Modern Marxism

By Wayne Brown

Wolff's presentation articulates the logic behind replacing "Capitalism" with worker-owned enterprises. I will call this "modern Marxism" since there are many ways to replace capitalism - worker-owned coops being one of them.

There is a profound misunderstanding about wage stagnation - the "basket of goods" radically changes over the years. This is the same fallacy as the idea that GDP "measures" something that can be compared between countries across decades.

He's right about the growth of debt, which seems to be baked into 21st-century capitalism. In fact, money, the most liquid form of capital, is always equal to the debt that created the money in the first place.

China is not capitalist. Wolff's idea of outsourcing is relevant but maybe not to China. He loves a "politically controlled workforce." Maybe not coherent with his praise of China and worker coops. Are there worker coops in China? Or is China inheriting all the evils of capitalism? See this post. Generally speaking, Wolff has the problem that no actual communist nation has ever existed. One must suspect that there is some inherent problem with Marxism since it always seems to be a theory that is tossed out right after the revolution.

Wolff is a great storyteller and an eloquent purveyor of motivated reasoning. Just like Marx, he always seems to think that the collapse of capitalism is right around the corner.

An interesting American hybrid of capitalism and worker co-ops is discussed here. Many others exist, such as co-ops of customers (grocery stores) and suppliers (agricultural products). The "capitalist" model is hardly inevitable, but for whatever reason, every country in the world sees 30% or more of its wealth in the hands of the top 1%. The story seems to be different for each country.

Wolff is an entertaining speaker, but I can't help feeling he is carried away with the idea that his problems with capitalism mean that capitalism is on the breach of collapse. This is wishful thinking - the same mistake Marx made. Wolff, as a modern Marxist, is preoccupied with the workplace. In 2022 we seem to have issues that move beyond tinkering with our political system. We also see the "control" fallacy in his reasoning. For the changes he proposes, the powers-that-be must be "onside," which raises the question of how this might happen. If the economy is (as he claims) owned and operated by the rich, how, exactly, does he propose to make fundamental changes that amount to unseating the 1% from their position of power? Bloody revolution seems to be the only course. Historically, this has never actually led to a Marxist society.




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