Friday, October 31, 2014

History and Teleology

Because Kant classifies Teleology as 'Reflective', his concept of a Telos of History is no more than heuristic.  However, Hegel is less cautious, conceiving History as the primary determinant of the course of events, combining Teleological Rationality and Christian Messianism.  So, though Marx inverts Hegel's concept, with a Materialist version of Dialectics, he still inherits its subordination of all humans to its Necessity.  Likewise, Heidegger's 'History of Being', even if it reverses the progressive pattern of such Teleology, is just as determinative.  In contrast, because Nietzsche conceives all 'Theory', even that of History, as 'Interpretation', he, more than these other German pioneers of the Philosophy of History, recovers Kant's respect for the Humean skepticism that is the prelude to the tradition.  Indeed, by conceiving History as an object of either "use" or "abuse", Nietzsche anticipates the kind of Pragmatist concept of it with which Dewey confronts Trotsky in 1939.

Thursday, October 30, 2014

Self, Time, History

As has been previously discussed, Marx's concept of  Laborer is derived from Kant's concept of Self.  Now, entailed in the latter is the concept of Time as a Form of Experience, with respect to which Objective Time is abstracted.  But, History is a species of Time.  Thus, any concept of Objective History abstracts from personal experience.  Hence, a proper Marxist concept of Object History conceives it as a mystification that perpetuates the powerlessness of the Proletariat, not as a process immanent in Matter.  Likewise, a decisive moment in the awakening of Class Consciousness is the awareness that workers can make History, and not merely endure it.

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Self, Capitalism, Marxism

Hume's dissolution of the 'Self' into a 'bundle of perceptions', leaves, without further modification, any concept of 'Self-Interest', or of Private Property, groundless.  Now, while Smith does not address the problem posed by his associate, Kant, Hegel, and Marx do.  First, Kant, in general, posits the concept of a 'Self' that functions as a bundler of the bundle, and, more specifically, according to one interpretation of his Refutation of Idealism, shows that 'Self-Consciousness' consists in an awareness of one's effects on phenomena.  Hegel then develops that interpretation into a concept of Self-Recognition, which is also a moment of Self-Reliance that liberates a 'Slave' from a 'Master'.  Plainly, therefore, Marx's concept of one's relation to the fruits of one's labor continues that response to Hume.  Thus, the Psychological premises of Marxism are sounder than those of Capitalism, though the advantage has rarely been recognized by subsequent advocates of either system, so serious discussion of it has been lacking.

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Property, Abolition, Pluralization

We is a pluralization of I, not an abolition of it, e. g. not a reversion to some pre-Individuation condition.  Likewise, Our is a pluralization of My, not an abolition of it, e. g. not a reversion to some pre-privatization condition.  Now, the Collectivization promoted by Marxism is often represented, by both advocates and opponents, as an abolition of private property, especially of that of the means of production.  But, the pivotal concept of the doctrine, the 'alienation of the fruits of one's labor, presupposes an exclusive, perhaps 'natural', Right to what one produces through one's Labor.  So, Marxism is not internally contradictory only if Collectivization is Pluralization, a thesis which, if better recognized by all concerned parties, would advance the mode of conflict between them.

Monday, October 27, 2014

Justice and History

At its root, the Marxist critique of Capitalism is Moral--that system is inherently unjust.  The injustice, usually glossed as 'exploitation', is, more commonly, 'stealing'.  For, on Marx's analysis, Labor produces Profit, so, the Laborer is the primary owner of any Profit, to which an exchange for Wages with the owners of the Means of Production, whether or not under constrained conditions, is essentially incommensurate, i. e. is stealing.  His solution to the injustice is ownership of the means of production, beginning with land, by laborers, i. e. which would eliminate the exploitation of them.  So, the consequent practical problem is effecting the collectivization of the means of production, his solution to which is Revolution, the inevitability of which is entailed in Dialectical Materialism.  Thus, in Marxism, the end is Moral, to which his theory of History is subordinated as providing a means.

Sunday, October 26, 2014

Capitalism vs. Marxism

In the contemporary popular imagination, Capitalism promotes Individualism, while the priority of Socialism is the Collective.  But, in their inceptions, the orientations are to the contrary.  For, as the phrase 'wealth of nations' connotes, Smith conceives his system as a rival to Feudalism with respect to an entire society, whereas, at the heart of Marxism is an argument against the exploitation of the individual worker.  Thus, the two are also incommensurate, since the former argues on technical grounds, i. e. that Capitalism is a more effective means to general well-being than is Feudalism,  while Marx's charge against Capitalism is normative, i. e. that Socialism is the more just of the two systems.  One reason why these contrasts are not better recognized is that the associated inessential and ungrounded theses, the Invisible Hand and Dialectical Materialism, are commonly mistaken for them.  Also, that Smith's system is directed specifically against the Feudalist status quo explains why no subsequent Capitalism has managed an intellectually responsible rejoinder to Marxism, a doctrine that has little in common with its original target.

Saturday, October 25, 2014

Experimental Reason and Investment

The concept of Labor cannot be derived from that of Dialectical Materialism, since the latter connotes a Necessary process, whereas the outcome of any instance of the former, like that of any human exertion, is never guaranteed in advance.  Likewise, insofar as the concept of an Invisible Hand entails a correlation with a degree of exertion, e. g. with 'hard work', it suppresses the essential uncertainty of the results of an endeavor.  Thus, if any practice exemplifies the Experimental Reason that informs all Economic activity, it is Investment.

Friday, October 24, 2014

Labor and History

According the Marx, Labor is the source of all Economic Value.  Now, Labor, as he conceives it, can be most generally defined as 'the deliberate effort to modify some given material'.  Furthermore, modification spans degrees of differentiation, from mechanical repetition, to radical transformation.  Accordingly, History can be interpreted as the production of Labor, e. g. the bare repetition of stable hereditary rule, the complete destruction and reconstruction effected by an invader, etc.  Thus, what is distinctive about a Socialist revolution is not that it is a product of Labor, but that it is the perhaps unique case of the Working Class being the agent of modification, rather than its sufferer.  So, a Labor Theory of History does not under-appreciate the rise of Socialism, while it escapes some of the problems that beset Dialectical Materialism, e. g., notably, reconciling the concept of an immanent necessary force with that of the self-determination of the insurgent class.  Likewise, a Labor Theory of History has the systematic advantage over Dialectical Materialism of deriving both an Economic Theory and a Theory of History from one principle--Labor.  

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Capitalism, Cycle, Freedom

From its inception, Capitalism has been beset with rarely scrutinized systematic problems.  To begin  with, Smith never explains the relation between the promotion of Self-Interest that he promotes in Wealth of Nations, and the Universal Sympathy that he advocates, without any later retraction, in his earlier work. He also offers no derivation from his Humean premises of his cardinal concepts of 'Self' and 'Invisible Hand'.  Furthermore, the subsequent Capitalist concept of Cycle is problematic in two respects.  First, as is the case with the Invisible Hand, according to those Empiricist premises, it can never be more than an observed past conjunction, and, hence, contrary to common presumption, cannot be an immanent law.  Second, as a purported transcendent pattern, to which all Economic activity is naturally subject, a Cycle is Deterministic, and, hence, is antithetical to the concept of  'free' enterprise.  So, until rigorously addressed, these problems indicate that Capitalism is less a system than an arbitrary, no more than loosely coherent, set of practices, the beneficiality of which is, therefore, no more than contingent.

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Economic Cycle, Invisible Hand, Growth

One objection to any Government intervention, including the regulation of Interest Rates, in Economic activity, is that it tampers with patterns conceived as 'cyclical', and characterized as 'natural'.  Now, two properties of a Cycle are that it returns to its starting point, and that any transition from one of its segments to another is determined by the whole, with, in some cases, a third, that the pattern is self-caused.  Thus, daily and yearly cycles include the first two, but, since those patterns are expressions of celestial rotations, they are not self-caused.  So, implicit in the standard concept of the 'Economic Cycle' is that it is as transcendent to the activity that are its phases as is the 'Invisible Hand', and that Growth is never more than a temporary episode.

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

The Value of Interest Rates

The variability of Interest Rates, and of Usury laws, indicate that there is no Rate that is inherently either beneficial or harmful.  Thus, it is not impossible that the optimal rate is 0%, in which case any charge for a loan should be banned.  But, given how deeply entrenched in and interwoven into Macroeconomics the practice pervasively is, an empirical evaluation of it is nearly impossible.  Still, it cannot be denied that the influence of Interest extends beyond merely Economic activity, which even the staunchest of advocates of laissez-faire policies cannot deny is a species of social activity in general.  Hence, an evaluation of the former can be derived from one of the latter, e. g. if hysterical behavior is deemed to be both personally and collectively unhealthy, than so, too, is it malignant qua Economic activity.  Thus, for example, the Christmas shopping rush can be evaluated as socially 'harmful' even if it is calculated to 'boost the Economy'.  Accordingly, the value of Interest as a social practice is a topic for Political Philosophy, even if some Economists insist that a governing body should not be interfering in such a practice.

Monday, October 20, 2014

The Interests of Money-Lenders

A lowering of the Interest Rate by the U. S. Fed is usually designed to stimulate Economic activity by lowering the price of Money, with the possible beneficial general consequences of an increased investment in productivity, which would involve increased hiring, leading to more employee income, and, hence, to more spending on products, etc.  But, regardless of which set of consequences becomes actualized, one constant is the pivotal role of money-lenders, and of their interests, in the course of events, regardless of whether or not they are in the private sector, and regardless of their involvement in practices that tend to lead to a need for such stimulation.  So, an objection to that Fed action, either on the ground that the Government should not interfere in the 'Free Market', or because it only encourages past malfeasance, tends to accept that the centrality of that role.

Sunday, October 19, 2014

Interest, Rate, Value

Economic Interest per se is of no interest--it is the Rate of Interest that is decisive in motivating the sale and purchase of money.  Now, as the manipulations of the U. S. Fed in the latter regard illustrate, Interest Rate functions as a stimulus to Economic activity.  However, its Value is not intrinsic, because it depends on the values of not only the purposes to which borrowed money is put, e. g. to that of a produced or purchased good, but also on those of the consequences of stimulation itself, e. g. the hectic, if not hysterical behavior during the Christmas season that is enabled by the extending of Credit.  So, to conflate Interest-Value with Labor-, Use-, or Exchange-Value in a Macroeconomic model is as short-sighted as to assume, from the discovery, in a medical examination, of both adrenaline and an amphetamine, that the latter is as organically generated as is the former.

Saturday, October 18, 2014

Interest and Conflation

The labor on, the use of, and the exchange of products is each a human activity.  Thus, the Economic patterns imputed  to the determinations of Labor-Value, Use-Value, and Exchange-Value are derived from Psychological and/or Moral ones.  In contrast, Interest entails a relation between Money and calendar Time, and, hence, is an inherently inhuman determinant of Economic Value.  Thus, the absence of a real, i. e. a not merely nominal distinction between what can be characterized as Value and Meta-Value, can be termed 'Conflation', an analytical failure, even if, like Inflation, the concrete conditions to which it corresponds are not necessarily malign.

Friday, October 17, 2014

Interest and Meta-Economy

If B returns to a satisfied A a dollar bill loaned a month previously, the interaction is equivalent to the earlier one.  However, if A has charged interest, then the value of even the selfsame bill is less than it had been, indicating both a depreciation of it over that period, as well as an inflating of the value of A's satisfaction, even if elsewhere, its purchasing power remains the same.  So, Interest can create an opaque Meta-Economy, that, nevertheless, usually influences the first-order Economy, e. g. determining a graduate to take a career path that can specifically accommodate the repayment of the interest portion of an education loan.  Nor do non-Marxist Economists seem to respect the distinction that the example illustrates, i. e. Marxists isolate what they could call a 'surplus-Economy', of which Interest is one factor.

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Interest and Meta-Language

Money can be conceived as a Language of Economic relations--a commonly accepted symbolic system serving to communicate purchasing power.  Likewise, Money has its meta-Language--Interest, i. e. of which it itself becomes an object of representation, and, just as a meta-Language can, in turn, become the object of a meta-meta-Language, Interest can be recursively compounded.  However, while Logicians endeavor to maintain a distinction between strata, that of Principle and Interest is usually merely nominal, the actual conflation of which is perhaps best exemplified by the 'underwater mortgage'.  Thus, the Macroeconomic collapse set in motion by a proliferation of cases of the latter can be conceived as an expression of Illogic.

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Language and Money

While Communication binds the members of a Society together, in contemporary Economic systems, Money is the medium of common meaning.  Now, in the past decade, the U. S. Supreme Court has decided that spending on a political campaign is a species of 'free speech', thereby complementing a previous establishment of a corporation as a 'person'.  So, America now has a de jure, and not merely a de facto, national Language--not English, as some advocate, but Money.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Vitality and Property

One difficulty in interpreting a collection as an organic unity is that while the latter is typically spatially contiguous, the former might not be.  However, since the territory that a collection inhabits is continuous, in the absence of privacy, it can be the medium of an expression of unity.  Hence, because Vitality is a characteristic of an Organism, Socialism is inherently potentially more vital than is Capitalism, at least when the latter entails private property 'Right' to be 'Natural'.

Monday, October 13, 2014

Vitality and Political Philosophy

Vitality is a characteristic of an organism, which, as a unity of more or less essential parts, is distinguished from a mere contingently co-existing aggregate.  Now, Plato's concept of a Republic is unified by a Soul, and includes parts the "mother" of each of which is "necessity'.  Thus, even though Vitalism is a system usually associated with the 19th Century, notably with Bergson, the first Vitalist Political Philosophy precedes it by more than two millennia.

Sunday, October 12, 2014

The Economy and Growth

An increase in the height of a plant, but not that of a building can be characterized as 'growth'.  Similarly, 'X is growing' is meaningful only if the referent of 'X' is an organism.  However, insofar as it is unclear what the subject in the common phrase 'The Economy is growing' could denote, the proposition could be meaningless.  Thus, for example, if it mediately represents some increase in the Society to which 'The Economy' is implicitly attributed, then it is meaningful, but only if the 'Society' is an organized unity, not some mere aggregate.  But, Capitalism is Atomistic, and, hence, the collective of which it is the system is never more than an aggregate.  Thus, an utterance in contemporary America of "The Economy is growing" is usually either inaptly metaphorical, or unwitting propaganda.

Saturday, October 11, 2014

Vitality, Self-Interest, Capitalism

Vitality entails Growth, which, in turn, entails Increase.  Thus, Profit can be an indication of Vitality.  However, Self-Interest is too vague to be understood as grounding a Profit-motive, and, its most common interpretation, Self-Preservation, connotes maintaining, not increasing.  So, Capitalism, as conceived by Smith and most of his successors, is not inherently vital.  In contrast, a drive to Self-Increase could motivate the seeking of profit, but only as an episode of personal growth, to which an increase in possession of inanimate objects is not in itself equivalent.  So, the theoretical justification for the proposition that Capitalism is more vital than Communism, a staple of American Political rhetoric in recent decades, seems lacking.

Friday, October 10, 2014

Vitality, Self-Interest, Profit

What distinguishes organic Vitality from mere Motion is Growth.  Thus, while, Elan Vital qua principle of flux, Will to Live qua principle of maintaining existence, and Will to Power qua principle of discharging strength are not Vitalistic, qua increased mobility, qua multiplying species members, and qua increase of power, correspondingly, are.  Likewise, Self-Interest qua Self-Preservation does not suffice as a Profit-motive.  Thus, any presumption by Smith that it is interchangeable with the latter is groundless, and, perhaps, constitutes a significant flaw in his concept of Capitalism.

Thursday, October 9, 2014

Freedom and Vitality

Freedom can be taken to immediately indicate Vitality, not as a fundamental principle of Ethics, Political Philosophy, Psychology, or Metaphysics, but simply physiologically, i. e. as unconstrained movement.  However, unconstrained movement can also be a symptom of de-vitalization, i. e. as an expression of dissociation, e. g. the motion of a limb due to a neurological disorder.  Likewise, the rogue behavior of a member of a society can be interpreted in either way, thus demonstrating that the value of Freedom is not absolute, but, rather, is subordinate to that of Vitality.

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Capitalism and Vitality

Probably the most familiar contemporary image of a de-vitalized society is totalitarian Communism, in which individual initiative is suppressed, thus stifling growth.  However, the absence of that suppression does not suffice for vitalization.  For, Vitality is a characteristic of an Organism, whereas, Capitalism is fundamentally an Atomistic system, in which collectivity can never be more than an aggregation, into which the integration of individual initiative is inherently problematic.  Furthermore, it is also susceptible to the same stagnation as any other system--degeneration into symbolic ritual, which is a mode of mechanical repetition.  As a unit, Capitalism is a Frankenstein robot, awaiting animation from elsewhere, to which an aggregate of individual initiatives is inadequate.

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Philosophy of History, Political Philosophy, Vitality

One of Marx' important, albeit subsidiary, innovations is to recast Capitalism, a system, as a moment in History.  The possibility of that dual interpretation reflects that its object is both somewhat stable and somewhat unstable, and, so can be extended to the typically fixed objects of Political Philosophy, in general, thereby suggesting that the latter and Philosophy of History are two perspectives of one and the same phenomenon.  Thus, for example, one characteristic, and, not merely an accidental circumstance, of Hobbes' Leviathan is that it stabilizes the preceding 'war of all against all', the concept of which is inspired by the actual English Civil War.  Accordingly, thereby exposed as just as much a threat to Political organization as is instability, is, as has been previously discussed, stagnation as well, i. e. the possibility of rigidification, e. g. Totalitarianism, to which any system is susceptible.  Thus, insofar as Vitality constitutes a mean between instability and inertia in Historical development, it can also serve as a Political ideal.

Monday, October 6, 2014

Instability, Inertia, Vitality

Implicit in the concept of Socialism as merely the resolution of the internal incoherence of Capitalism is the judgment of it as superior on the grounds of stability, not of Justice.  But, instability is not the only deficient mode of stability--inertia is another.  Thus, as events subsequent to Marx have tended to demonstrate, Socialism is no less susceptible to stagnation, e. g. Totalitarianism, than are other varieties of social organization.  Accordingly, instructive in those apparent limitations is that an optimum condition, as a mean between instability and inertia, is what can be called Vitality. 

Sunday, October 5, 2014

Logic and History

Like Analytical Logic, Dialectical Logic distinguishes between terms and operations, while unlike the former, it does not conceive terms as atomistic, and, hence, it does not conceive that distinction as absolute, i. e. Dialectical operations are immanent in its terms.  However, a Teleological principle undermines that contrast, since it entails a permanent end state, and, hence, the possibility of a term that inherently precludes any further operations.  Thus, the positing of Socialism as the Telos of History undermines the thesis of Dialectical Materialism that e. g. Feudalism and Capitalism are inherently unstable conditions.  Conversely, proposed corrections to that problem, 'permanent revolution' and 'Negative Dialects', cannot account for any fixed conditions.  So, a more flexible concept of History is one consisting in moments that are more or less stable, requiring a Logic in which differentiation and integration are not mutually exclusive, as are Negation and Conjunction in Analytical Logic, and Negation and Synthesis in Dialectical Logic.

Saturday, October 4, 2014

Individual, Dissociation, Hermit

Literally, 'individual' means 'undivided', and in Logic, it functions as a Quantifier of some given type.  In contrast, in common political parlance, it usually connotes 'dissociated'.  Now, dissociation can be absolute only in the case of a unique entity, e. g. a deity.  Furthermore, one, and perhaps, the only, case of dissociation from a species is the process of Mutation, as a phase in the origination of a new species.  Otherwise, within the human species, the closest approximation to absolute dissociation is the hermit, though the sometimes presumed 'self-sufficiency' of the latter tends to abstract from dependency on non-human Nature for survival, e. g. for food, shelter, etc.  Still, as appealing as that image might be under some circumstances, the promotion of it as a Political ideal is often a symptom of social decay, regarding which 'Individualists' tend to be unreflective.

Friday, October 3, 2014

History and Experiment

Suppressed in any expectation is essential uncertainty, e. g. ALS is a reminder of what is taken for granted in even the simplest physiological effort.  Likewise, as unprecedented as is the extent of control that Humankind currently exercises over the rest of Nature, it is hardly infinite, and, so, neither the continuation nor the increase of that control is inevitable, even if likely.  Now, while that suppression may be vital to efficiency of functioning, it is inappropriate in either a Psychological doctrine or a theory of History.  So, instead, given that uncertainty, every new active experiential moment is experimental, i. e. is an attempt at something, with the outcome not guaranteed, regardless of precedence.  In other words, even when all previous efforts have been successful, the fundamental repetition is not of the successful result, but of the underlying experiment.  Likewise, as Washington, Nietzsche, and Dewey appreciate better than does Hegel and Marx, History is essentially a product of such experiments.

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Dialectical Materialism and Omnipotence

A necessary condition of pre-determination of a course of events is the omnipotence of the determining force, i. e. to which all antecedent factors must be subject.  Such omnipotence is a premise of Theological doctrines such as Calvinism, and, arguably, is implicit in Hegel's concept of History insofar as it entails eventuation of the return of Jesus Christ.  Likewise, the transition from Capitalism to Socialism is inevitable only if the scope of Dialectical Materialism is Universal, i. e. applies not only to economic arrangements, but to, for example, microorganisms, as well.  In other words, if microorganisms are not included in the sweep of Dialectical Materialism, a Capitalist society can be destroyed before it arrives at Socialism.  Whether or not Dialectical Materialism is an omnipotent deity in Marxism is not clear.

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Necessity, Universality, Fate

Spinoza and Schopenhauer agree that the common concept of 'individual' is erroneous, but for subtly different reasons.  For the former, the error is intellectual, i. e. a mistaking a part for a whole, while for the latter, it is Ontological, i. e. mistaking an illusion for a reality.  But, regardless of that difference, in each case, the Individual is conceived as subject to a 'necessity', i. e. to the inescapability of the operation of some Universal.  Now, this 'necessity' is distinct from another, often characterized as 'fate', i. e. as inevitable outcome, and, yet, with which it is sometimes entwined, if not conflated, e. g. in Birth of Tragedy.  However, that one might act spontaneously, shows that an outcome can be not predetermined, even if, in the process, one is still functioning as a member of the species.  In other words, independence from given circumstances is distinguishable from independence from some Universal.  Now, while Nietzsche's study is not compromised by inattention to that distinction, Marx' concept of History arguably is--by conflating the 'necessity' of one's membership in a society, i. e. Class and Species, with 'necessity' of outcome, i. e. of Socialism from the weaknesses of Capitalism.