Material Analysis 2019
Historical Materialism was once all the rage. Freakonomics is historical materialism without Marx. I am giving an overview and then showing how Marx and basic questions about material conditions can enlighten. Review of Marx Wading through the invective and gossip of three or four volumes of Marx’s Capital to find the nuggets is tedious: dictatorship of the proletariat labor theory of value class struggle money isn’t capital failure of colonialism Centralization of production leads to unions. business cycle Competition drives down margins in investment and production. Profit requires disaster and disruption. You’re welcome. Sorry if I missed any. These ideas have been absorbed into common use. Occasionally an economist makes a living inveighing against or rediscovering one. Bernanke’s bad asset class or Tom Peter’s excellence, for instance. Here is a list of some other market issues: Winners change the rules. Pa...