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The author or concept searched is found in the following 2 entries.
| Disputed term/author/ism | Author |
Entry |
Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Historical Materialism | Marx | Rothbard II 372 Historical Materialism/Marx/Rothbard: At the base of historical materialism and of Marx's view ofhistory is the concept of the 'material productive forces'. These 'forces' are the driving power that creates all historical events and changes. So what are these 'material productive forces'? This is never made clear. The best that can be said is that material productive forces mean 'technological methods'. On the other hand, we are also faced With the term 'mode of production', which seems to be the same thing as material productive forces, or the sum of, or systems of, technological methods. At any rate, these material productive forces, these technologies and 'modes of production', uniquely and monocausally create all 'relations of production' or 'social relations of production' independently of people's wills. These 'relations ofproduction', also extremely vaguely defined, seem to be essentially legal and property relations. The sum of these relations of production somehow make up the 'economic structure of society'. This economic structure is the 'base' which causally determines the 'superstructure' (Überbau), which Rothbard II 373 includes natural science, legal doctrines, religion, philosophies, and all other forms of 'consciousness'. In Short, at the bottom of the base is technology which in turn constitutes or determines modes of production, which in turn determines relations of production, or institutions of law or property, and which finally in turn determine ideas, religious values, art, etc. How, then, do historical changes take place in the Marxian schema? They can only take place in technological methods, since everything else in society is determined by the state of technology at any one time. As Marx put it in the clearest and starkest statement of his technological determjnist View ofhistory, in his Poverty of Philosophy: In acquiring new productive forces men change their mode of production, and in changing their mode of production, their means of gaining a living, they change all their social relations. The hand mill gives you society with the feudal Iord; the steam mill society with the industrial capitalist. RothbardVsMarx: The first grave fallacy in this farrago is right at the beginning: Where does this technology come from? And how do technologies change or improve? Who puts them into effect? A key to the tissue of fallacies that constitute the Marxian system is that Marx never attempts to provide an answer. Indeed he cannot, since if he attributes the state of technology or technological change to the actions of man, of individual men, his whole system falls apart. For human consciousness, and individual consciousness at that, would then be determining material productive forces rather than the other way round. >Historical materialism/Mises, >Technology/Marx, > Relations of production/Marx. |
Marx I Karl Marx Das Kapital, Kritik der politische Ökonomie Berlin 1957 Rothbard II Murray N. Rothbard Classical Economics. An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing. Cheltenham 1995 Rothbard III Murray N. Rothbard Man, Economy and State with Power and Market. Study Edition Auburn, Alabama 1962, 1970, 2009 Rothbard IV Murray N. Rothbard The Essential von Mises Auburn, Alabama 1988 Rothbard V Murray N. Rothbard Power and Market: Government and the Economy Kansas City 1977 |
| Historical Materialism | Mises | Rothbard II 373 Historical materialism/Mises/Rothbard: We may summarize the Marxian doctrine in this way: In the beginning there are the 'material productive forces', i.e., the technological equipment of human productive efforts, the tools and machines. >Historical Materialism/Marx. Mises: No question concerning their origin is permitted; they are, that is all; we must assume that they are dropped from heaven.(1) Rothbard: And, we may add, any changes in that technology must therefore be dropped from heaven as well. Rothbard II 374 Furthermore, as von Mises also demonstrated, consciousness, rather than matter, is predominant in technology. Mises: A technological invention is not something material. It is the product of a mental process, of reasoning and conceiving new ideas. The tools and machines may be called material, but the operation of the mind which created them is certainly spiritual. Marxian materialism does not trace back 'superstructural' and 'ideological' phenomena to 'material' roots. It explains these phenomena as caused by an essentially mental process, viz. invention. (2) Rothbard: Machines are embodied ideas. In addition, technological processes do not only require inventions. They must be brought forth from the invention stage and be embodied in concrete machines and processes. But that requires savings and capital investment as well as invention. But, granting this fact, then the 'relations of production', the legal and property rights system in a society, help determine whether or not saving and investment will be encouraged and discouraged. Once again, the proper causal path isfrom ideas, principles, and the legal and property rights 'superstructure' (Überbau) to the alleged 'base'. Rothbard: Similarly, machines will not be invested in, unless there is a division of labour of suffcient extent in a society. Once again, the social relations, the cooperative division of labour and exchange in society, determine the extent and development of technology, and not the other way round.(3) >Relations of production/Marx, >Technology/Marx, >Historical Materialism/Marx. 1. Ludwig von Mises, Theory and History (1957, Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 1985), pp. 111-2. 2. Ibid. pp. 109-110 3. In the Poverty of Philosophy, Marx angrily denounced Proudhon for making this very point, that division of labour precedes machines. |
EconMises I Ludwig von Mises Die Gemeinwirtschaft Jena 1922 Rothbard II Murray N. Rothbard Classical Economics. An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing. Cheltenham 1995 Rothbard III Murray N. Rothbard Man, Economy and State with Power and Market. Study Edition Auburn, Alabama 1962, 1970, 2009 Rothbard IV Murray N. Rothbard The Essential von Mises Auburn, Alabama 1988 Rothbard V Murray N. Rothbard Power and Market: Government and the Economy Kansas City 1977 |
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