Wednesday, February 18, 2015

David F. Ruccio — Varoufakis’s Marx


This is an important post. This the clearest and best assessment of Yanis that I have seen, largely in his own words. It also explains why YV is a "pseudo-Marxist." He is a realist who understands Marx rather than a Marxist revolutionary. That is his strength or weakness, depending on one's point of view.

Relatively few realize that Marx was actually the real liberal who recognized that  human freedom is the basis of advancing civilization — as did Hegel for that matter, from whom Marx inherited the dialectic as Hegel had inherited from the ancient Greeks. But Hegel did not write on economics. 

Although even though Marx ended up writing on economics, he was chiefly a philosopher and his doctorate was in philosophy. Marx approached his work in terms of the enduring questions with a few toward creating a systematic approach to them based on the paradoxes of the human condition that develop historically — the apparent contradictions that drive and historical dialectic based on an internal logic that is actually consistent, even though it appears to be contradictory at turning points. Every question generates answers and the answers generate further questions. Now we would call this a complex adaptive system characterized by reflexivity (feedback) and emergence (innovation).

This is the basis not only of the human condition, which is "experimental" and adaptive, but also the historical dialectic that operates on the basis of exploring the range of possibilities. Like a homing device, humanity oscillates among options in his search for the target, which is distributed freedom rather than the freedom of a few.

Yanis understand this, and understand that the neoliberals are not actually liberal at all. They are not for distributed freedom but plutonomy on the back of labor.

Occasional Links & Commentary
Varoufakis’s Marx
David F. Ruccio | Professor of Economics University of Notre Dame Notre Dame

13 comments:

Malmo's Ghost said...

Tom,

This is what YV said in The Guardian as to why he doesn't want to crash and burn the EU:

"...What good will it do today to call for a dismantling of the eurozone, of the European Union itself, when European capitalism is doing its utmost to undermine the eurozone, the European Union, indeed itself?

A Greek or a Portuguese or an Italian exit from the eurozone would soon lead to a fragmentation of European capitalism, yielding a seriously recessionary surplus region east of the Rhine and north of the Alps, while the rest of Europe is would be in the grip of vicious stagflation. Who do you think would benefit from this development? A progressive left, that will rise Phoenix-like from the ashes of Europe’s public institutions? Or the Golden Dawn Nazis, the assorted neofascists, the xenophobes and the spivs? I have absolutely no doubt as to which of the two will do best from a disintegration of the eurozone.

I, for one, am not prepared to blow fresh wind into the sails of this postmodern version of the 1930s. If this means that it is we, the suitably erratic Marxists, who must try to save European capitalism from itself, so be it. Not out of love for European capitalism, for the eurozone, for Brussels, or for the European Central Bank, but just because we want to minimise the unnecessary human toll from this crisis..."


http://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/feb/18/yanis-varoufakis-how-i-became-an-erratic-marxist

Calgacus said...

MG: Yes, that is what he's been saying. Unfortunately the gross exaggeration of the consequences doesn't make much sense about now nor does on the history of the 30s.

The surplus region could decide to have a recession - if they follow loony tunes economics. Or not. The idea that Greece etc would be in vicious stagflation is just as silly. "Stag [austerity]" is always and easily eliminable by a monetary sovereign. That's what the voters elected Syriza to do, remember? Flation - a bit harder, but eliminating the stag should do a lot, and as Mosler & Pilkington have pointed out, the "flation" here contradicts the recession in the North prophecy.

Matt Franko said...

Right he wants to minimize the human toll not solve anything....

He probably also would like us to run our cars by putting solar panels on the car roofs.... 'to minimize the damage of cO2.....'

Peter Pan said...

Thanks, Malmo. That places him.

Ignacio said...

Cagalcus the Greek electorate does not know what they want (like the rest of the European electorate). They want progressive pro-people economic policy while staying under the rule of morons or psychos (you pick) in European institutions.

The tragedy is those of us in Europe which are the minority who do not wants for the euro-scam to continue under the current circumstances and have to suffer because clueless population cannot figure it out.


So here we are: 1) we got co-opted by 'technocrats' who are here to protect the interest of a minority (the creditors/export-lobby/rich); or for the people without the people in the grand European tradition of lust and greed. 2) meanwhile we have to swallow the grotesque spectacle (of the brainwashed masses (by the first sector), the electorate, making poor decisions to sustain a plutocracy; 3) and as consequence get overrun by both the psychos#1 and morons#2 who support #1.

I believe YV hasn't realized yet that we have already travelled to the past (the start of the 20th century) and they are just contributing to it woith their 'muddle-through', kicking-the-can and 'compromise' (so typical of the mild left).

Well I hope this time it ends in a nuclear war so we can just confirm Fermi's paradox. Apparently 'life forms' are not smart enough to understand basics maths or get past psychopathic tendencies, unable to learn from the past over and over.

Matt Franko said...

I,

I try to get patience as much as possible and try to stay on message as much as possible...

The "gold standard mentality" ruled for pretty near 2,000 years as far as I can figure and we've only been out from under the metals for a maybe 3 or 4 decades.... so these neurons and synapses are pretty burned in and are probably not going away in the period of much less than 1 human lifetime...

So we need to be patient (I should tell myself this...) and on message imo...

rsp,

Malmo's Ghost said...

I don't think his views here excludes the desirability of a Greeks expulsion from EZ if the Troika doesn't comply with Syriza demands. He certainly must be willing for that possibility if he's serious about meaningful reform in his country. If Greece should be expelled and all hell broke loose in Europe, the hope would be that Greece would be viewed as victim rather than perpetrator of economic upheaval he says will follow. Furthermore I think he believes strongly that the EU will implode if any of the periphery countries leave, whether kicked out or exiting of own their own volition. What's important is who's viewed as the bad guy in the end--banksters or the countries no longer within?

Anonymous said...

Greece needs to focus on the question of what it intends to build its economic future out of. What are the resources it can fall back on? What talents do its people possess? What kind of future do Greeks want to have? What kind of strategy doe it want to pursue? How interdependent does it want to be with other economies? So far, I'm not hearing much about any of this stuff. What's the plan?

Monetary factors are distinctly secondary.

Malmo's Ghost said...

Dan,

It sounds like status quo ante back to 2010.

Calgacus said...

Ignacio: Cagalcus the Greek electorate does not know what they want

I disagree. 80+% say they want Syriza; they want austerity to end. Exiting austerity is the true Grexit, not from the EZ or EU.

The important thing is that Varoufakis, Tsipras, Syriza remain true to their words & plans & put exiting austerity above everything, including remaining in the EZ or EU.

The only thing I have to criticize YV & Syriza for is his irrational exaggeration - to the point of calling ~zero probability events inevitable - of the dangers of Grexit, his weird idea that defaulting within the Euro is better rather than worse than Grexit.

Greece can feed itself. That's by far the most important real world fact, and Syriza is aware of it. Economist & Syriza MP Costas Lapavitsas & Heiner Flassbeck (preface by Oskar Lafontaine) new book, Against the Troika, is much more sensible on such matters & urges exit from the Euro.

Ignacio said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ignacio said...

70+% also want to stay within the euro. They should also start to grasp that they cannot reason with the likes of Schauble (the Greeks, YV already knows it probably by now lol).


What would happen if they issue 'tax-credits' in parallel and do not call them Drachmas? Would that be a problem legally? That may be the best solution right now, monetarily, and then focus on what Dan says: the real terms, how they are going to structure their economy etc.

Magpie said...

@Calgacus,

"I disagree. 80+% say they want Syriza; they want austerity to end. Exiting austerity is the true Grexit, not from the EZ or EU."

I agree with you. In Greece, the Communist Party's platform included Greece's exit from the eurozone. For good or for ill, the Greeks didn't vote for them.

Before being too harsh with the Greeks and to put things in perspective: I'd bet that the vast majority of MNE regulars, for all their enthusiasm for the exit option, wouldn't have voted for the Communist Party, either.

Given those constrains, I think Varoufakis has plenty reasons to fear a raise of the Golden Dawn. If Syriza fails, fairly or not, their failure will be taken as a failure of the Left, in general, including the Greek Communist Party.