If you watch the video, you'll see that it consists of a (mock) portrait of a terribly earnest and engaged discussion among high school students about the definition of "capitalism." They use, as an example, a visit to Mr. Brown's grocery store to buy "weenies" for the class weenie roast. After arguing vigorously (and letting us see their visit to his store) they come up with the following list of defining features of "capitalism":
(1) Private Property
(2) Profit motive
(3) Competition
(4) Freedom of contract
(5) Government-enacted laws granting rights (including certain Constitutional rights) to items #1 and #4
And, they conclude, that (1)-(5) adds up to (6) "Free Enterprise" (which, of course, is a much more attractive sounding term than "capitalism.") (Incidentally, #5 is a rather sophisticated observation-- at least relative to what most economists generally discuss. Certainly they failed to recall it when administering so-called "shock therapy" to the former Soviet Union.)
After playing this video in my class, I listed these features on the blackboard. I asked my students: Is there anything else you'd add? Or does this seem like an extensive, and exhaustive, list?
I confine my comments to Mark's use of this video in teaching his history of thought class.
I have purposely never addressed the issue of defining capitalism in my teaching. You may think that's odd given that I've taught a course in American economic history, but in that course I found it much more helpful to instead pose different accounts of the rise or success of capitalism and then debate the rigor of the various arguments. In this way, for example, we were able to poke holes in both leftist accounts of proletarianization, as well as rightist accounts of the rise of a liberal democratic society in the U.S. by the early 1800s.
Basically, in the quote above I think Mark goes too far in assuming some of the traits presented in the video as given. Competition, for example, is not a cornerstone of all "free enterprise systems," as Schumpeter pointed out and of course many before him (Schumpeter's is the account I am most familiar with in detail). But, whatever -- debating whether capitalist institutions really are efficient is not the point of my argument. I assert that there is a much larger point to be made about assumptions, other than the apparent inconsistency between what ideology says is capitalism, and what it really is. The larger point to be made is in how Mark relates propaganda's discussion of capitalism to how capitalism is defined by others.
We need to consider two related points. First, bourgeois ideology has its own definition of capitalism. Second, many academics (left and right) also have their own definition of capitalism. What does it all mean for teaching what capitalism is? By playing in bourgeois ideology's sandbox, Mark's "lesson on capitalism" implicitly accepts the first point and disregards the second, which compromises the strength of the lesson learned. Surely the students still get the main point that the propaganda is "biased" by not discussing wage labor as a central institution of capitalism -- but biased against what? The simple inclusion of wage labor, alongside the other 5 properties of capitalism or a free enterprise system? Is that the model Mark adopts? Mark does not tell us, but it seems implied that this reference point is precisely the one chosen by him.
I argue that the failure to coherently present an alternative model when attacking the mainstream one is one of the biggest weaknesses of heterodox teaching. I might be going too far in grilling Mark here -- and I hope he calls me out for doing so -- but as teachers, it seems like the best we can do is get out of bourgeois ideology's sandbox and start levelling critiques from the standpoint of the rigor of all definitions and arguments concerning capitalism. Doing so will poke holes in all the arguments, but it will also allow the students to gain familiarity with various perspectives, allowing students to judge for themselves.
This is not a "bias-free" method -- each instructor will nevertheless be more difficult on certain positions that are against his or her political leanings. But I think that recognizing that there are many different definitions of capitalism is an important first step at deconstructing "dominant" paradigms.
One final point. It appears that toward the end of his post, Mark does begin to discuss some of the historical origins of wage labor, and how unnatural it is. He remarks that Polanyi discusses wage labor as an absurd condition of modern society. Is this the alternative model of capitalism Mark has in mind?
"I argue that the failure to coherently present an alternative model when attacking the mainstream one is one of the biggest weaknesses of heterodox teaching. I might be going too far in grilling Mark here -- and I hope he calls me out for doing so -- but as teachers, it seems like the best we can do is get out of bourgeois ideology's sandbox and start levelling critiques from the standpoint of the rigor of all definitions and arguments concerning capitalism."
ReplyDeleteWould "de-naturalizing capitalism" be along the lines of what you are saying?
Still, as I've mentioned to you many times, even when things are refuted in terms of internal consistency, they might persist.
"De-naturalizing capitalism" is definitely one solid approach in my opinion -- this is how I go about it in my economic history courses. Of course, getting the denaturalization process correct is very difficult indeed.
ReplyDeleteWhen things are refuted in terms of internal consistency, one accepts the essential language of that internal system. Godel's incompleteness theorem poked a big hole in the system of axiomatic mathematical logic. But what did we gain from it? Mathematicians turned and said, "so what?"
Dan, thanks for grilling me. Let me see if I understand:
ReplyDelete"I think Mark goes too far in assuming some of the traits presented in the video as given. Competition, for example, is not a cornerstone of all "free enterprise systems," as Schumpeter pointed out and of course many before him"
I did not mean to imply that I think competition is a cornerstone of capitalism. I think Schumpeter's basic argument (that perfect competition or marginal cost pricing would be an impossibility) is an entirely persuasive one. My main point lied elsewhere -- which simply was that neoclassical economics tends to obfuscate that wage labor is an essential feature of capitalism. Typically this is done by assuming (as I mentioned in one of my previous posts, "The Orwellian Language of Job Creation) by making the assumption that the existence of a market in any commodity necessarily entails the existence of a market in labor (or labor-power.) Otherwise put, there is a failure to distinguish between simple commodity production and capitalism.
Now, when you say that I haven't presented a definition or model of capitalism of my own ("biased against what?" you ask) -- you're right, I haven't. I do think that wage-labor is an essential part of the model. But I don't have a full definition. (I'm actually a little thrown off by the use of term "model" here, and it makes me wonder if I'm understanding you correctly. By "model" you mean a "definition" of capitalism, right?)
I did want to "de-naturalize" (as Ian says) wage-labor in particular. It was a huge part of my point (maybe it was my whole point) in an earlier post (which I called "The Orwellian Language of Job Creation") I wanted to dispel the never-questioned assumption that the existence of a marketplace necessarily entails the existence of a labor market. As a historian, you know much better than I that such an assumption does not hold up. But that (unstated) assumption plays, I believe, an essential ideological function in sustaining the system.
Back to definitional issues: wage labor is, I might say, necessary, but not sufficient, for a working definition (model) of capitalism. (James and Ian and I had a discussion on this subject in comments under that other post that I mentioned earlier). You'd have to also (I think) include circulation of commodities generally. So, something like M-C-C prime-M prime. And, if pressed further, yes, I would say that at least two of those items on that list would have to be part of the model, namely, the profit motive and private property. I'd also include
"freedom of contract" -- although the "freedom" in that term only refers to freedom from state interference. It's hardly, in my opinion, an adequate conception of freedom. (And further, we'd obviously have to add the qualification that we live in a regulated capitalist society, where there are all sorts of state regulations on economic transactions -- none of which could exist had not the Lochner line of court cases been overturned; that's something you in particular are probably interested in.) I even think it might be fair to put competition back on the list, so long as we remember that it's hardly perfect competition; it might be "co-respective" competition or something similar.
I just wrote a huge comment that got eaten away by the gnomes of technology when they told me it was too large, and I tried to trim it down. And it was lost to the virtual netherworld. Alas.
ReplyDeleteBut maybe that's better for everyone. A lot of that was thinking out loud. OK, first, I did not mean to imply that I think competition -- at least in the sense of marginal cost pricing -- is an essential part of capitalism. I agree that Schumpeter's argument is a persuasive one. But that's not your main point, right? Your main point was that I don't have a working definition, or model (you're using the terms interchangeably, right?) of capitalism. Is that what I'm hearing? To that I plead guilty. I don't think that was my intention, though. My intention was to "de-naturalize" the institution of wage-labor in particular. Why that specifically as opposed to the other features of capitalism? I suppose for two reasons (1) it's the feature that, as I see it, standard economic presentations tends to obscure the most, or, rather, assumes to be so "natural" as to not require discussing as an institution (2) it's the nature of that institution that I think I find most objectionable about the system as a whole, for reasons I alluded to in that post (and in a few others) -- namely that one just cannot equate trading a hot dog with the process of renting out one's very own life-process to someone else's authority. And bourgeois economics performs this fantastic trick of equating the two by saying that capitalism is no more or no less than a marketplace. (Or, otherwise put, by conflating capitalism with simple commodity production)
On the question of a definition of capitalism: James and Ian and I had a bit of a discussion on that under the comments on my post "The Orwellian Language of Job Creation." I don't know if anyone came to definitive conclusions, although I would tend to go with a the idea that it is a unity of production and circulation M-C-Cprime-Mprime. That's of course Marx's notation, but you could say something very similar using a less "heterodox" theory, discussing "inputs" and output in the production process.
ReplyDelete