First, take the most well known one: Marx’s conspiracy theories about Lord Palmerston.
Around 1854 Marx was befriended by David Urquhart (1805–1877), a British aristocrat and vitriolic anti-Russian conspiracy-theorist, who thought Lord Palmerston was a secret Russian agent (Wheen 2001: 189). Marx, who also hated Tsarist Russia, was converted to this conspiracy theory by 1853 to 1854, and, even though he met Urquhart early in 1854 and regarded him as mad, continued to uphold the view that Palmerston was in the employ of Russia (Wheen 2001: 210–211; Sperber 2014: 305–307).
Marx in 1856 even took money and wrote for Urquhart’s journal the Free Press a series of sensational articles claiming to have found evidence for his anti-Russian conspiracy theories, and even arguing that the Crimean war (which occurred between October 1853–February 1856) had been a secret plot to disguise the true alliance between Russia and Britain (Wheen 2001: 211; Sperber 2014: 305–306). Even worse, Marx thought that many British politicians for over a century had been traitors in the pay of the Czar (Sperber 2014: 305–306).
Needless to say, these ideas were unhinged and there has never been the slightest evidence for them, and the Soviet regime of the 20th century was deeply embarrassed by Marx’s anti-Russian fantasies (Wheen 2001: 212). Marx’s association with Urquhart continued to 1859 when he participated in anti-Russian meetings in London organised by Urquhart’s movement (Sperber 2014: 329).
Another one of Marx’s conspiracy theories is analysed by Philip Pilkington here and here, and concerns the Irish famine (1845–1852). In essence, there are passages in Capital that suggest that Marx thought the Irish potato famine was a deliberate and cold-blooded secret plot by the English and Anglo-Irish capitalist elite to murder about a million people “to thin the population of Ireland down to the proportion satisfactory to the landlords” (Marx 1906: 782, n. 2). Now one can accuse the British of many things, but this is a crazy conspiracy theory, as pointed out here.
The causes of the Irish famine was obviously over-reliance on potatoes, a bad natural disaster, British incompetence, fanatical support of free trade and their grotesque and callous indifference to human suffering, not secret genocidal plans to kill the Irish.
Yet another conspiracy theory occurs in Marx’s analysis of Irish mass immigration into Britain, which is analysed here. Marx expressed the following view:
“But the evil does not stop here. It continues across the ocean. The antagonism between Englishmen and Irishmen is the hidden basis of the conflict between the United States and England. It makes any honest and serious co-operation between the working classes of the two countries impossible. It enables the governments of both countries, whenever they think fit, to break the edge off the social conflict by their mutual bullying, and, in case of need, by war between the two countries.”But this quite clearly conjures up images of government elites in Britain or America secretly conspiring to fabricate “false flag” international conflicts and wars whenever domestic labour tensions at home became problematic.
Letter of Karl Marx to Sigfrid Meyer and August Vogt, 9 April 1870
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1870/letters/70_04_09.htm
But what is the evidence for this? In fact, British and American relations became closer and closer by the late 19th century, and at the time of very bad labour tensions and violence in the 1890s Britain and America had come to have good diplomatic and international relations.
So Marx’s worldview included quite bizarre conspiracy theories, such as the idea that powerful capitalist elites and traitors secretly conspire to commit mass murder and also engage in “false flag” operations to distract attention away from their evil policies at home.
Hmmm, whom does that remind you of?
If they had television in the 19th century would Marx have sounded like this guy? My guess is yes. (Please watch right to the end to appreciate him in its full glory!)
Further Reading
Pilkington, Philip. “Did Capitalism Cause the Irish Famine?,” Fixing the Economists, July 25, 2013
https://fixingtheeconomists.wordpress.com/2013/07/25/did-capitalism-cause-the-irish-famine/
Pilkington, Philip. “Karl Marx’s Conspiracy Theories,” Fixing the Economists, July 27, 2013
https://fixingtheeconomists.wordpress.com/2013/07/27/karl-marxs-conspiracy-theories/
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Marx, Karl. 1906. Capital. A Critique of Political Economy (vol. 1; rev. trans. by Ernest Untermann from 4th German edn.). The Modern Library, New York.
Sperber, Jonathan. 2014. Karl Marx: A Nineteenth-Century Life. Liveright Publishing Corporation, New York.
Wheen, Francis. 2001. Karl Marx: A Life. W. W. Norton & Company, New York and London.
I happen to read a book ("Evolution of the Social Contract," by Brian Skyrms) where I found this quote:
ReplyDelete"On June 18, 1862, Karl Marx wrote to Friedrich Engels, "It is remarkable how Darwin has discerned anew among beasts and plants his English Society ... It is Hobbes' bellum omnium contra omnes."
(No source of the Marx quote)- p.43, Second Edition, Cambridge University press, 2014)
Might Marx's inability to imagine evolved forms of social cooperation be one of the roots of his receptivity for conspiracy theories and a radically agonistic account of history and social interaction?
By the way, Alex Jones appears to passionately support Trump:
http://redstateeclectic.typepad.com/redstate_commentary/2015/12/donald-trump-talking-to-alex-jones.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+RedstateeclecticCommentary+%28RedStateEclectic+Commentary%29
"Conspiracy theory" is a thought-stopping cliche. Dismissing the idea prima facie that imperialist powers commit false flag operations would quickly make history incomprehensible. Was there no Reichstag fire? No Gulf of Tonkin incident? No Manchurian railway incident? No Operation Ajax? There's even evidence that the massacre that led to the coup in Kiev this year was much the same, spearheaded by neonazi groups. The list goes on.
ReplyDeleteIt's a precarious road: Any time one claims things are not *exactly* as they are portrayed in the most popular understanding, they get to carry the albatross of "conspiracy theorist." If evidence eventually bears out their view, then with cajoling they may eventually be revised to "prescient." This doesn't seem a terribly pluralistic approach to matters of historical import. Why not simply let multiple theories exist in relation to the same evidence -- to be modified as still more comes to light, as with any other study -- without recourse to name-calling? (The answer, I would venture, pertains to the reproduction of a hegemonic ideology.)
Further, neither of the links to Pilkington on the Irish question actually prove what you're claiming. Even in the footnote, there is no claim of a secret plot; rather, Marx says, "the famine and its consequences have been deliberately made the most of." This much is hardly controversial. Everyone knows dogmatic adherence to free market policies exacerbated the natural disaster but the ruling class was unmoved to halt the export of food from Ireland while it still benefited them, and all the while landlords took advantage of the depopulation to turn farmland into pasture. More than this is not claimed.
In this respect, the Irish case closely resembles the Indian famines that followed a few decades thereafter -- triggered by the natural disaster of El Nino weather patterns, and made into a far, far greater crisis by the sustained export of food, etc., enforced by British rule in the name of capitalistic ideology. (Both were heavily chauvinistic in their execution, as well.)
(1) I didn't claim that there have never been any conspiracies in human history. Chalk one up for another idiot straw man argument by you.
Delete(2) What is asserted is that we have no reason to believe in Marx's loony conspiracy theories.
You think Lord Palmerston was a Russian agent? That 19th century British and American governments conspired to create conflicts and wars abroad just to distract attention from labour problems? Show me the god damn evidence or stop making excuses for Marx's insane conspiracy theory B.S.
(3) "Why not simply let multiple theories exist in relation to the same evidence -- to be modified as still more comes to light, as with any other study -- without recourse to name-calling?"
Because many historical facts have overwhelming evidence in their favour and other "theories" are plainly insane. Lord Palmerston was not a Russian agent. There is no evidence for it and much against. Giving Marx's conspiracy theory view that he was a Russian agents the same respect as the view he was not is similar to "respecting" Creation science of Holocaust denial just because it is a different view.
(4) Marx doesn't say explicitly that the British government secretly conspired to kill a million Irish, but his words in that footnote strongly imply that it was what he thought.
(1) Okay. So how else am I to interpret the following: "So Marx’s worldview included quite bizarre conspiracy theories, such as the idea that powerful capitalist elites and traitors secretly conspire to commit mass murder and also engage in “false flag” operations to distract attention away from their evil policies at home."
DeleteYou specifically call false-flag operations "bizarre conspiracy theories," do you not? Help me out, here: How do you want that to be read?
(2) You've chosen to discuss items about which I've not commented, I see. So there's really nothing for me to say, as I really don't know enough about Lord Palmerston to comment.
(Also, which wars abroad are you claiming as Marx's "conspiracy theory," out of curiosity?)
(3) Yes, many have overwhelming evidence, and many do not. You're evading my point.
As I say above, I do not know very much about the case of Lord Palmerston, so I really cannot comment. But you seem quite fired up about the issue, so why don't you make a case, instead of merely huffing? I can't help but notice that your account of this in your post contains not so much as even a single quotation of "Russian agent," for all your insistence on evidence.
(4) Weren't you the one just saying the other day that the absence of an explicit statement in volume I means we're free to assume that Marx thought the law of value had no empirical expression in history? Now you've completely revised your method -- not only to accept "implication" as "evidence," but further to accept a passage with no implication at all as "implication"!
I think you've not a leg to stand on, here.
(1) Yes, the idea that the UK or the US elites conspired in the 19th century to engage in "false flag" operations to evade attention from labour disputes is B.S. If you disagree show me the evidence.
Delete(2) What item? Are we talking about the absurd view that the UK conspired to kill 1 million Irish? Yes, that is unhinged conspiracy theory.
(3) Read a biography of Palmerston or the relevant pages of Sperber (p. 305ff.). Go away and find the evidence if you want to defend Marx's conspiracy theory lunacy and stop wasting my time.
(4) "Weren't you the one just saying the other day that the absence of an explicit statement in volume I means we're free to assume that Marx thought the law of value had no empirical expression in history? "
I said no such thing. You're making things up. This bizarre dishonesty speaks volumes.
(1) You've changed your story, here. First, it's the mere notion that false flags are pursued in the interests of the powerful, and now you've narrowed your goalposts to the specific category of 19th century false flags instigated by UK/US to quell labor. Why not just admit that your first phrasing was poor and therefore vulnerable to the criticism to which it was subjected?
DeleteAnyway, I can't answer your (revised) request for evidence until you answer my request for clarification: Which wars would you say Marx described as "false flags to distract... etc."? Name one, and I'll see if I can defend it or not. It's unreasonable to expect me to make both sides of this argument.
(2) I'm talking about the items discussed under this very number, number 2, the second number, which comes after 1. Why would we even number our discussions if you're not going to follow the thread?
(3) I don't care to defend it. I'm just noting the lack of evidence you present. I don't own the book and lack the means to acquire it. Congrats on your deep pockets. As a leftist, don't you think it'd be nice to share a passage or two, for those of us less endowed?
(4) Yes, my bizarre dishonesty, which is SO dishonest it actually manipulated the very fabric of reality: http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2015/11/marx-and-engels-attempt-to-salvage-law.html?showComment=1449250402313#c3120007095570176032
You clearly and explicitly(!) discard any sort of contextualized understanding of the law of value on the basis of a lack of a particular explicit statement in volume 1 to the effect that "in early commodity exchange, the law of value was apparent at the surface level, but under modern capitalism it is not."
I can't even fathom why you would think to deny doing something you did publicly all of a week ago. Blimey, mate.
On (4) alone you are a truly dishonest and laughable clown. My position has always been that when Marx published vol. 1 he meant the law of value there to apply to 19th century capitalism, and only later restricted it to the pre-modern world of commodity exchange. You cite a comment from me saying that in vol. 1 we have not "a shred of clear and explicit evidence that he intended the law of value in vol. 1 to be restricted to an earlier period." That is, at the time he published it he intended it to be an empirical statement applying to 19th century capitalism.
DeleteSo either (1) you are so stupid and ignorant you do not even understand my position on this even after months of my stating it or (2) you are utterly dishonest.
(1) Marx stated that the US and Britain "whenever they think fit, ... break the edge off the social conflict by their mutual bullying, and, in case of need, by war between the two countries.” Whether he intended this to apply to particular wars is not clear from the passage, and this issue is just more evasive nonsense from you. There is no evidence that this general conspiracy theory of Marx is correct.
Delete(2) can't understand you.
(3) the evidence is available to anyone who cares to look, and I am not going to waste my time on you. You could probably find many of the relevant books and passages on Google books if you searched for the relevant terms, but I suppose that would be too much to ask from a lazy troll, wouldn't it.
I'll admit to expressing your position poorly. The ways in which you have chosen to become confused about this very simple theory have by necessity become very confusing in and of themselves. To paraphrase Engels, by this point you've put far more work into understanding it wrongly than would have been necessary to understand it correctly.
DeleteAt any rate, none of this changes the fact that my point stands *as stated* above: You clearly and explicitly(!) discard any sort of contextualized understanding of the law of value on the basis of a lack of a particular explicit statement in volume 1 to the effect that "in early commodity exchange, the law of value was apparent at the surface level, but under modern capitalism it is not."
Anyway, your position, even as expressed in your latest comment, is still muddled. Yes, the law of value applies to modern capitalism, but as a logical/analytical fact rather than an empirical one, given the imposition of prices of production which themselves come into prominence on the basis of the law of value.
I could take this opportunity to call you names for still confounding this issue. Notice how I don't? Please join me in refraining to hurl insults. I promise it doesn't hurt.
(1) So, Marx just stated that powers could try to do a thing. Gotcha. Can't dispute that.
Delete(2) It's okay, don't beat yourself up about it.
(3) Yeah, I checked those. The only available pages for me merely assert it, but I can access neither a page with a quotation to clarify nor any of the endnotes to investigate on my own.
But whatever, clearly it's not important enough to warrant further investigation, and I should just go back to sleep. What with my alleged laziness.
"You clearly and explicitly(!) discard any sort of contextualized understanding of the law of value on the basis of a lack of a particular explicit statement in volume 1 to the effect that "
DeleteTranslation: I demand clear and convincing evidence in the text of vol. 1 that Marx restricted the law of value there -- that commodity prices tend to gravitate towards their labour values -- to the pre-modern world of commodity exchange, as Engels later did and as Marx himself appears to have done in Chapter 10 of vol. 3 of Capital.
There is no such evidence, and Marx implies again and again that this is an empirical theory meant to apply to 19th century capitalism.
For most of this year, you have been pushing the B.S. line that the law of value in vol. 1 -- that commodity prices tend to gravitate towards their labour values -- was never meant at all to be a description of any real world economy:
“>In vol. 1, goods have at least a tendency to exchange at pure labour values
We've been over this a hundred times. It's a simplification for pedagogical purposes that is explicitly unrealistic.”
http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2015/08/marxs-capital-volume-1-chapter-8.html?showComment=1438715789086#c514791626841157667
But you've been utterly refuted. You refuse to admit it. You refuse to even admit you were wrong.
"Yes, the law of value applies to modern capitalism, but as a logical/analytical fact rather than an empirical one, given the imposition of prices of production which themselves come into prominence on the basis of the law of value."
Even if there was a tendency to prices of production (which there is not), they don't come into being because of a incoherent and anti-empirical logical tautology called the "law of value" imagined only in the fevered minds of Marxist cultists. In fact, Marx and even you admit virtually all capitalists don't even have any knowledge of this "logical/analytical" LTV gibberish. An empty logical tautology known only to Marxist cultists can have no causal power in the real world and has no explanatory power.
(1) No, he stated that the immigration issue "enables the governments of both countries, whenever they think fit, to break the edge off the social conflict by their mutual bullying ..." which implies real actual international conflict.
Delete(3) translation: Hedlund is too lazy to research the issue using the amazing power of the internet where vast amounts of information -- and probably if you looked hard enough on this issue too -- is available at yout finger tips. Not my problem.
If I had the time I'd apply Hedlund's cookie-cutter "how can you rule that out" defence to some of Bob Murphy's conspiracy theories.
ReplyDeleteTake Cliven Bundy. Apparently the federal BLM was in a conspiracy to kill one rancher, but thanks to the spotlight brave anarchists brought to bear he was saved. For now. (Yes, Murphy suggested this.) I mocked Murphy for this, and perhaps LK did too. But are we really saying that no government agency ever conspired in a murder? (An example Hedlund will not cite is Kirov.)
Didn't Ann Coulter suggest JFK was a Russian agent? Now I think this is loony. But how, how do I counter this:
ReplyDelete"I do not know very much about the case ... so I really cannot comment. But you seem quite fired up about the issue, so why don't you make a case, instead of merely huffing? I can't help but notice that your account of this in your post contains not so much as even a single quotation of "Russian agent," for all your insistence on evidence."
Ah, ah, a stake through the heart of my position! Thus are LK and I felled with the same shot!
Hey Ken. Before I respond to anything you've written, just want to make sure you didn't miss this:
ReplyDeletehttp://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2015/11/when-left-becomes-laughing-stock.html?showComment=1448490060202#c2863022930562152094
Any thoughts?
I really lack the patience to wade through the LK-Bob Roddis wars, or the LK-MF wars, or the LK-Hedlund wars.
ReplyDeleteBut everytime I try a sample I see LK handing someone his head. I just saw it again with Hedlund, and I left a longish comment, but frankly can no longer remember which thread it was on.
But Hedlund was completely misrepresenting what LK has said in great detail and (I seek in vain the right superlative here) repeatedly.
They have been squabbling over a simple matter.
When Marx announced his imaginary law, did he mean it? Or did he have secret caveats that his acolytes could cite 150 years later, when his pronouncements were decisively refuted, as a way of clinging to their belief in his omniscience?
(This is describes exactly Christian apologetics about Jesus's the-end-is-nigh prophecies.)
LK demanded proof of these caveats; Hedlund supplied none. Hedlund has been whirling like a dervish, trying to obscure this simple fact.
Yes, and worse: even in vol. 3 of Capital Marx essentially repudiated the law of value in vol. 1.
DeleteAll he could do is reduce it to a watered down and feeble ghost, asserting statements either false or empty tautologies which later critics have deemed mathematically flawed anyway.
Credit should also be given to the Austrian Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk for his critique of Marx. He spotted the devastating flaws already in the 1890s.
The suggestion of Marx that Crimean war was a attempt to disguise British Russian alliance is not true.
ReplyDelete("Although United kingdom and France declared war against Russia in March 1854 and then invaded the Crimean peninsula ,the United kingdom had no intention of conquering Russia. Instead it entered a ongoing war between Russia and Turkey for the purpose of checking Russian expansion in the region around black sea." John Mersheiemer- The Tragedy Of Great Power Politics .)If there was a true alliance Britain wouldn't have checked Russian expansion.
2. We were taught about Giffen goods and Giffen paradox and read somewhere that potatoes in Irish Famine is the example. Whether Giffen paradox is real or just a fantasy ??
I'm sometimes hesitant too as Hedlund suggests in his first post. Not all "Conspiracy Theories" are created equal. For example, it was left-wing lunatics in the 2004 election who claimed that the National Security Advisory System with the color charts was politically motivated during that election in order to boost Bush's polling numbers in the campaign. The Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge later did admit that yes, he was pushed to make some terror alerts by others in the administration that were likely politically motivated by politics (by Ashcroft and Rumsfeld). Of course, Ridge denied that HE made a politically motivated decision, but there was an incident where they issued a terror alert 2 days after Kerry had picked Edwards as a running mate, and then admitted a day later that the intelligence was 3 or 4 years old.
ReplyDeleteSo the question is, are those Bush-hating leftwing loons still "conspiracy theorists" after basically being vindicated by thinking those terror alerts might be politically motivated? If Tom Ridge had said nothing that to that effect and basically kept it a secret, would they still have been any less true?
That's the problem. Conspiracies do exist. Conspiracy theorists aren't always wrong, and some of them that are right, no evidence is produced so it remains clouded in history and we keep on thinking them as crazy when they were correct.
So it seems to me that one would have to come up with some kind of criteria between those who are obviously wrong and crazy, and those who might be onto something.
Another thing is thinking that all theories of Elite politics is conspiratorial. Does that make "Circus and Bread", or anything similar, just a conspiracy theory?