Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Intellect and Homo Faber

In On the Improvement of the Understanding, Spinoza briefly entertains the notion of the Intellect as a manufacturer of tools, i. e. of means by which it methodically operates.  Though he leaves the notion itself undeveloped, it signals an epochal moment in Philosophical, if not Human, history.  For, the attribution of a tool-making capacity to even Mind in its own sphere, constitutes a shift in the concept of Humans from Homo Sapiens to Homo Faber.

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Agency, Passivity, Labor, Profit

The underlying Psychological premise of Smith's system is Profit-Seeking, though the relation of that to the Survival instinct is unclear. Likewise, Spinoza's concept of Conatus does not distinguish increase in strength from mere maintenance of it. However, a decisive contrast in his model is between Agency and Passivity, which, when applied to Increase, is expressed as the sharp distinction of Creativity from mere Acquisition. So, insofar as Labor can be analyzed as a creative process, the cardinality of it in Marxism, in contrast with that of mere profiting in Capitalism, reflects an appreciation of Agency that is lacking in the latter.

Monday, December 29, 2014

Laissez-Faire, Freedom, Labor

The shortcoming in the standard Capitalist concept of 'laissez-faire' is that of the Empiricist concept of 'freedom' in general--it leaves undiscerned apparently internally generated behavior that is actually the product of external conditioning. In contrast, Spinoza's concept of Adequate Causality, i. e. conduct determined by an Adequate Idea, recognizes and excludes such latent heteronomy. Now, probably the best-known instance of Adequate Causality is Kant's concept of conduct determined by a universalizable maxim. Another, implicit in the Ethics, is behavior that adheres to scientific law, e. g. eating on the basis of dietary principles. A third is suggested by Spinoza's example elsewhere of drawing a circle according to a constructive definition--skilled activity. Hence, Labor, as Marx conceives it, i. e. as the deliberate and controlled modification of given material, is an instance of the Rationalist concept of Freedom. Accordingly, the cardinality of the Labor Theory of Value in his system expresses not only a difference between Rationalist and Empiricist Psychology, but, perhaps, the superiority of the former.

Sunday, December 28, 2014

Realism, Nominalism, Economics

One of the oldest Philosophical debates is Realism vs. Nominalism, i. e. the priority of the Universal vs. the priority of the Individual. In extreme versions of each, the conflict is conceived as an antithesis, thereby relegating the inferior term to non-existence, e. g. in Buddhism and Atomism, respectively. Furthermore, in recent centuries, a Political instance of that mutual exclusivity, Collective vs. Individualism, has been the locus of the Marxism vs. Capitalism contrast, even though Marx and Smith each accommodates both Collective and Individual interests. However, even if the underlying logical antithesis is adequately conceived, which is questionable, the reduction of the relation of those systems to it is not. For, the larger context of Economic activity is Biological, i. e. survival, the primary polarity of which is species and member, each of which plainly exists concretely. Hence, while it might be arguable that one or the other pole has priority, the concept of their relation as antithetical, e. g. by Randists, is, at minimum, a simple-minded misapplication of Logic.

Saturday, December 27, 2014

Capitalism, Individuation, Pluralization

If contemporary rhetoric is any indication, the emergence of Capitalism qua promotion of the profits of an individual, from Smith's concept of it as a means to collective wealth, is based on the premise of the irreconcilability of Individual and Collective interests. However, even without reversion to a Dialectical resolution, the inadequacy of such reasoning is easy to diagnose. For, the process of Individuation presupposed in it is typically abstracted from initial conditions, which, when taken into account, transform it into Diversification, Instantiation, Pluralization, etc., any one of which can be attributed to a collective as a positive development. So, anti-Collectivist versions of Smith's original system, e. g. monopolies, sweat shops, Randism, etc., can each be likened to a branch falling from a tree, i. e. as degenerative, if not devitalizing.

Friday, December 26, 2014

Selfishness and Capitalism

At least some apparently private personal experiences are, in fact, expressions of species drives, i. e. those associated with reproductive processes, e. g. sexual excitation. If so, then it is possible that, contrary to the evidence of immediate perception, all such experiences are ultimately governed by species principles. In that case, mere Selfishness, i. e. a drive that would exist in an entity even if no other entity existed, is a semi-adequate idea, as Spinoza proposes, not an illusory one, as Schopenhauer holds. On that basis, for example, Smith's concept of Self-Interest is, thus, not inconsistent with either the promotion of the wealth of a nation, or the Sympathy that he advocates in his earlier work. In sharp contrast, the advocacy of Selfishness for its own sake by contemporary Capitalists, e. g. Rand, is exposed as short-sighted.

Thursday, December 25, 2014

Capitalism, Slavery, Monopoly, Plutocracy

Capitalism has demonstrated a tendency to generate monopolies and slavery, thereby indicating that, at minimum, neither of those formations is precluded in the system. Hence, in other words, Capitalism has evinced a propensity to revert to the Feudalism that it was conceived by Smith to supersede. So, subsequent U. S. government intervention in those developments suggests that the system has more in common with Plutocracy than with Democracy, regardless of the posturing of contemporary advocates of laissez-faire Economics.

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Geocentrism, Capitalism, Free Will

Copernicus' discovery not only refutes Geocentrism, but calls into question Egocentrism, and the reliability of Egocentric perception. For, it challenges the natural assumption that one is a fixed center of the universe, as well as that ordinary perception e. g. that the sun transits across the sky, can be taken at face-value. Now, while perhaps Spinoza best understands the implications of that unreliability for the perception of one's own 'free will', the otherwise usually acute Hume fails to consider that the passions that are the objects of such perception might themselves have unsensed external causes. Accordingly, Capitalist Economists who uncritically inherit, via Smith, Hume's Empiricism, likewise fallaciously attribute 'freedom' to much of the behavior that they study, even as advertisers who profit from the manipulability of consumers have keener insight.

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Atomism, Atoms, Molecules

According to Atomism, relations between Atoms are 'external', i. e. are inessential to what they conjoin, which remain unaltered by such association.  That concept is expressed in Social Atomism by the ideal of the 'self-sufficient individual', and by Thatcher's denial of the existence of 'society'.  However, even Physics and Chemistry no longer accept that concept of the Atom, instead conceiving it as constituted by electromagnetic forces.  Accordingly, depending on the type of charges that are involved, any Atom is inherently disposed to entrance into molecular association, resulting in a loss, a gain, or a sharing of what begins as an internal component.  Now, market relations, e. g. exchanges, co-ownership, etc. can be interpreted according to that model, but the dogmatism that the parties involved remain unchanged by such associations cannot be.

Monday, December 22, 2014

Atomism, Association, Dissociation, Capitalism

According to Atomism, Atoms are immediately given, with respect to which relations between them are products of extrinsic association.  Thus, in Social Atomism, e. g. Smith's model, the members of a society precede, and are independent of, modes of association, such as contracts, and his Invisible Hand.  Now, the primary vulnerability of Atomism is that its presumed immediate givens are, in fact, the products of prior processes of disassociation, e. g. in Atomistic Empiricism, the datum 'red' and the datum 'circle', are abstracted from a red circle encountered in the original experiential flux.  Accordingly, likewise, Smith's Capitalistic social model, including its laws and its psychological presuppositions, is the product of dissociation.  Hence, as descriptive, it falsely represents human relations, and, as prescriptive or normative, its standards are not only groundlessly arbitrary, but are significantly low, e. g. idle shopping qualifies in it as 'rational' behavior.

Sunday, December 21, 2014

Empiricism, Atomism, Capitalism

As Kant reminds, Reason is more than, as Hume conceives it, a source of abstraction--it is a power of Synthesizing.  Thus, Hume's relegation of it to calculation in the service of Passion presupposes not only the Epistemological primacy of the Senses, but the Logical one of Atomism, as well.  Accordingly, insofar as Smith's Capitalist model is derived from Hume's system, it is implicitly Individualistic, with respect to which his Invisible Hand is anomalous.  So, conceived as governed by a Synthesizing principle, i. e. Dialectical Materialism, a fundamental distinction of Marxism from Capitalism is that of Rationalism to Atomism.

Saturday, December 20, 2014

Capitalism, Freedom, Passion

First devised by Smith, Capitalism is a special case of Empiricism, and, in particular, the concept of Freedom that it entails is inherited from Hume's.  Now, according to latter, 'Freedom' is not uncaused, but is internally determined behavior, as opposed to externally conditioned.  However, that concept is open to the Spinozist challenge that because Empiricism accepts sense-data at face-value, it lacks a criterion for distinguishing 'free' from conditioned behavior.  Indeed, Hume's own terminology implicitly acknowledges the soundness of that challenge.  For, on his analysis, Passion, not Reason, as Spinoza asserts, is the ground of self-determination.  But, 'passion' plainly connotes 'passivity', thereby reinforcing the charge that presumed Humean 'freedom' is actually a moment in a conditioned behavioral sequence.  Thus, the concept of 'Freedom' that is assumed in Capitalist theory is similarly nugatory, i. e. no behavior that it denotes can be accepted as 'free' at face-value.

Friday, December 19, 2014

Shopping and Semi-Rationality

Since, on his own analysis, Spinoza's concept of Inadequate Causality combines autonomous and heteronomous factors, it might be more accurately termed 'partially adequate causality'.  Likewise, since Adequate Causality in his system is equivalent to Sufficient Reason, the corresponding deficiency can be characterized as 'Semi-Rationality', rather than as 'Irrationality'.  Thus, on that basis, Hume's concept of Reason as a "slave of the passions", is semi-rational.  Similarly, any purchase of a non-vital good, i. e. of neither Essential nor Surplus Utility, as previously defined here, can be classified as Semi-Rational, insofar as it combines impulse and calculation, e. g. most of what usually constitutes Shopping.  Hence, most contemporary variations of a Capitalist model conflate Rational conduct and Semi-Rational behavior, a shortcoming in either a Descriptive theory or a Normative/Prescriptive doctrine.

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Capitalism and Rationality

Four prominent concepts of Practical Reason are: 1. Aristotelian--a Mean; 2. Spinozist--Adequate Causality; 3. Kantian--Universal Law; and, 4. Humean--calculation at the service of Passion.  Plainly, the weakest of them is #4, even when qualified as the calculation of the most efficient means to passionate ends.  Now, since Smith, Capitalists have rarely seemed to define their concept of 'Rationality', but the predominant use suggests acceptance of either #4 or its qualified version.  So, the behavior represented in their models is less than optimal, no shortcoming if their aim is merely Descriptive, but a profound flaw in an even implicitly Normative or Prescriptive theory.

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Ersatz Utility, Shopping Utility, Novelty Value

Many people, especially present-day Americans, enjoy shopping per se, in which they often engage without any specifically intended item.  Thus, the fundamental value of a purchase during such a trip is determined by a species of Ersatz Utility that can be called Shopping Utility.  Now, a significant, if not exclusive, factor in Shopping Utility is Novelty, i. e. the newness of not necessarily the product itself, but of it for the consumer, even to the skimpiest degree.  So, often escaping the analyses of Economists is Novelty Value of a purchase.

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Pet Rocks, Utility, Shopping

Instead of the continuing attention to accounting for the high market price of a relatively useless item like diamonds, Economists might try to explain why anyone would pay a penny, let alone $3.95, for a 'Pet Rock'.  The example cannot be dismissed as frivolous, since the product netted millions for its originator, a phenomenon that can just as easily be interpreted as manifesting the fundamental utter randomness of Market activity, as instantiating a Labor Theory or a Use Theory of Value.  But, it can also be analyzed as exemplifying what can be called the 'Shopping Theory Value', which recognizes Shopping per se as a pleasurable activity.  Indeed, that one of Bush's first addresses to the U. S. following the 9/11 attacks includes an exhortation to 'Go shopping!' suggests the status of it as a national pastime, if not duty or religion.  Nevertheless, the Utility of Shopping seems rarely to be considered as a fact with either Economic or Moral meaning.

Monday, December 15, 2014

Ersatz Utility, Popular Demand, Herd Instinct

Herd instinct often stimulates someone to assimilate themselves to the crowd, simply for the sake of blending in.  In Economic activity, that instinct is frequently manifest in a consumer's wish to conform in response to a perceived 'popular demand' for an otherwise useless product, thereby generating apparently freely calculated Ersatz Utility.  But consumers are not the only ones susceptible to such deception.  Just as mystified by Ersatz Utility are Economists who conflate it with real usefulness, or who associate what is unarguably a powerful marketing ploy with the Demand side of exchanges.

Sunday, December 14, 2014

Ersatz Utility and Rationality

Ersatz Utility diverges from Marginal Utility by denoting the values of not only useless items, but harmful ones, as well.  For, it cannot be denied that people regularly purchase e. g. cigarettes and junk food, regardless of warnings of their unhealthfulness.  Now, while there are various theories of such behavior, e. g. weakness of the will, inadequate ideas, etc., what they have in common is that such conduct is less than fully rational.  Hence, those examples expose a significant flaw in not only Marginalism, but in many Economic models--the premise of Rational behavior, i. e. that people always act in their best self-interest.  For, the inattention of those  models to self-destructive behavior, betrays not merely an inattention to empirical detail, but a moral indifference to the distinction between Wealth and Well-Being that is only amplified by Mill's feeble attempt to contrast 'high' from 'low' pleasures.  Indeed, the regular incitement to shopping frenzy, e. g. 'Black Friday' in America, illustrates the significant contribution to the wealth of a nation that Ersatz Utility can offer.

Saturday, December 13, 2014

Ersatz Utility, Conspicuous Consumption, Herd Instinct

Veblen's phrase 'conspicuous consumption' instructively characterizes some cases of Ersatz Utility.  For, 'conspicuous' highlights the source of the presumed usefulness of e. g. the purchase of a Rolls-Royce, not for reliability or comfort, but for presumed prestige.  In other words, in such instances, the value of the item is as a status symbol.  But, the flimsiness of that Utility is evident from the absence of any actual consequences beyond the imagined admiration of others.  So, the irony of Conspicuous Consumption is that underlying its aim of achieving distinctiveness is a herd instinct, i. e. it is entirely dependent on the opinion of others.

Friday, December 12, 2014

Economics, Description, Prescription

When Mill attempts to contrast 'higher' from 'lower' pleasures, he betrays one of his most important insights--the distinction between Description and Prescription.  Still, even with that lapse, he is more conscientious in that respect than either Capitalists or Marxists have tended to be.  For, the various representations from the former of Economic behavior do not even address the question of whether such conduct should be amended.  Likewise, while the criticism from the latter of Capitalist exploitation is plainly normative, the complementary assertion that the rectification of it will necessarily transpire according to the laws of History is descriptive.  To avoid such conflations, an Economic Theory that includes both types of proposition must begin with some Normative principle derived from a more general Moral doctrine; then, develop a model of Economic behavior based on that principle; and, finally, apply that model to assess and, if warranted, to suggest corrections for, described extant practices.  In such a project, ideological orientation is transparent from the outset, and debates like that over theory of Market Value are, from, the outset, subordinated to a more general context.

Thursday, December 11, 2014

Surplus Utility and Ersatz Utility

Three types of Utility can be called 'Essential', 'Surplus', and 'Ersatz'.  Examples of the three are, respectively, clothing, tailor-made clothing, and clothing with a celebrity logo.  For, clothing is an organic necessity; well-fitting clothing, while not an organic necessity, still has real value as comfortable; but, a celebrity logo, regardless of a price increment, adds nothing to the purpose served by clothes.  Now, a telling weakness in Marginalism is that it does not distinguish the Surplus and Ersatz varieties, thereby potentially establishing delusional spending as paradigmatic Economic behavior, while, at the same time, marginalizing actual organic need.

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Scarcity, Marginalism, Ersatz Utility

To some proponents of the Use Theory of Value, the high price of useless--relative to inexpensive water--diamonds, is a "paradox" explainable by Marginal Utility.  To others, the example suffices as a refutation of that theory, in favor of what might be called the 'Scarcity Theory of Value'.  Now, since the latter is based on the peculiar desirability of Scarcity per se, the Utility that it breeds can be more accurately characterized as 'Ersatz', rather than 'Marginal', symptomatic, thus, of psychological confusion requiring either education or therapy, rather than of a defective theory to be tweaked by an ad hoc manoeuvre.  Thus, Marginalism reinforces one of the weaknesses of Capitalism--an indifference to the traditional moral distinctions between apparent and real worth, which even the Utilitarian Mill recognizes, i. e. in his 'higher'-'lower' distinction, and, between Wealth and Well-Being.

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Utility and Marginalism

In order to account for the high market price of a relatively useless, i. e. in comparison with water, item, such as diamonds, some advocates of the Use Theory of Value, 'Marginalists', have developed the category of 'Marginal Utility' to accommodate non-vital usefulness, thereby, according to some of them, reinforcing a Capitalist response to Marxism, insofar as the latter relies on the Labor Theory of Value.  However, typically lacking in Marginalism is a justification for the stretching of the concept of Utility to include the objects of mere wishes with those of real need.  That absence is perhaps fatal to the doctrine, since it leaves the term 'Marginal Utility' question-beggingly equivocal, and, hence, a ripe target for the Marxist who interprets the high market price of diamonds as a symptom of Capitalist mystification.

Monday, December 8, 2014

Use-Value, Quantification, User-Value

As has been previously discussed, there are three problems with the quantification of Use-Value or Utility.  First, since Pleasure is a private experience, the common unit required by trans-personal quantification, e. g. the Utilitarian Calculus, is lacking.  Second, even when considered merely peersonally, Pleasure expresses a modification in a user, the quantification of which is, hence, comparative, not positive, from which, e. g. the 'Util' of Neoclassical Economics abstracts.  Therefore, third, the value to a user of a comparative quantity is contingent on specific circumstances, e. g. the +5 of a bowl of chicken soup to a sick person at -3 means a lot more than the +100 of a sumptuous chicken dinner to that person at +200.  Underlying the three problems is that Use-Value is essentially User-Value, relativized to each moment of experience, rather than uniformly possessed by a product.

Sunday, December 7, 2014

Use-Value, Economics, Morality

As decisive in Demand, Use-Value is a significant factor in the determination of Exchange-Value.  But, Use-Evaluation presupposes some End to which its object is a means.  In turn, the value of an End is in the purview, exclusively, perhaps of Morality.  So, even sophisticated quantitative, i. e. monetary, representation of Use-Value cannot completely immunize an Economic system from Moral scrutiny.

Saturday, December 6, 2014

Exchange-Value and Use-Value

The contrast of a $500 meal for a well-fed person and a $3 meal for someone who is chronically starving illustrates the utter incommensurability of Exchange-Value and Use-Value.  It also, by implication, illustrates the profound confusion entailed in the prevalent classification, e. g. in American Economic analysis, of a person in urgent need of medicine as a 'consumer' no different from someone seeking to purchase their third Rolls Royce.  More generally, because the primary function of Money is to facilitate exchange, Economic theory, at any level, a fundamental term of which is money, inherently abstracts from, or, perhaps, suppresses, vital interests.  Hence, any coincidence of the wealth of a nation and the well-being of a nation is accidental.

Friday, December 5, 2014

Use-Value, Quantification, Utilitarianism

That $10 usually means more to a poor person than to a rich one illustrates a significant internal flaw in Utilitarianism.  As mediating exchange, monetary price expresses Exchange-Value, the efficiency of which is derived from the capacity of the quantification of a common unit to both standardize and differentiate the otherwise incommensurate terms of a transaction.  In contrast, the meaning to one person of a quantity of money is its Use-Value, and that the same quantity has a different meaning to another reflects the absence of a common unit between them.  In other words, Use-Value in an interpersonal context cannot be quantified.  But, as the name plainly expresses, the basic unit of Utilitarianism is Use-Value, i. e. Pleasure.  Hence, the interpersonal quantification, i. e. the Utilitarian Calculus, via which the doctrine determines the general 'good', is completely inappropriate to its fundamental terms.

Thursday, December 4, 2014

Demand, Need, Morality

As has been previously discussed, the standard concept of Demand does not distinguish between Wish and Need.  But, that contrast is not only that between frivolity and vital necessity.  It also expresses the depersonalization implicit in the terms of any generalized Economic model, Micro- or Macro-, especially qua quantified.  Thus, the Socialist formulation, 'each according to his need', restores such models to a Moral context.

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Utilitarianism, Capitalism, History

As has been previously discussed, the Empiricist concepts of Pleasure and Pain are a-temporal.  Accordingly, the positive and negative modifications of them in the standard versions of the Utilitarian Calculus express neither increase nor decrease, but, rather, merely differences in degrees of intensity with respect to non-feeling.  In contrast, Spinoza's concepts of the two, represent an increase and a decrease, respectively, in strength, and, hence, are inherently temporal, as are, analogously, Economic Profit and Loss.  So, if the ambition of Bentham and Mill is to model Ethics on Capitalism, Utilitarianism should adopt Spinoza's concepts, on the basis of which the 'greatest happiness of the greatest number' would be the temporally accumulated, optimally coordinated, strengths of the members of a society.  On such a model, History would be revealed as an essential dimension of both Utilitarianism and Capitalism. 

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Invisible Hand and History

As has been previously discussed, Utilitarianism is inadequate to Capitalism insofar as its concepts of Pleasure and Pain abstract from prior conditions, while those of Profit and Loss do not.  Temporality is at least implicit elsewhere, as well, in Smith's system, e. g. in productive processes, in the occasioning of demand, etc.  So, if, as he proposes, Market Price is the resultant of an adjustment effected by a tendency inherent in the system, i. e. the Law of Supply and Demand, aka the Invisible Hand, implicit in it is an entire past, e. g. if climate events prompt a 10 cent increase in the price of a loaf of bread, it is with respect to a previous price, which itself reflects a change in conditions, etc.  So, another way that the Invisible Hand can be recognized as an expression of Dialectical Logic is as a motor of History.

Monday, December 1, 2014

Invisible Hand and Revolution

As has been previously discussed, if, as Smith proposes, there is inherent in Economic activity a tendency towards equilibrium, the scope of its influence can be generalized from specific negotiations, to a society as a whole.  Now, as representing a resolution of antagonistic interests, the representation of that tendency, his Law of Supply and Demand, aka the Invisible Hand, can be recognized as governed by Dialectical Logic.  But, the latter, according to Marxism, resolves social contradictions by revolution.  Thus, the Invisible Hand can be recognized as the motor of the transformation from Capitalism into Socialism, as conceived in Marxism.