"In The Long Run We Are All Dead" - Geoff Mann

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Maddeningly abstract and allusive, Geoff Mann's book situates Keynes within an intellectual arc stretching back to the French Revolution (1789-99) and Hegel's subsequent theorisation of its lessons for modern civilisation. A reminder of the shallowness of contemporary thinking about values, governance and the collapse of the neoliberal project.

Keynes is depicted as taking a stand against delusional neoclassical (and highly mathematicised) theories in which capitalism is assumed to be always at, or returning to equilibrium. Keynes sees the structural instabilities driving boom-bust cycles, highlighting the essential fragility of the 'civilised order'. His vision calls for conscious state action to underpin the conditions of existence of the masses, heading off a revolution of despair after which 'the deluge'.

The author shares many insights into the form elite ideology takes today, as expressed in newspapers, TV, radio and online. For example, the great issue of 'inequality' (a strangely recent concern) is actually a debate within the (bourgeois) middle-class reflecting the relative deprivation of the top 10% as compared to the super-rich 1% or 0.1% due to the neoliberal revolution and specifically the aftermath of 2008/9. The life-history of the broader working class, where unemployment, precarious employment and stagnant, low incomes remain endemic, rarely features in this debate.

Given that the entire history of anti-capitalist revolutions (over, say the last 200+ years) has been one of defeat and/or deeply unpleasant outcomes, the narrative of socialist revolution, the hopeful leap into the unknown, is completely uncompelling. An enlightened Keynesianism, seeking to save (liberal-democratic-capitalist) civilisation - by illiberal political means where necessary - may, in its final inadequacy, open the way to a more profound transformation of social relations. But we cannot assume a blueprint anywhere, and certainly not in the actually-existing Marxist canon.

Mann is too enamoured of fashionable moralistic crusading on climate change for my tastes and fails (as is usual with Marxist analysts) to factor in what we increasingly know about human nature through genomics, psychometrics and sociobiology. These omissions subtract from the force of his final conclusions, which are unnecessarily tentative. But taken as a whole the book is a tour de force of open-mindedness, synthesis and creativity.

See also: "When Keynes comes to town".

"In the Long Run ..." - Geoff Mann

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I'm still working my way through this excellent book. Let me quote Michael's Roberts's thoughts from his blog entry, "Best books of 2017".

"Despite the power of Marx’s analysis, it is still the ideas of Keynes that dominate the thinking of heterodox economists in opposing the mainstream. And this is no accident.  In an excellent book, Geoff Mann from Simon Fraser University presents a sophisticated explanation of Keynes’ dominance in the labour and leftist movements.

In his, In the Long Run We Are All Dead, Geoff argues that Keynes rules because he offers a third way between socialist revolution and barbarism, i.e. the end of civilisation as ‘we (actually the bourgeois like Keynes) know it’. This appealed (and still appeals) to the leaders of the labour movement and ‘liberals’ wanting change.  Revolution is risky and we could all go down with it. Mann: “the Left wants democracy without populism, it wants transformational politics without the risks of transformation; it wants revolution without revolutionaries.” (p. 21).

What Mann argues is that Keynesian economics dominates the left despite its fallacies and failures because it expresses the fear that many of the leaders of the labour movement have about the masses and revolution.  As an example, read leading Keynesian, James Kwak’s latest book, Economism. Kwak quotes Keynes: “For the most part, I think that Capitalism, wisely managed, can probably be made more efficient for attaining economic ends than any alternative system yet in sight, but that in itself it is in many ways extremely objectionable. Our problem is to work out a social organisation which shall be as efficient as possible without offending our notions of a satisfactory way of life.” And Kwak comments: “That remains our challenge today.”

To be fair, it ain’t easy opting for an economic policy that threatens the established order. An inferno will follow from the bourgeois media and institutions. In the autobiographical book of the year, economist Yanis Varoufakis, Greek finance minister during the euro crisis of 2015, outlined the tortuous and labyrinthine encounters that he had with the Euro group in trying to combat the hell that the Troika of the IMF, ECB and EU aimed to impose on Greece.

Adults in the room, my battle with Europe’s deep establishment, is a personalised account, to say the least. Varoufakis’ analysis of the crisis and his justification for what happened (the capitulation of the Syriza government and his resignation from the government) bear all the hallmarks of his ‘erratic Marxism’ (as he calls himself). His battle was lost, but the war continues."

Here's my full review: "In The Long Run We Are All Dead" - Geoff Mann.

When Keynes comes to town

Amazon link

Maddeningly abstract and allusive, Geoff Mann's book situates Keynes within an intellectual arc stretching back to the French Revolution (1789-99) and Hegel's subsequent theorisation of its lessons for modern civilisation. A reminder of the shallowness of contemporary thinking about values, governance and the collapse of the neoliberal project.

Keynes is depicted as taking a stand against delusional neoclassical (and highly mathematicised) theories in which capitalism is assumed to be always at, or returning to equilibrium. Keynes sees the structural instabilities driving boom-bust cycles, highlighting the essential fragility of the 'civilised order'. His vision calls for conscious state action to underpin the conditions of existence of the masses, heading off a revolution of despair after which the deluge.

I have reviewed the book here: "In The Long Run We Are All Dead" - Geoff Mann.

It prompts this analysis of our contemporary predicament in the spirit of Mann's thinking.

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Social Justice Warriors vs the Populists

There was a time when I did not regularly throw my shoes at the television set, when the TV and print media had not yet morphed into latter-day Pravdas.

It was the time before neoliberalism’s decline, before the great crash of 2008.

First had come the sixties transition from post-war factory-capitalism, familiar from a thousand Stalinist agitprop posters. No more conveyor-belt mass-production 'on the track'. The new middle-class economy was fragmented, individualistic and complicated. It wanted mass university education and greedily consumed its output. Not that those jobs were particularly well paid.

And so were sown the seeds of elite overproduction.

Neoliberalism took recognisable shape in the 1980s, a pivot away from national industrial capitalisms towards a frictionless world with international just-in-time supply chains and global capital flows. The opportunities to seek profitable investment opportunities and attain economies of scale rewarded some industries more than others: high tech and finance to name two.

Naturally there was an inspiring vision to accompany globalisation. It postulated a world without borders, where all impediments to the free availability of factors of production should be removed: no tariffs and no irritating state/legal restrictions.

The vision ordained that outdated prejudices limiting international access to labour should be abolished. Free migration! No cultural barriers! No acknowledgement could be made that any performance differences due to race, gender, sexuality, age etc might have any biological/genetic causation. Differences in outcome were always and everywhere to be understood as socially-constructed pernicious hangovers - to be abolished in the name of an enlightened neoliberalism!

Thus was born the phenomenon of the social justice warrior (SJW), prepped to fight those dinosaurs who hadn't yet got the memo.

Since 2008/9 global economic growth in the advanced capitalist countries has been anaemic. Profitability has been poor and the neoliberalism project has been fraying. Those never signed up in the first place, most specifically the non-graduate industrial working class were getting restive as their communities, workplaces and personal prospects got trashed. And so arose their inchoate political voice: Populism.

Those who were meant to be the foot-soldiers of globalisation (all those idealistic young social science graduates) were increasingly abandoned by a failing project on the defensive. They formed that new class fraction, the precariat. Of course they doubled-down on the SJW vision, feeling betrayed. They are the scarily militant snowflakes of the Labour Party's Momentum organisation .. and similar movements in other countries.

The SJW programme, increasingly absurd, continues to infiltrate the mainstream media and leftist politics. It has nothing whatsoever to do with anti-capitalism, despite its seemingly leftist credentials. It is the anguished shriek of a decaying neoliberalism.*

The Populist-SJW conflicts are global, though taking different forms and tempos in North America, Latin America and the different countries in Europe. In some cases (France) the neoliberal cause is still somewhat in the ascendant (Macron). In most countries though, the neoliberal elites are on the defensive.

Neither side has a programme which can work. Classical neoliberalism is discredited: its globalist-individualism falters while continuing to cause too much collateral damage. The elites fear disruption; they sense the masses stirring. Yet there can be no return to fifties-style nation-state economies.

There will be no proletarian revolution. Capitalism will find a new modus operandi. It will not be the re-establishment of a resurgent neoliberalism. This is a struggle of years as there is no simple solution, no way forward which does not succeed in defeating powerful vested interests.

Most likely is the theme Mann develops in his book, a Keynesian, somewhat covert counter-revolution. The result: a more hands on, activist state creating institutional forms fostering inclusivity for restive groups currently felt irrelevant and disposable by internationalist capital. Theresa May understood this in her much ignored remark that making Brexit work was the only way of saving the neoliberal project.

In the UK, both Corbynism and May-style conservatism are groping towards this solution. It will place constraints on the free disposition of capital and it will be expensive. You can see why powerful (but short-sighted) forces resist this new direction.

But the re-integration of the 60% plus of the population who are not graduates and that larger part of the more educated 40% who have been abandoned by the real elites requires it. The challenge is to develop a programme which addresses both constituencies: in the UK Labour and Conservatives engage from different directions.

But painfully, in fits and starts, with much conflict and perhaps violence, this is where we will end up, maybe a decade out.

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* Ideologies take on a life of their own. Ideological 'praxis' exhibits a relative autonomy from the material conditions which elicit it.

Put more plainly, even though the SJW agenda derives from and serves the purposes of the neoliberal project, it occasionally bites the hand that nurtures it. Sometimes its logic undermines that project.

Notice the liberal media indulgently rowing back from episodes of overreach. It's usually a humourous demurral and no general conclusions will be drawn.

Michael Roberts on Keynesianism & the modern left

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I'm finding Michael Roberts's latest book a lot punchier than "The Long Depression". After a strong and penetratingly-clear review of Marx's 'three laws' (of value, of accumulation and of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall) he moves on to Marx's critics and has this interesting analysis of the continuing popularity of Keynesianism in the ranks of the modern socialist left.

"Marx, Keynes and the labour movement

Keynesian economics dominates on the left in the labour movement. Keynes is the economic hero of those wanting to change the world; to end poverty, inequality and continual losses of incomes and jobs in recurrent crises. In the US, the great gurus of opposition to the neoliberal theories of Chicago school of economics and the policies of Republican politicians are Keynesians.

In the UK, the leftish leaders of the Labour party around Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, self-proclaimed socialists, look to Keynesian economists for their policy ideas and analysis. They bring them onto their advisory councils and seminars.

Those graduate students and lecturers involved in Rethinking Economics, an international attempt to change the teaching and ideas away from neoclassical theory, are led by Keynesian authors like James Kwak or post-Keynesians like Steve Keen, or Victoria Chick or Frances Coppola. Here the idea that inequality is the enemy, not capitalism as such, dominates the media and the labour movement. This is not to deny the ugly importance of rising inequality, but to show that a Marxist view on this does not circulate.

So why do Keynesian ideas continue to dominate? Geoff Mann provides us with an insightful explanation. In a new book, entitled In the Long Run We are all Dead, Mann reckons it is not that Keynesian economics is seen as correct. There have been "powerful Left critiques of Keynesian economics from which to draw; examples include the work of Paul Mattick, Geoff Pilling and Michael Roberts", but Keynesian ideas dominate the labour movement and among those opposed to what Mann calls 'liberal capitalism' for political reasons.

Keynes rules because he offers a third way between socialist revolution, and barbarism, i.e. the end of civilisation as we (actually the bourgeois like Keynes) know it. In the 1920s and 1930s, Keynes feared that the `civilised world' faced Marxist revolution or fascist dictatorship. But socialism as an alternative to the capitalism of the Great Depression could well bring down 'civilisation', delivering instead 'barbarism' - the end of a better world, the collapse of technology and the rule of law, more wars etc. So he aimed to offer the hope that, through some modest fixing of 'liberal capitalism', it would be possible to make capitalism work without the need for socialist revolution. There would be no need to go where the angels of 'civilisation' fear to tread. That was Keynes' narrative.

This appealed (and still appeals) to the leaders of the labour movement and 'liberals' wanting change. Revolution was too risky and we could all go down with it. Mann: "the Left wants democracy without populism, it wants transformational politics without the risks of transformation; wants revolution without revolutionaries". This fear of revolution, Mann reckons, was first exhibited after the French revolution. That great experiment in bourgeois democracy turned into Robespierre and the terror; democracy turned into dictatorship and barbarism — or so the bourgeois myth goes.

Keynesian economics offers a way out of the 1930s depression or the Long Depression now without socialism. It is the third way between the status quo of rapacious markets, austerity, inequality, poverty and crises and the alternative of social revolution that may lead to Stalin, Mao, Castro, Pol Pot and Kim Jong-Un.

It is such an attractive 'third way' that Mann professes that it even appeals to him as an alternative to the risk that revolution will go wrong (see his last chapter, where Marx is portrayed as the Dr Jekyll of Hope and Keynes as the Mr Hyde of Fear).

As Mann puts it, Keynes reckoned that, if civilised experts (like himself) dealt with the short-run problems of economic crisis and slump, then the long-run disaster of the loss of civilisation could be avoided. The famous quote that makes the title of Mann's book, that 'in the long run we are all dead, was about the need to act on the Great Depression with government intervention and not wait for the market to right itself over time, as the neoclassical (`classical' Keynes called it) economists and politicians thought.

For "this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long past, the ocean is flat again" (Keynes). You need to act on the short term problem or it will become a long-term disaster. This is the extra meaning of the long run quote: deal with depression and economic crises now or civilisation itself will come under threat from revolution in the long run.

[...]

Like all bourgeois intellectuals, Keynes was an idealist. He knew that ideas only took hold if they conformed to the wishes of the ruling elite. As he put it, "Individualism and laissez-faire could not, in spite of their deep roots in the political and moral philosophies of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, have secured their lasting hold over the conduct of public affairs, if it had not been for their conformity with the needs and wishes of the business world of the day...These many elements have contributed to the current intellectual bias, the mental make-up, the orthodoxy of the day.". Yet he still really believed that a clever man like him with forceful ideas could change society even it was against the interests of those who controlled it.

The wrongness of that idea was brought home to him in his attempts to get the Roosevelt administration to adopt his ideas on ending the Great Depression and for the political elite to implement his ideas for a new world order after the world war.

He wanted to set up 'civilised' institutions to ensure peace and prosperity globally through international management of economies, currencies and money. But these ideas of a world order to control the excesses of unbridled laissez-faire capitalism were turned into institutions like the IMF, World Bank and the UN Council, used to promote the policies of imperialism, led by America.

Instead of a world of 'civilised' leaders sorting out the problems of the world we got a terrible eagle astride the globe, imposing its will. Material interests decide policies, not clever economists. "

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Michael Roberts has the strengths and weaknesses of an orthodox Marxist. I lay stress on the word orthodox here. He dismisses Keynes, along with the other critics he considers, because in no case do they propose socialist revolution to deal with the ills of capitalism (as he portrays them).

Roberts's critiques seem wholly compelling: the crises in capitalist reproduction are indeed crises of profitability (and not lack of effective demand, as Keynes claims), yet the brutal methods (devaluation of capital, lowering of wages) required to restore profitability within the framework of capitalism are not at all congenial to well-meaning economists or politicians seeking votes. Yet when executed by the impersonal forces of the crisis itself, they do work.

Roberts would prefer less callous, less cyclical pathways to growth. That's why he's a socialist. Yet he has no model for socialism, no hint as to how the overwhelming motivational and coordination issues of a global economy can be addressed in a manner superior to capitalism. There's just the blind faith that somehow the organised proletariat can do the job.

No political proposition with such a 'manifesto' has a prayer of being taken seriously and in his heart of hearts, Roberts knows it. Hence the ritualistic quality of his denunciations. Yet this selective myopia does neither him nor his book any favours.

And before uncritically lauding the (capitalist-driven) post-1980 successes of China and denouncing the (capitalism-blamed) stagnation of the third world he might try to emulate the bravery of bourgeois economist Garett Jones and absorb this.

But of course I have no serious expectations.

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I recently wrote about Steve Keen and Corbyn. I plan to work my two posts so far about Marx 200 into an Amazon review over the next few days.