Hudson and Keen: The New Economics

The works of Michael Hudson and Steve Keen are demonstrating the limitations of only looking backwards to Marx's Das Kapital as the sole means of understanding contemporary Capitalist Economics. For, though Marx's contributions were both brilliant and revealing, they did reflect not only Capitalism as it was then, but also Marx's understanding of it at that time, as well as his approach!

For, though, due to his revolutionary Dialectical Materialist philosophical stance, he was able to see things more clearly than all other economists of his time, Capitalism was not, and is not, a fixed and unchanging system: it certainly developed due to its own internal contradictions and its own significant transforming effects it had upon the World. Indeed, already by later in the 19th century, it had so expanded across the World that Lenin had finally to explain its effects in his book Imperialism, and, of course, further, often devastating changes have been frequently unavoidable since then. Clearly, as with all such systems, the nature of Capitalist Economics isn't fixed, but changes due to its own internal developments, and the responses of active participants to maintain, amplify or even safeguard what they are able to extract from it!

So, after the major slump in the 1930's, by the 1970's the crises within Capitalism were changing, which necessitated a remarkable increase in Debt at all levels to delay an ultimate terminal decline. It was, in one sense a return to the old pre-Capitalist rentier methods of accumulation, and rapidly began to replicate the vast Inequalities of wealth of that prior era, and it is this that Hudson and Keen have increasingly addressed over recent years.

Now, Democracy at Work in their Left Out series of YouTube videos have made available revealing interviews with both of these "new economists", while both Hudson and Keen have also written extensively, and also published via YouTube. Clearly, though this marxist philosopher (Jim Schofield) is making original contributions in Marxist Philosophy, especially with regard to Modern Sub Atomic Physics, he must recommend the current contributions of these economists as absolutely vital in the fight to overthrow Capitalism.

Michael Hudson on Junk Economics

Michael Hudson 

Interview with author and economist Michael Hudson, one of the world’s six economists who accurately predicted the 2007-2008 financial crisis. His new book, J is for Junk Economics, reveals how the mainstream economic vocabulary has been turned around in an Orwellian way to mean just the opposite of what words used to mean. Michael explains how the media and academia use well-crafted euphemisms to conceal how the economy really works, the economy under Obama vs. Trump, and what might be coming next.

Dialectics in 21st Century Marxist Economics

Michael Hudson predicted the 2008 financial crisis

The latest Democracy At Work YouTube video (see below), by Michael Hudson on Junk Economics, takes things further in Marxist understanding of the Crisis of Capitalism, by its revelation of the idealist formal mathematical framework imposed by the current Capitalist apologists upon the trajectory of Economics, compared with the Dialectical explanation of the very same thing.

Just as in Science the analyses of phenomena limit studies and descriptive formulae to only stable situations, and never address transitions to new qualitatively different situations, Hudson's brilliant trajectory always addresses these crises and collapses as the most profound revealers of what is actually going on.

In one debate, elsewhere, with the opposition, the gaggle of pro-capitalists were first very quiet, then angry and tried to brow-beat him, until they finally slipped away one-by-one! He was crucifying them solely by knowing what he was talking about. They tried the old trick of "Yes-but" type disagreements, but even using such bully-boy-gang tactics, they still lost every round! In the end most had just slipped away.

Hudson's strength was his dynamic account of the inevitable crises to each-and-every temporary stable interlude, which he explained as the necessary consequence of each sticking-plaster, apparent "solution", so that the committed listener saw the causal trajectory overall, and could at the conclusion, also see how his method could predict what would happen next.

After all Michael Hudson was one of the few Economists who accurately predicted the 2008 Recession, having previously accounted for every twist-and-turn in Capitalism since the 1930s Slump!

Inequality

Is taxing wealth the answer?

or 

Nationalisation without compensation?

or 

perhaps it requires a Revolution?

Listening to Michael Hudson's on-going analyses of the current Capitalist Crisis, it becomes crystal clear that a rejuvenation of Trades Unions to fight on behalf of Workers' wages would never be enough to dismantle the towering wealth and power of the Capitalist Class.

For, the absolutely crucial task is to take back their wealth completely to use solely for the benefit of the people.

Now, the historical means of achieving this is absolutely clear: and it wasn't and never could be the task of Trades Unions. And yet, the only applicable power of the Working Class has always been the withdrawal of their Labour in strike action. And, strikes are organised by Trades Unions! Thus purely-Trades-Union type activity can never produce that essential transformation of the system, which is, and always has been, through Revolution.

And, even when that happens, and it is carried through to a successful conclusion, as it was in Russia and China, the transfer of that wealth to a State Bureaucracy was not sufficient to secure those gains permanently.

Could you ever achieve such a Revolution by strikes alone, no matter how big? Even General Strikes usually fail to achieve any fundamental change.

To separate the Ruling Class from their wealth involves Force, but, primarily, it also requires the winning of the leadership of the masses by a political party with the Theory and Organisation to achieve it. The Question is, "Are there such parties currently in existence anywhere?"

The answer is, clearly, "NO!"

I watched the "Not One Day More" demonstration though London on the eve of the British General Election. It was truly magnificent, and those loudly voiced demands, by working people, for a Labour government, would indeed be a necessary first step.

But, who was there, among the masses, spelling out what had to happen next? Nobody - we only got slogans! There were different tendencies in evidence. And, they were co-operating in a United Front, but the participating parties seemed to believe that softening their policies was necessary. Anything more radical than shouting for a Labour Victory was clearly seen as "rocking the boat"... NO, they were wrong!

Indeed revolutionary demands within such a magnificent show of Solidarity, would not only be possible, it would demonstrate to those involved alternative ways of going forward TOGETHER, ways that might actually address the root causes of inequality.

Orwellian Junk Economics

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