent Christian fiction writers group in America saying that if we released this book, they would take MLP off their list of approved publishers. That meant that all MLP books would not be eligible for their annual award.

As much as I believed in this book and its author and our goals, I was not prepared to let one book sabotage the chances of all my other authors receiving an award I think has value.

Oh, the drama. Was I going to cancel the book? Was I going to go through and remove everything this organization found objectionable? Was I going to hurt all my other authors? Was I going to succumb to what some folks said amounted to blackmail? (I didn’t think it was blackmail, by the way. I saw it as them adhering to their guidelines.) Remember, this was all happening 36 hours before the book was set to release.

I finally asked the organization if it would change anything if I created a new imprint and released the book under that imprint. They said, “Oh, yeah. If you did that, the problem would go away.”

“Really?” sez I. “All my other books would still be eligible for the award?”

“Sure.”

And thus, Marcher Lord Hinterlands was born, a brand new imprint for one book (so far).

A Throne of Bones by Vox Day released on December 1, 2012. It weighed in at just under 300,000 words and over 850 pages in hardcover. It is currently our overwhelming bestseller both in hardcover and in e-book.

I am one of those who saw the situation as something uncomfortably akin to blackmail.

Now, I should also mention that I am entirely happy with the solution; what author wouldn’t like having their own personal imprint?  Nor did I have a problem with the organization telling Jeff that my book would not be eligible for any of the awards they give out.  I also think that the way in which the situation was speedily resolved to everyone’s satisfaction was a testimony to the way that Christians with strongly differing opinions can come and reason together to find a way past their differences.

However, having been blackballed on at least two occasions at different publishing houses, (I’m not being paranoid, I was told as much by the individuals within the publishers who originally approached me and asked to publish my work; on more than one occasion I’ve been paid to NOT write a book), I think it is unwise for Christian organizations to be seen appearing to practice the same sort of blackballing, and worse, guilt by association, that I’ve seen in certain secular publishers.  On the one hand, I think it is wrong for secular publishers to act as gatekeepers relentlessly pushing their specific left-wing ideology on the market, on the other, I think it is wrong for Christian publishers and other professional organizations to act as gatekeepers relentlessly pushing a highly antiseptic view of what is, and is not, Christian, particularly when that view appears to be based more on cultural values than upon genuine spiritual or doctrinal issues.

The most problematic aspect of the situation, in my opinion, was that the organization asked to see the manuscript before it was published, thereby causing it to look as if they were behaving in an inappropriately censorious manner.  While they certainly have the right to act in whatever manner they see fit ex post facto, the attempt to intervene prior to publication was, in my opinion, totally unacceptable and amounted to the same sort of ideological policing that I have criticized in the SF/F market.  I tend to suspect that they were merely trying to anticipate a potential problem and head it off at the pass, which is what ultimately happened, but nevertheless, I don’t think that anyone except the author and the publisher should be addressing these sorts of issues prior to publication.

I leave it to the readers to decide whether my books are Christian fiction or not.  I don’t care.  I consider them to be epic fantasy, written in the tradition begun by George MacDonald and exemplified by J.R.R. Tolkien.  And to those who will roll their eyes at the idea of “a Christian answer to George Martin” and imagine it is meant in the Stryper sense, let me hasten to disabuse you of that notion.  A THRONE OF BONES is neither an homage nor an imitation, it is a challenge.  It is intended as a literary rebuke.

I believe Martin and some of the other authors of epic fantasy have not extended the sub-genre so much as they have betrayed it.  And in doing so, even as they have attempted to make their works more “realistic” than those of their epic predecessors, they have actually made them much smaller in terms of the human experience.  In their colorblind rejection of what they suppose to be “black and white” morality in favor of their beloved “balance” and “shades of gray”, they have inadvertently turned their backs on the full rainbow spectrum of colors.  They paint ugliness, but no beauty.  They sketch images of hate, but none of love.  Their sex isn’t erotic, it merely the slaking of appetites.  Their work, for the most part, is quite literally and intentionally soulless.

I’m not at all interested in attempting to become their polar opposite, as some erroneously see it.  Still less am I trying to write some saccharine, watered-down version of their works.  Instead, I’m attempting to embrace the whole.  Good and evil.  Love and hate.  Joy and sorrow.  Beauty and ugliness.  Art and philosophy.  I am not saying that I have been, or will be, successful in this, I am merely pointing out that to claim that A THRONE OF BONES is an imitation of Martin, or any other author, is not only to miss the point, it is missing the entire conversation.

Obviously, it’s the guns

What other explanation could there be?

A new report finds that Americans die younger and contract sexually
transmitted diseases more than any other high-income country in the
world. The report found that Americans had higher rates of chronic lung disease, teenage pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, obesity, drug-related deaths, infant mortality and homicides than countries that included Australia, Canada, Japan and many western European countries.

It’s really terrible how all of those legal guns are having indiscriminate sex and forcing Americans to gorge themselves with pizza and mainline heroin.  #GunControlNow!

Irony and the Marxian trade cycle

Karl Popper summarizes an amended Marxian theory of the trade cycle in The Open Society and Its Enemies:

“The amended theory of surplus population and of the trade cycle may be outlined as follows. The accumulation of capital means that the capitalist spends part of his profits on new machinery; this may also be expressed by saying that only a part of his real profits consists in goods for consumption, while part of it consists in machines. These machines, in turn, may be intended either for the expansion of industry, for new factories, etc., or they may be intended for intensifying production by increasing the productivity of labour in the existing industries. The former kind of machinery makes possible an increase of employment, the latter kind has the effect of making workers superfluous, of ‘setting the workers at liberty’ as this process was called in Marx’s day. (Nowadays it is sometimes called ‘technological unemployment’.)

Now the mechanism of capitalist production, as envisaged by the amended Marxist theory of the trade cycle, works roughly like this. If we assume, to start with, that for some reason or other there is a general expansion of industry, then a part of the industrial reserve army will be absorbed, the pressure upon the labour market will be relieved, and wages will show a tendency to rise. A period of prosperity begins. But the moment wages rise, certain mechanical improvements which intensify production and which were previously unprofitable because of the low wages may become profitable (even though the cost of such machinery will begin to rise). Thus more machinery will be produced of the kind that ‘sets the workers at liberty’.

As long as these machines are only in the process of being produced, prosperity continues, or increases. But once the new machines are themselves beginning to produce, the picture changes. Workers will be ‘set at liberty’, i.e. condemned to starvation. But the disappearance of many consumers must lead to a collapse of the home market. In consequence, great numbers of machines in the expanded factories become idle (the less efficient machinery first), and this leads to a further increase of unemployment and a further collapse of the market.

The fact that much machinery now lies idle means that much capital has become worthless, that many capitalists cannot fulfill their obligations; thus a financial crisis develops, leading to complete stagnation in the production of capital goods, etc. But while the depression (or, as Marx calls it, the ‘crisis’) takes its course, the conditions are ripening for a recovery. These conditions mainly consist in the growth of the industrial reserve army and the consequent readiness of the workers to accept starvation wages.

At very low wages production becomes profitable even at the low prices of a depressed market; and once production starts, the capitalist begins again to accumulate, to buy machinery. Since wages are very low, he will find that it is not yet profitable to use new machinery (perhaps invented in the meanwhile) of the type which sets the workers at liberty. At first he will rather buy machinery with the plan of extending production. This leads slowly to an extension of employment and to a recovery of the home market. Prosperity is coming once again. Thus we are back at our starting point. The cycle is closed, and the process can start once more.

This is the amended Marxist theory of unemployment and of the trade cycle. As I have promised, I am not going to criticize it. The theory of trade cycles is a very difficult affair, and we certainly do not yet know enough about it (at least I don’t). It is very likely that the theory outlined is incomplete, and, especially, that such aspects as the existence of a monetary system based partly upon credit creation, and the effects of hoarding, are not sufficiently taken into account. But however this may be, the trade cycle is a fact which cannot easily be argued away, and it is one of the greatest of Marx’s merits to have emphasized its significance as a social problem.”

What particularly struck me in reading the section leading up to this passage was a) the way that immigration is now utilized to supply the ranks of “the industrial reserve army” and b) the fact that even back in 1962, despite his apparent unfamiliarity with the Austrian School, Karl Popper was aware that “a monetary system based partly upon credit creation” was likely to have some significance on unemployment and the trade cycle.

The Marxian system is incomplete and outdated.  As Popper shows, some of its basic assumptions were incorrect and logically flawed from the start.  But the structural similarities between the domestic industrial exploitations of the 19th century and the international financial exploitations of the 21st century become increasingly apparent when one considers them from the perspective of both Marxian and Misean theories.

It is not clear to me that these apparent polar opposites can genuinely be synthesized in any useful manner; the Hegelian irony of an attempt to do so is not lost on me.  And yet, I suspect there may be something there.