Imo classical economists were generally more clear-sighted and honest than modern ones. Of course they had their biases and perspective based on their class (and their audience), but at that point economics was so poorly understood that theorists were legitimately trying to figure stuff out, moreso than trying to produce propaganda. Of course, the industrial proletariat and threat of socialism wasn’t really present yet either, so the class conflict was more about new money bourgeois vs old money aristocrats and landlords.
Marx and Smith are a lot more similar than most people think, because Marx was writing in the context of various economic assumptions that come from Smith, such as the labor theory of value, which is usually attributed to Marx but actually comes from Smith.
The thing about Smith though is that his writing style was very dry and repetitive so nobody actually reads him, at best, they might read abridged versions which cut out any inconvenient parts like that. So he just kinda became known as the capitalism guy and is thrown in the same category as Ayn Rand.
Yeah a lot of effort has been put into presenting socialism/anarchism/Marxism as a reaction against humanistic liberalism (Stephen Pinker perfected this narrative), but the reality is that they are a development of it, and I do think we need to regain that sense of continuity somehow
Yep, I think that “cut a liberal and a fascist bleeds” is in the same vein. I understand where it’s coming from, but I feel like instead of alienating people who self-identify as liberals we need to point out that liberalism is self-contradictory (private ownership of capital is eventually incompatible with equality before law, democracy and liberty in general). So, when times get tough (because of centralization of capital and thus power in the hands of few, combined with lobbying/bribes/regulatory capture) liberals will have to choose one or the other - those who choose private ownership are fascists, and those who choose liberty are communists. I don’t have a good catchphrase to encompass that idea, though.
Imo classical economists were generally more clear-sighted and honest than modern ones. Of course they had their biases and perspective based on their class (and their audience), but at that point economics was so poorly understood that theorists were legitimately trying to figure stuff out, moreso than trying to produce propaganda. Of course, the industrial proletariat and threat of socialism wasn’t really present yet either, so the class conflict was more about new money bourgeois vs old money aristocrats and landlords.
Marx and Smith are a lot more similar than most people think, because Marx was writing in the context of various economic assumptions that come from Smith, such as the labor theory of value, which is usually attributed to Marx but actually comes from Smith.
The thing about Smith though is that his writing style was very dry and repetitive so nobody actually reads him, at best, they might read abridged versions which cut out any inconvenient parts like that. So he just kinda became known as the capitalism guy and is thrown in the same category as Ayn Rand.
Yeah a lot of effort has been put into presenting socialism/anarchism/Marxism as a reaction against humanistic liberalism (Stephen Pinker perfected this narrative), but the reality is that they are a development of it, and I do think we need to regain that sense of continuity somehow
Yep, I think that “cut a liberal and a fascist bleeds” is in the same vein. I understand where it’s coming from, but I feel like instead of alienating people who self-identify as liberals we need to point out that liberalism is self-contradictory (private ownership of capital is eventually incompatible with equality before law, democracy and liberty in general). So, when times get tough (because of centralization of capital and thus power in the hands of few, combined with lobbying/bribes/regulatory capture) liberals will have to choose one or the other - those who choose private ownership are fascists, and those who choose liberty are communists. I don’t have a good catchphrase to encompass that idea, though.