No, Marx was still wrong

Right, after some faffing around over the summer, proper politics starts again, and where better to start with this ill concieved article where our primate attempts to argue that Marx was partly right about capitalism (actually he doesn't, but it's his title)

It has become an oddly fashionable line to take recently (i.e., in the last generation) that although Marx was wrong about the answer, somehow he was right about his diagnosis of the issues around capitalism - in effect to argue that Das Kapital was right, and The communist manifesto wrong. This is of course absurd, and the issues that Marx was wrong about suggest his diagnosis cannot have been very good either. If you are consistently wrong about the long term economic prospects of the industrialised poor, worng about how they will react and wrong about what the 'post-capitalist' society looks like, then the odds are you were wrong to start with.


To his credit Williams isn't really doing any of this. It's noteworthy that he opens with Trollope, a man much more attuned to how people actually behave than Marx ever was. In fact, much of the article is very sensible: he is of course right to point that trading in debt is not new (though it's much older than the C19), and doesn't fall into the ridiculous trap of arguing that banks should only lend what they have in deposits. Given that stretching beyond that point is the point of a bank, it would be odd to limit them.* However, there is a degree of naivity about the nature of finance and what I think is an arbitrary line between, put crudely, speculation and financing. The archbishop argues that:


'And a particularly significant line is crossed when the borrowing and lending are no longer to do with any kind of equipping someone to do something specific, but exclusively about enabling profit.'

This is a facile distinction and it hinges on a definition of 'specific', which is basically untenable and contains substantial inconsistencies. For example, preumably, mortgages are OK, as they clearly are for something specific (though they have caused much of the problem); government borrowing is borderline if not a problem, as it tends not to be for something specific (but I suspect this is not what he means). The problem is I suspect, those bankers who are dealing with loans fourth or fifth hand, but levelling accusations based on what it's for misses the point. Failing to understand your risk and liabilities is really really stupid, but a significant qualitative line itsn't crossed when you do.


later on we see the real crux of the problem comes when he moves onto the percieved moral issue. Here:


'the deeper moral issue. We find ourselves talking about capital or the market almost as if they were individuals, with purposes and strategies, making choices, deliberating reasonably about how to achieve aims.'

Now, again, this is a really bad idea. Sometimes people use language that suggests the marekt acts like an individual, but that's a convenience. When economists talk about markets, they are really commenting on a number of observed characteristics that have (more or less) predictable outcomes. They know it's not an autonomous individual. So, what is described here is not a moral issue, but a factual error, albeit a big one.

Now, this does mean, following the line of his argument, that a belief in markets that will provide just outcomes is misplaced, but again, this is an absurdity. Markets don't allocate on a principle of justice, but on one of efficiency (even assuming they worked perfectly). Justice isn't a market word.

However, the real problem comes in the last section, where he equates this to idolatry. Now, idolatry is a bit of a problem in the modern world so we get this wishy-washy definition here: 'ascribing independent reality to what you have in fact made yourself .' But that won't do; the second commandment reads as follows (KJV, naturally):

'Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them.'

By contrast, the unsupportable breadth of Williams' modern defintion does the decent thing, and collapses. In some philosophical senses, I don't doubt that power, reality and agency can be circumscribed such that this definition works, but given the language here is of a political periodical, it is abundantly clear that power does reside in market forces, and their effects are real. But even if they weren't, the market is not something we have created, it is our behaviour. When the Israelites worshipped the Golden Calf that they had created, it had a physical existence; when our markets collapse, they represents our own debts coming back to haunt us. It is Dr Williams here who is in real danger of ascribing an kind of existence to a form of words, not supporters of market led economies.

We shoudn't expect markets to do what all economists know they cannot, but that doesn't make Marx right, and getting your economics wrong doesn't make you an idolator either.

* Not that this stops people mind. One of the most idiotic comments on the banking crisis that I have heard so far came from Billy Bragg (this is no surprise) on BH no less, where he opined that banks shouldn't lend money they don't have from depositors. I learnt about banks and multipliers at 14. It's not very hard.

What I do

This is yet another indulgence, and it's probably not that interesting, but given I seem to spend a lot of my time explaining what I actually do for a living, today presents itself a good opportunity to show people.

For the next ten weeks, I'll be writing the BBC's response to Ofcom's Review of Public Service Broadcasting (phase 2), which they published today. I've been reading it for some hours now, though I have managed only three of the 17 annexes. The weekend promises to be fun, as does my autumn. Last time, our submission was pretty hefty.

I tried to persuade my sister that this was really important and akin to saving the world (in a cultural sense), but that's a lie. It is pretty important though and it's almost certainly the most fun of any job I have ever done. And when it's done I'm going to California, which will be even more fun.

Mythical tribes

The Guardian carries an article highlighting the welcome growth in current affairs periodicals. The penultimate paragraph ends with this question:

'Might there, I wonder, be people out there who read both, say, the
Spectator and Heat?'

I do, and from the sounds of this article I'm not the only one.

Myers-Briggs

Here's my new favourite personality test. I sat in a very long meeting today about research today and we talked about it a lot. It was probably the most exciting part of the day. Most alarmingly, our consultant was able to guess most people's sets accurately.



Anyway, I am ENTJ

• Extraverted (by 1%), not Introverted
• iNtuitive (38), not Sensing
• Thinking (50), not Feeling
• Judging (33), not Perception

The detail is here; I don't think there is any surprise. Apparently NTJ is the classic consultant profile, and the borderline exterversion is probably about right, given my slight schizoid tendency on that axis. In fact, none of the tendencies were particularly pronounced, which I think means either that I am mild in my opinions, or a little confused (probably the latter).

Anna, alarmingly, was ESFJ, which means we aren't compatable, or something. It's probably best for work, rather than relationships.

Feeling of failure

Tom Lehrer had a wonderful line about failure, in the intro to Alma, he claimed 'it is a sobering thought, for example, that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years.' Astonishingly, there is an online debate about how old that makes them, which isn't really the point. Mozart died at 35 .

On this theme, one of my contemporaries at university has just taken over at Policy Exchange, having run a relatively successful anti-European think tank up to now. Many congratulations are in order as, given the imminent (and overdue) change of government, by the time we return for our college gaudy in 2010, he is therefore likely to be the most prominent of our intake, though presumably waves of bankers will be richer.

By contrast, I have done little. It is even touch and go as to whether I will even complete the doctorate by M-day. I have six years.

Re-organisation

This is a serious contender for the most boring post I have every written, but it has occupied most of the last week, so blogged it must be. I now finally have enough bookcases to house my collection (with some double stacking). So I've been spending the last week or so re-organising my books. The list is below. It actually includes a selection of Anna's fiction, which inflates the total by around 200.


When I first built a record of books, in 2001, I had four main sections: Fiction, Reference, Philosophy and Theology, and History. This worked well for a while, but fell apart as unanticipated collections emerged. The burgeoning travel literature section was put in Reference for lack of anywhere else to go. Politics was roped in with history, but policy documents sat uneasily with the writings Nikephoros Phokas. Religious history I could never decide what to do with and so put in Philosophy and Theology. And I kept moving sport between reference and history, when of course it is neither.


I've now had a back to basics look at the system, added new categories, broken up all the old sections apart from fiction, and have what I hope is a robust, though still provisional, system: 6 sections, 31 categories, and multiple subcategories. It's still a moving feast and I suspect subcategories will expand into full categories over time. But nonetheless, here is an stucture with some non-obvious rules listed out:


Fiction (c.950), sorted by author
Excluded from this are fictional works whose entire purpose now belongs elsewhere, e.g., the Fable of the Bees (only philosophical interest). The boundaries of the categories above are weak and relatively unimportant, but broadly:

• Classic literature: C17-C19
• Classic literature: C20
• Contemporary Literature. As a rule of thumb, classic authors are dead, contemporary authors are not
• Childrens
• Crime
• Fantasy
• Science Fiction
• Humour
• Poetry

History (c.450), sorted by category, country, then date.

• General. Includes theory of history, counterfactuals, and some reference
• The classical hereitage . Includes Byzantium and the early church
• UK and Ireland
• Western and continental history
• Non-western history

Includes church history allocated by country, though much is in the general European sub-category.

Politics (c.70), sorted by category, then subject / author

• Recent political history. Includes memoirs and biographies
• Policy (subdivided by area)
• Economics

Philosophy and Theology (c.200), sorted by category, subcategory, then author

• Philosophy. Including natural philosophy (i.e., science)
• Non-Christian religions
• Christianity. Excludes primarily historical works, but includes all analysis directly pertai ning the bible as well as liturgical, spiritual and contemporary church subcategories

Cultural (c.200), sorted by category, then subject / author

• Books and literary theory
• Art
• Music
• Travel literature. There isn't a satisfactory definition of this, but to my mind includes all first person narratives that are specifically geographic and primarily non-analytical
• Contemporania. Mostly memoirs, but includes biography and of contemporary figures whose significance is primarily cultural, e.g., the diaries of James Lees-Milne
• Sport

Reference (c.75), sorted by category, then subject / author

• Food and Drink
• Language
• Travel Guides
• Reference
• Guides and 'how tos'

I've had most trouble with the political / historical divide which I have relatively arbitrarily put at Suez in the UK, but much later for other countries, about the fall of the Wall. There are obvious contested areas: Cold war IR goes in politics, an accout of the Gulag in History/Western/Russia. Other issues abound in the small miscellaneous books. The New Book of First Names is a reference work I suppose, but so is Kenneth Williams' Complete Acid Drops.

There is some shoehorning, and much of Anna's still to be databased which will push the fiction up by another 200 or so and a few things in history.

Bibliography, August 2008

Books bought / received (0)


Books read (16)
M. Amis, Koba the Dread
D. Cruickshanks, Around the world in 80 treasures
D. Devonshire, Counting my Chickens
N. Ferguson, Colossus
D. Lodge, How far can you Go?
V.M. Manfredi, Tyrant
M. Marquese, War minus the shooting
A. Maupin, Tales of the City
I. McEwan, Amsterdam
T. Mosely, Zogonia
R.T. Moss, Cleopatra's wedding present
M. Rendell, The death of Marco Pantani
J. Solomon, Accessing Antiquity
J. Steinbeck, The short reign of Peppin IV
S. Townsend, Number Ten
A. van Voght, Moonbeast

A triumph of willpower. I have successfully resisted buying a single book and read many, though my unread percentage is still way too high, with 8.5% of my collection unread.

A lot of the reading though was average where it should have been good. Some were dire - Townsend especially; other merely a bit empty - Maupin, McEwan; and Ferguson's Colossus promised much but fell down on the history. There are better analysts of the future, and he didn't give enough attention to the past.

However, there were some gems. my infatuation with David Lodge is increasingly as I loved this one and would be about to go on a major raid if I could spare the shelf space. Another deft and witty triumph. He packs a great deal into short books, but they are enormously satisfying. I reread Moss' great book on Syria which still sparkles as it did when I read it in 2003. Though there are better books on the region, he treads a unique path. Similarly, Koba the Dread was best when it spoke more personally about Amis' own experiences with the communist-apologist left rather than his documentation of the communist years themselves. There are better surveys of the history though.

Unprecedentedly, two of the best books I read this month were sport books, and I don't even have a large sport section (15 books). Rendell's book was a fascinating account of a strange sport and a strange character. I'm an occasional cycling follower, essentially just doing the Tour, but this was none the less compelling and a well told tragic tale. Marquese's book - about the 1996 world cup - was great, with a great story to tell, and in its backdrop of subcontinental security fears, very apposite given the current crisis over Pakistan. Of course, it is also worth a read given how much has changed in 12 years - No Twenty20 even on the horizon - but most of all, it's a great book about a game and a culture.