Marxist Economics – What is it.
Marxist economics in named in a blog by KAKKA.
http://newkerala.blogspot.com/2007/02/101010-3-or-introduction-to-marxist.html
The content of the blog does not say any thing about Marxist economics but the title says. In fact there is some thing exists as Marxist economics.
I am try to outline that in simple words what ever little I know about it. I am not an economist, but I am forced to write this due to loose references.
The society is divided into two groups.
Those have no reserve wealth and therefore have to work in the arrangements made by others to survive.
Those who can sustain with out depending on others. Vast majority of this category have enough material wealth to ‘arrange work” in which people of group 1 work.
Resources needed for the survival of each individual can classified into two groups
A. Communal/Natural ; things which are shared by the community or easy grabbed from nature. Individual can get access to it disregarding his caste, creed, religion etc. Basically, if your neighbour get, you will also get it for sure.
B. Commodities available in the market. They are widely available. But you need to pay for it. Individual should have money to buy them.
Things are maintained or produced by the following ways.
I. Maintained by the community.
II. Fruits of Nature.
III. Produced by the individuals or group of individuals. We can call it production system.
Market is the omnipresent and omnipotent mechanism which has the following characteristics.
Generally there will be cut throat competition in the market to sell for lower price. If there is no such competition that means there is very less number of sellers in the market.
If an individual do not have money, no one will sell it to him irrespective of how urgent he needs the commodity – a life saving medicine, milk for an infant … all can be purchased only if money is paid. If credit is made the seller should be convinced of the payable capacity of the buyer. Seller should assess that the buyer is worth for it.
Cutthroat competition in the market employs science and technology in the production system to produce in bulk quantities and thereby reduce the cost of production and the price of the commodity. Better equipments are used again and again.
Let us see how above factors are related.
The arrangements for III are the one which is mentioned in 2.
Commodities mentioned in B is produced by the system in III .
The reason for 1 (people work in the arrangements made by others) is B. Commodities cannot be obtained from the market with out money.
If an individual need only things of group A for survival, it would have been great. Unfortunately that is not the case. They badly need things of group B. Therefore people in group 1 has an immediate pressure to go to III , work and get money to buy commodities.
III is impacted by iii . only those employ science and technology effectively can reduce the cost of production, can survive as producers. If science and technology is used in production continuously for years/ decades the equipments for production will become complex and costly.
If one from group 1 decided to save some money from his expenses and accumulate wealth and to buy equipments of production and start production, the i and iii prevents him from prosper. Only one out of ten thousand can prosper that way. He will again have to go to III and work.
Therefore we understand why people of group 1 are going to work. The have the economic (survival) compulsion to work.
Why the people of group 2 starts production system III.
I will try to answer in the next post.
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6 comments:
I forgot to add what I mean by i,ii, and iii. They are as follows.
Market is the omnipresent and omnipotent mechanism which has the following characteristics.
i. Generally there will be cut throat competition in the market to sell for lower price. If there is no such competition that means there is very less number of sellers in the market.
ii. If an individual do not have money, no one will sell it to him irrespective of how urgent he needs the commodity – a life saving medicine, milk for an infant … all can be purchased only if money is paid. If credit is made the seller should be convinced of the payable capacity of the buyer. Seller should assess that the buyer is worth for it.
iii. Cutthroat competition in the market employs science and technology in the production system to produce in bulk quantities and thereby reduce the cost of production and the price of the commodity. Better equipments are used again and again.
Hi nazleen.. Mammen here.. I am glad there is some effort to distinguish between the chaff and grain.
Pls continue writing
Anonymous said...
I want to present an observation about the investment problems in our state, it is a direct consequence of marxist demagoguery and the destruction of free thought by the communists in kerala. In every thing from economics to education to philosophy to human rights... they have been totally rejected by the world.
Why kerala remains a laggard state in india even as many other states race ahead in development..
I was born in kerala. Then, like many others moved all over India and then came to UK, i will move back to Bangalore (not kerala) in about 5 years.
There are some basic things that are lacking in the development of kerala. with all that has happened in kerala for the last 50 years, one can never hope for progress, it will remain a low value state where militant labor, unreasonable wages, strikes, low quality job, poor work ethic, will always rule ; petty kirana stores and communist labor unions will extort money from NRIs.
Let us look at the basics. Kerala is not a rich state like say california or even Maharashtra or Gujarat. So when you want to create a strong economy to create jobs you need a growth center like bangalore, hyderabad, mumbai; you need one great city, wy doesnt kerala have it; every state has one great city- Hyderabad, Bangalore, New delhi, Mumbai etc.; we should have moved the capital to kochi, even the new kerala legislature should have been built in kochi, they made a huge blunder. a financially bankrupt Kerala can afford to invest only in one major city. It must be Kochi. our politicians dont have any strategy to make the state an investment destination. Why didnt kerala invest more money and effort in building kochi as the growth engine of the state; the roads in kochi are worse than even backward Patna. Even if Trivandrum was the political capital there was no need of a big airport there; state and central govt/ AAI should have invested massively in Cochin airport and increase their shareholding to 25-49% to build more runways; international flights should only go out of Kochi, that will make CIAL more profitable. Why did the Technopark go to TVM and not Kochi; that was the biggest blunder made by govt in IT sector. TVM is a very boring and sleepy city for young IT professionals. TVM should have some institutes that is all was needed there. They should get an AIIMS in TVM. But Kerala never had focus like other states, things just kept drifting. If there is going to be another metro in india it must be Cochin. Today, there is a glimmer of hope- with DIC, Container Terminal etc but still where are the roads, where is the civic infrastructure, power plants, the CIAL airport is too small not viable/profitable. cochin port one of the greatest natural ports in india is languishing because of labor strikes and high labor cost- east coast in TN is actually strategically poorly located, not even an open sea, but Tuticorin is booming because of the parasite workers of Cochin port, what is the power infrastructure in kochi.
where are the bus stands in cochin, in shambles and filthy ; why does cochin train station look like some village station, even though one of the highest number of trains to all over india go through cochin. communist govt didnt give a damn, congressis are always corrupt, where is the hope.
Still, we have to dream and hope. cochin is such a beautiful city, it could have become the paris of India; cochin is more popular among scandinavian travelers than indians, they love the city; but alas, have you seen the condition of roads in rainy season, the killer red private buses, no traffic rules, no sewerage system, absolutely no garbage disposal, viral disease, mosquitos.
I mean, how come all other smaller cities like Lucknow, Bhopal, Patna, pune, vizag etc got more central investment than kochi, why??? the marxists greatest achievement was renaming the cities with malayalam names.
The answer lies in the 50 year old history of our neighborhood. see, from 1950 onwards, somehow the tamilians convinced New Delhi that all of southern india means TN or chennai, just take care of chennai; so they built wide roads, offices, govt depts, BARC, all central companies in chennai; tamilians told center there is no need of thinking about other cities, even bangalore was like a small town in terms of infrastructure till 1990. tamilians fooled all other southern states, see what happened to mullaperiyar, now they want to steal kerala's water , the only thing that is left to be looted in kerala. But Bangalore and Hyderabad woke up in time and they are now ahead of chennai in the race for investment, but kerala is still sleeping. Our talented communists are busy distributing chicken, goats etc to so called poor people, that is their highest priority. my dad was a die hard communist, but communists have failed the educated and enterprising people of kerala.
first of all, kerala MPs need to start fighting for their share of central investment. tamilian central ministers have repeatedly thwarted investment in kerala- vallarpadam- balu tried his best to kill it, they want only TN ports to grow, dayanidhi killed nokia in kochi, took it to chennai, BMW went away. why didnt kerala get a railway division, TN has always thwarted those efforts; but still Kerala sleeps. how can a rich state like kerala in terms of human and natural resources be in such shambles. It is really amazing.
there is no scope for BJP in kerala, we are stuck with the corrupt commies and congis... threatening Tatas, reliance retail, or Munnar tourists is not the way to go...all investors will run away, already any investor is scared to death when they hear the name communist...We must generate public opinion in kerala- to bring investments- Cochin should become the Bombay of kerala- no other city can bring in investors and create wealth like kochi. create massive raod network between ALuva, Fort kochi, Vypeen, Kakkanad, Tripunithura and other kochi suburbs, we need at least 10,000 crore rupees investment in kochi infrastructure, it has to come from the central govt, kerala govt can only buy chickens, goats and PDS rice for its people... kerala politicians need to be aggressive to fight for kerala and not allow tamilians to pose as the only people in the south, and keralites are anyway far different people from tamilains culturally.
If DIC can bring the investors back to kerala that would be a good start. DIC need not be only IT companies- the large MNCs in FMCG, Health care, tourism etc can make kochi as their base. We have to wait and watch.
The current marxist govt is busy with demolitions, chasing away companies, has no plan for investments, or improve infrastructure- see the viral fever problem-it is because of sanitation issues only; population control- kerala population should be brought down to 1.5 cr from 3 cr, kerala is a very small state, the pressure on environment is too high. We need a change, BJP or whoever, so that there will be a change from the last 50 years of plunder.
Jai Hind
Vijay Menon
Anonymous said...
I want to present an observation about the investment problems in our state, it is a direct consequence of marxist demagoguery and the destruction of free thought by the communists in kerala. In every thing from economics to education to philosophy to human rights... they have been totally rejected by the world.
Why kerala remains a laggard state in india even as many other states race ahead in development..
I was born in kerala. Then, like many others moved all over India and then came to UK, i will move back to Bangalore (not kerala) in about 5 years.
There are some basic things that are lacking in the development of kerala. with all that has happened in kerala for the last 50 years, one can never hope for progress, it will remain a low value state where militant labor, unreasonable wages, strikes, low quality job, poor work ethic, will always rule ; petty kirana stores and communist labor unions will extort money from NRIs.
Let us look at the basics. Kerala is not a rich state like say california or even Maharashtra or Gujarat. So when you want to create a strong economy to create jobs you need a growth center like bangalore, hyderabad, mumbai; you need one great city, wy doesnt kerala have it; every state has one great city- Hyderabad, Bangalore, New delhi, Mumbai etc.; we should have moved the capital to kochi, even the new kerala legislature should have been built in kochi, they made a huge blunder. a financially bankrupt Kerala can afford to invest only in one major city. It must be Kochi. our politicians dont have any strategy to make the state an investment destination. Why didnt kerala invest more money and effort in building kochi as the growth engine of the state; the roads in kochi are worse than even backward Patna. Even if Trivandrum was the political capital there was no need of a big airport there; state and central govt/ AAI should have invested massively in Cochin airport and increase their shareholding to 25-49% to build more runways; international flights should only go out of Kochi, that will make CIAL more profitable. Why did the Technopark go to TVM and not Kochi; that was the biggest blunder made by govt in IT sector. TVM is a very boring and sleepy city for young IT professionals. TVM should have some institutes that is all was needed there. They should get an AIIMS in TVM. But Kerala never had focus like other states, things just kept drifting. If there is going to be another metro in india it must be Cochin. Today, there is a glimmer of hope- with DIC, Container Terminal etc but still where are the roads, where is the civic infrastructure, power plants, the CIAL airport is too small not viable/profitable. cochin port one of the greatest natural ports in india is languishing because of labor strikes and high labor cost- east coast in TN is actually strategically poorly located, not even an open sea, but Tuticorin is booming because of the parasite workers of Cochin port, what is the power infrastructure in kochi.
where are the bus stands in cochin, in shambles and filthy ; why does cochin train station look like some village station, even though one of the highest number of trains to all over india go through cochin. communist govt didnt give a damn, congressis are always corrupt, where is the hope.
Still, we have to dream and hope. cochin is such a beautiful city, it could have become the paris of India; cochin is more popular among scandinavian travelers than indians, they love the city; but alas, have you seen the condition of roads in rainy season, the killer red private buses, no traffic rules, no sewerage system, absolutely no garbage disposal, viral disease, mosquitos.
I mean, how come all other smaller cities like Lucknow, Bhopal, Patna, pune, vizag etc got more central investment than kochi, why??? the marxists greatest achievement was renaming the cities with malayalam names.
The answer lies in the 50 year old history of our neighborhood. see, from 1950 onwards, somehow the tamilians convinced New Delhi that all of southern india means TN or chennai, just take care of chennai; so they built wide roads, offices, govt depts, BARC, all central companies in chennai; tamilians told center there is no need of thinking about other cities, even bangalore was like a small town in terms of infrastructure till 1990. tamilians fooled all other southern states, see what happened to mullaperiyar, now they want to steal kerala's water , the only thing that is left to be looted in kerala. But Bangalore and Hyderabad woke up in time and they are now ahead of chennai in the race for investment, but kerala is still sleeping. Our talented communists are busy distributing chicken, goats etc to so called poor people, that is their highest priority. my dad was a die hard communist, but communists have failed the educated and enterprising people of kerala.
first of all, kerala MPs need to start fighting for their share of central investment. tamilian central ministers have repeatedly thwarted investment in kerala- vallarpadam- balu tried his best to kill it, they want only TN ports to grow, dayanidhi killed nokia in kochi, took it to chennai, BMW went away. why didnt kerala get a railway division, TN has always thwarted those efforts; but still Kerala sleeps. how can a rich state like kerala in terms of human and natural resources be in such shambles. It is really amazing.
there is no scope for BJP in kerala, we are stuck with the corrupt commies and congis... threatening Tatas, reliance retail, or Munnar tourists is not the way to go...all investors will run away, already any investor is scared to death when they hear the name communist...We must generate public opinion in kerala- to bring investments- Cochin should become the Bombay of kerala- no other city can bring in investors and create wealth like kochi. create massive raod network between ALuva, Fort kochi, Vypeen, Kakkanad, Tripunithura and other kochi suburbs, we need at least 10,000 crore rupees investment in kochi infrastructure, it has to come from the central govt, kerala govt can only buy chickens, goats and PDS rice for its people... kerala politicians need to be aggressive to fight for kerala and not allow tamilians to pose as the only people in the south, and keralites are anyway far different people from tamilains culturally.
If DIC can bring the investors back to kerala that would be a good start. DIC need not be only IT companies- the large MNCs in FMCG, Health care, tourism etc can make kochi as their base. We have to wait and watch.
The current marxist govt is busy with demolitions, chasing away companies, has no plan for investments, or improve infrastructure- see the viral fever problem-it is because of sanitation issues only; population control- kerala population should be brought down to 1.5 cr from 3 cr, kerala is a very small state, the pressure on environment is too high. We need a change, BJP or whoever, so that there will be a change from the last 50 years of plunder.
Jai Hind
Vijay Menon
10:37 PM
Hi Biju,
Nice to see you here. Thanks for the apreciation. I know we have a lot of differences between us. I still have to write the part II .
Vijay,
Thanks your response. Unfortunately you did not respond to lines in my blog. I hope you
are waiting for the second part.
I value the opinions you made about Kerala. Such responses are not un-common, especially NRI professionals working in Western countries.
Before presenting my response to some of your comments, let me clarify what I think about Marxism. Marxism is an attempt to analyze and act in a structured way. It tries to address the complexity of the world with out being speculative and dogmatic. Marxist often become speculative and dogmatic. For example, we can see the speculation over the proceedings in the communist party (CPM) in the Malayalam New papers today. There need intense ideological struggle for not being speculative and dogmatic, therefore History of Marxism is marked with intense struggles of ideas. Such struggles provide historical break through, which often creates new epochs and often fails. Young Lenin's struggle against orthodox and elder Marxists, lead to an epoch. It was due to various factors including the great depression....On other hand Mao's struggle to rally people against the power structure which he himself heads failed to grow further.
Even though Marxism is very simple, it is not easy for some people to be a Marxist. Inorder to be a marxist one need to believe in the people- masses and their power, one need to believe that all are equal 'not just before the god', but also in terms of their contribution to this world and their share of the fruits of this world'. You should at least believe in this in principle. Such a belief is easy for those who are denied by the fruits of this world. But for others it is not easy.
In fact, the goal of a Marxist is to build a society world wide in which every one is entitled to have same share in the fruits of the globe, irrespective of his ability to contribute to it. Inequality in getting the 'share of fruits' results from two raesons. 1. The share is less that the contribution - 2. Share is equal to the contribution, but some people cannot contribute as much as others and those who contribute more insists for a proportionate share in return, which is often huge.
First one is related with exploitation. Second is related with productivity and moral health of individual.
Marxist's attempt to 'analyze and act' is mainly to solve these two issues. We have seen at least one society in which the first issue is solved - Soviet Union. But they could not solve the second issue, which need more time and determinations across generations. They failed to retain the guards against first issue. The first issue re appeared.
The concept of 'sacrifice' is different for Marxists and Gandians. For Marxists' sacrifice means not to take more than your share even if your contribution is huge. This is not just to save the resources, but it is essential to replicate such behaviour across more productive sections of the society, so that the 'second' issue be solved. Obviously the general productivity should be increased too for it.
CPM and CPI are popular political parties in Kerala. They are not termed as fully Marxist. they are struck with daily matters in the parliament and elections. I don't say that it is not needed, but being Marxist is much more than winning elections. They seems to be best among the popular parties in Kerala. Please remember that around 40% of Kerala population always stood with them right from 1957.
Could you try to answer why people are with them despite all the evils you list. ?
JaiHind
Bharath Matha Ki Jai
Shaheed Bhagat Singh Amar Rahee : http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv3n1/bsingh.htm
With Warm Regards
Naaz
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