Goldman's IPOs - Screw Everybody in Sight?

[don]

Re: Goldman's IPOs - Screw Everybody in Sight?

Don, I think the West Germans were prepared to support their eastern brethern. I am not so sure that they bought into vendor financing Greeks, Italians, and the .....................FRENCH!!!

That's a big Oui, bro.

[c1ue]

Re: Goldman's IPOs - Screw Everybody in Sight?

With respect, I don't see the relationship of Olson to Marx.

Olson said:

In his book ‘The Rise And Decline Of Nations’, Mancur Olson argued that over time stable democracies will experience a progressive increase in the power and influence of special interests and crony capitalists.

Substitute 'industrial society' for 'stable democracy' and 'special interests and crony capitalists' with 'bourgeoisie' - and you have Das Capital.

Another example:

Once rent-seeking has achieved sufficient scale, “distributional coalitions have the incentive and..the power to prevent changes that would deprive them of their enlarged share of the social output”.

Substitute 'rent-seeking' with 'ownership of the means of production', same result.

Certainly Olson is more specific, but then again Olson lives in a world which has dictatorships, socialist governments, representative democracies, and what not whereas Marx' world was populated by monarchies and dominated by the process of industrialization.

The differences in era and environment make the similarities in outcomes all the more interesting.

Marx, I believe, was an historical determinist, and anticipated his revolution in the most advanced society, ie Germany or the UK, perhaps. Lenin essentially highjacked the ideology, and applied it, with the device of the "vanguard of the proletariat', where chance and opportunity availed.

Certainly Marx was greatly influenced by the presence of Hegel. However, while Hegel's determinism is not correct in many specific senses, at the same time it is not incorrect in all possible applications. What Marx was doing wasn't social agitation - it was mostly a purely academic analysis on what the future might bring given ongoing events, and fueled by Marx' own economics based analysis.

Certainly no disagreement on Lenin - my original point is that it seems few Americans seem to understand the difference between Marxism and Leninism.

As for the present German state, it is interesting to note that German labour has not benefitted as much as the "economy" writ large, as noted on NC and testesterone pit recently.

I guess it is all relative.

Would you consider German labor to be in a better or worse state than its American counterpart?

How many union representatives are on Fortune 500 boards of directors in the US?

[don]

Re: Goldman's IPOs - Screw Everybody in Sight?

Regardless of how unpalatable labor is to most 'tulipers, historically labor is the only brake on run-away capital. It doesn't, and won't, come from wonderful ideas or perfect plans . . .

[jabberwocky]

Re: Goldman's IPOs - Screw Everybody in Sight?

Olson said:



Substitute 'industrial society' for 'stable democracy' and 'special interests and crony capitalists' with 'bourgeoisie' - and you have Das Capital.

Another example:



Substitute 'rent-seeking' with 'ownership of the means of production', same result.

Certainly Olson is more specific, but then again Olson lives in a world which has dictatorships, socialist governments, representative democracies, and what not whereas Marx' world was populated by monarchies and dominated by the process of industrialization.

The differences in era and environment make the similarities in outcomes all the more interesting.



Certainly Marx was greatly influenced by the presence of Hegel. However, while Hegel's determinism is not correct in many specific senses, at the same time it is not incorrect in all possible applications. What Marx was doing wasn't social agitation - it was mostly a purely academic analysis on what the future might bring given ongoing events, and fueled by Marx' own economics based analysis.

Certainly no disagreement on Lenin - my original point is that it seems few Americans seem to understand the difference between Marxism and Leninism.



I guess it is all relative.

Would you consider German labor to be in a better or worse state than its American counterpart?

How many union representatives are on Fortune 500 boards of directors in the US?

Clue, I find your substitutions inapt. To hold Olson a Marxist is, for me, a rhetorical comparison without validity. Perhaps I am wrong. Anything can be compared, but some things will remain incommensurable, regardless.

What determinist application is useful in human actions, in any sense?

My reference to the wealth of German workers was made wrt their co-Europeans, not Americans. For what it is worth, my overwhealming sense is that the Americam "worker" has been slowly anaesthetised and raped for decades. The union/guild power in the US is apparent to anyone who looks, and is mindful of "framing". Words matter.

I doubt we disagree much.

[c1ue]

Re: Goldman's IPOs - Screw Everybody in Sight?

Clue, I find your substitutions inapt. To hold Olson a Marxist is, for me, a rhetorical comparison without validity. Perhaps I am wrong. Anything can be compared, but some things will remain incommensurable, regardless.

In my view, Marx's analysis of society leading to a view of bourgeoisie strangehold over the means of production is identical to Olson's crony capitalists and special interests using both political control and control over capital to monopolize the economy. The only difference is that in Marx's time, there weren't such things as special interests per se so much as influential advisors to the King/Queen.

However, I can understand why you don't consider these effectively identical. My view is that Olson has only (consciously or unconsciously) adapted Marx's mid 1800s societal analysis to the modern day, rather than created any new insights. Such work is still of value, but simultaneously in academia it is normal practice to acknowledge debts of inspiration.

[don]

Re: Goldman's IPOs - Screw Everybody in Sight?

In my view, Marx's analysis of society leading to a view of bourgeoisie strangehold over the means of production is identical to Olson's crony capitalists and special interests using both political control and control over capital to monopolize the economy. The only difference is that in Marx's time, there weren't such things as special interests per se so much as influential advisors to the King/Queen.

However, I can understand why you don't consider these effectively identical. My view is that Olson has only (consciously or unconsciously) adapted Marx's mid 1800s societal analysis to the modern day, rather than created any new insights. Such work is still of value, but simultaneously in academia it is normal practice to acknowledge debts of inspiration.

But not in the pop culture . . .

[lektrode]

Re: Goldman's IPOs - Screw Everybody in Sight?

in academia it is normal practice to acknowledge debts of inspiration.

But not in the pop culture . . .

never mind the depths of perspiration . . .