Sebrof

Thanks for the comment! It's very frustrating when people call themselves "Marxist economists" and then throw out the most fundamental concepts. You have the "no bullshit" Marxists who try to erase dialectics. You have Keynesians or MMTers who stumble upon Marx's ideas and try to reinvent the wheel. In the most egregious cases you have people trying to reinvent the logic of Marxism with neoclassical concepts.

David Harvey is an interesting academic in that, from what I can gather, he seems to have imperialism flipped on its head - saying that its Global North workers who are actually exploited by the global South. WTF

And of course all of these so called "Marxists" wouldn't touch revolutionary practice with a ten foot pole.

This is how I see it too. One of the functions of money comes as a store of value, and this is also tied into a Marxist view of value as being a real social relation at play. Beyond money simply having use because its used in taxes, money is an instrument for expressing and mediating value; and value also allows for the reallocation of labor in society - the source of value itself - through the law of value.

People want something that can hold on to its value across both time and space. Sometimes this store of value isn't money (think houses or famous paintings), but a form of money that acts as a reserve of value is always in need. And money which can serve as an expression of value thanks to the strength of the government (or an enforced tax) may not be seen as a safe storage when trust is shaky. Anwar Shaikh (though be mindful that he is rather anti-MMT) describes this as a flight from more virtual forms of money to forms closer to actual value in moments of crisis, where gold tends to be the (extreme) end-point of that flight.

There is historical trust that at least gold will be seen as something valuable in an unknowable future with unknowable governments and monetary systems. Some may go with beans though. But gold, or some other commodity with a level of acceptance, has value as it's a product of human labor. So when looking for a store of value some people go with it due to historical legacy and the real value embodied within it. There's a reason that even national banks are buying gold (amongst other commodities and baskets of currencies) as they dedollarize.

This isnt meant to be a goldbug argument for going back to the gold standard. It is instead a reminder of the existence of value and one of money's function of a store of value. I'm not (completely) against MMT and think there is a lot to it to learn and that is true and descriptive. But it can't mask nor cover up value as a real social relation. And most MMT'ers I've talked to seem to ignore value. I suspect it is a reflection of the academic training of economists, even MMT academics, to do away with value as a useful or necessary concept, but I cant back that up as I didn't go to school for economics lol. But even some academic Marxist economists fall for the bourgeoisie temptation of abandoning value.

Starvernomics

I just completey disagree with your statement that math isn't dealing in abatractions and isnt rooted in the material world. This is what makes dialectical materialism different from jusrltbvulgar materialism. I dont have the skills to elaborate in any manner that will convince you, I imagine, but the items in math that we hold in our head or express on paper and manipulate are abstractions, mental categories and concepts in our consciousness that are derivative from the material world, and have the shape they do from an initial contact of this natural material world.

And the dialectical aspect means that the material world and the abstractions we make have a never ending dialogue with each other. It may start initially from counting stones, arrows, rocks etc which causes the abstractions of natural numbers, but then the abatractions themselves grow and themselves impact the development and manipulation of matter, and more complicated ans indirect abatractions continue to emerge. But they are always derivative of the material world. Even when you think you are dealing with a purely abatract ideal, its still expressed in consciousness (a derivative of matter) and manipulated via symbols (a material bearer of the abstraction).

I'm not surprised.

I get criticism of academics because of its anti-communism. But not criticism of abatractions and research.

But unfortunately most research is wasted because it lacks Marxist insight. And worse, some are attempts at explanations avoiding any insight into dialectical materialism and hence is an attempt at mystification whether the researchers are conscious of that or not. And math is just another tool of these researchers. But I have seen Marxist focus in on criticism of math.

For the situations I am familiar with, such criticisms say that the math both mystifies and gives legitimacy to work to anti-revolutuonary research. Think of political scientists using statistics. The statistics gives the most whack idealist nonsense you find in a political science paper an aura of truth. And I do agree that math serves as a "mask" for bad ideas. But the solution isn't to do away with math because math isn't the cause of this problem. Anti-communism is. Statistics in political science isn't the issue, its the anti-communism of the field itself.

And for an example like voting models, sure studying voting models without an understanding of class power is a huge theoretical mistake. I'd imagine there is a risk of getting people wasting time on finding the perfect bourgeoisie system where we can vote in socialism.

But studying social structures, and how they are or could be organized (including studying voting models) within the context of a class where its material interests ard dentified as well its relations with other classes, groups, etc., is worthwhile I believe. That is using analytics tools to approach a study of the inter-relations (i.e. inner contradictions) of an organization through a Marxist lens.

If such research better informs the Proletariat in our struggle, then it is a proper Marxist science! But it still involves these abatractions

Dirty bombs? ISIS? Theocrats? Chaos? Sounds perfect for the empire!

Blowback is just another opportunity. Safety is not the goal.

Though in more serious talk, if you believe Ben Norton from Geopolitical Economy Report and the sources therein, the ultimate goal isn't Safety from nuclear war or dirty bombs. The goal is China. Fracturing Iran into weak states, where a few may be comprador western allies gets us one step closer to the goal of China. A goal that I dont think is viable, but a goal nonetheless.

And this is just my vibe here, but I dont think the architects of the apocalypse give a shit if some Americans die from a dirty bomb. If need be, a hundred American cities could be nuked to glass. Accumulation of their power and control is all that matters.

I see what you mean about believing that Israel is independent is not idealism in itself, but calling idealist is shorthand for the fact that such a view, at least the extreme version of Israel having some complete sovereignty from the US empire, entity doesn't seem to correspond with a meaningful analysis rooted in imperialism and how the US supports and props up Israel. Israel does have some degree of "independence" in that they are there own actors, but I'd say based off the US propping up Israel for its purposes, that the game theorist YouTube is making a severe error. And he isn't rooting his analysis in historical materialism, i.e. in an analysis of imperialism, capital accumulation, class power, and value flows. For him, Israel is a nation state hence it is on some independent footing as any other nation state. That is some form of idealism to me. Almost like a mystification of Israel as some independent entity because it is a nation state, instead of focusing on the interrelationships between Israel and the US, and how Israel is both a nation state and an extension of US empire. An analysis starting from material facts on the ground will lead to that vs one that treats Isreal as independent from the start.

But, I may be wrong about the details of this hill I'm standing on. So I won't die on it, but I think its a hill that's close to something worthwhile.

Also, an aside on the aside about math. I don't think math can escape materialism. I think most math people disagree with me on this, Platonism appears very common with mathematician. Even if the abstractions are "ideals" and dont exist in a one-to-one way, I dont see this as invalidating dialectical materialism. Ideas in math are abatractions that, like all abstractions, have their roots in the material world and its historical trajectoey. Every abstractions of ours come from this material world, but this isnt some crude materialist view that says that every abstractions has a direct one-to-one material version of it. But I dont believe even math is some pure idealism, even if it is analysis of abstract, ideal, structures.

But some abstractions are definitely harder to pin down to something real. Utility for example. Maybe it could be a proxy, like fitness in evolutionary systems, for something else more material or having a feedback relationship with something in the material world.

Yeah I wasn't put off by the guy doing "game theory", it's another tool or approach. But the problem is his game theory analysis is not based off historical materialism. His idealism shows through and polluted any analysis and made it cheap. Thinking that Israel is independent of the US and that it will be the US's military competitor in the region shows that no amount of game theory will correct for idealistic world views.

Your comment reminds me of my own rant I have had in the past. It's like when Marxists economists disparage math because neoclassicalists use it. Math isn't the problem, its the base assumptions that bourgeoisie economists have. I'm not even saying that a Marxist analysis requires the same math that neoclassical economists use, but there's a tendnecy, hopefully minor, to throw the baby out with the bathwater because bourgeoisie academics use math. I havent seen that here in Hexbear, but I have come across it in person.

Understanding the material world and our social relations in a scientific manner will require some math, and some analytical tools. It wont be reduced to math, but math is an indispensable tool in understanding material reality. There is a group of Marxist economists, or at least followers that I have spoken to, that are almost like the econ version of Ultras in that they think any math is some bourgeois perversion and wish to stay in the realm of purely qualitative descriptions. This has gotten a little off topic as this complaint is focused in the "economy" side of political economy analysis

I got suspicious when he talked about Israel for those same reasons - seems to put too much on Israel being an entity independent of the US and almost in competition in West Asia.