Comments Elsewhere

> this is a person who was elected to SERVE, Well, no. She was elected to *rule*. The notion that people who make laws for a living -- i.e., who spend all their time crafting and imposing rules that everyone else in the country will be forced to obey, whether we like it or not -- are somehow "servants" of the people they are constantly ordering around is the most ridiculous sort of black-is-white, up-is-down inversion of the truth. If someone is your servant, then they do what you tell them to do. There is a name for the kind of person who spends their time telling *you* what to do, and who makes you do it whether you want to or not; but "servant" is not it.

> this is a person who was elected to SERVE, Well, no. She was elected to *rule*. The notion that people who make laws for a living -- i.e., who spend all their time crafting and imposing rules that everyone else in the country will be forced to obey, whether we like it or not -- are somehow "servants" of the people they are constantly ordering around is the most ridiculous sort of black-is-white, up-is-down inversion of the truth. If someone is your servant, then they do what you tell them to do. There is a name for the kind of person who spends their time telling *you* what to do, and who makes you do it whether you want to or not; but "servant" is not it.

In LeftLibertarian2@yahoogroups.com, "Nathan Byrd" ... Speaking only for myself, I'm happy to count discovery as a form of labor, but I don't

... Well, surely the claim you're rejecting in the first sentence, and the claim that you're rejecting in the second sentence, are two separate claims, yes?

I am saying the theory that Carson comes up with in his book is a pastiche.

That’s fine, but again, if his acknowledged major influences (Tucker, Tucker’s understanding of Proudhon, etc.) aren’t a “pastiche,” why say that his work is? In general, it seems to me that you are completely ignoring the folks he most frequently cites and most directly identifies with, and focusing a great deal on the folks he least mentions and least approves of. (Perhaps because you are unaware of the fact that things like “the labor theory of value” or “exploitation theories” are not unique to Marx, and in fact predate Marx, and so you wrongly see him as drawing from Marx or adverting to Marx in places where he is actually drawing from quite different sources.)

It seems to me to be hodgepodge of disparate and even contradictory ideas.

O.K., great. So could you give me an example of two ideas that he endorses which you see as contradictory (*)? That might help me better understand where you’re coming from than once again repeating a general speculation about his purposes or strategy.

(* I don’t care whether or not they are “disparate.” Most good thinkers draw from disparate sources and make unexpected connections.)

Even if this is not exactly what you are saying, the attempt is still flawed and wrong. Why do you even want to do this …

Perhaps because he thinks that the Labor Theory of Value, properly understood, is true?

Of course, you might disagree with him. But then you ought to give some kind of response that at least indicates you’ve understood the theory he’s advancing and that you have reasons for rejecting it. As it stands you don’t seem to be able to distinguish it from Marx’s at all (hence your repeated claims that Kevin is drawing on Marxist ideas, when he’s actually criticizing Marx), and now your complaint seems to be that even if it is a different claim from the claim Marx makes, the very attempt to articulate and defend a labor theory can be tossed out as “flawed and wrong” sight-unseen. Why?

… other than to rescue some kind LTV so you can fit it into your exploitation theory?

The fact that a theory of value, if true, would lend some support to an exploitation theory about wage-labor (or ground-rents or interest) is certainly not an argument for that theory of value. But it’s not an argument against that theory of value, either. Whether an exploitation theory about wage-labor (or ground rents or interest) is true or false is something to be decided by the facts about society as it exists, not a first principle that you accept or reject ex ante and then try to pick a value-theory according to your choice.

As for why Kevin would believe in an exploitation theory, well, he gives his arguments for believing it in Part 2 of SMPE. (*) If you have some response to those arguments (beyond “I am not sure I understood them, but I am sure they are wrong,” which seems to be what you’re saying about his writing on the LTV), then I’d be interested to hear them. An intelligent critique of arguments is always interesting. Throwing up your hands at a conclusion and shouting “This vaguely resembles a conclusion also endorsed by Marx! Marx sucks, so this too must suck!” is not.

(*) For what it’s worth, his version of the LTV fits nicely with his version of exploitation theory, but is probably not necessary for it: the arguments he gives in Part 2 could generally be accepted independently of the discussion of the LTV in Part 1.

1. I’m not Kevin Carson. Kevin posts under his own name, as I see he has done here.

2. I don’t think that 170 years or so is really very “old,” as far as ideas go, and the works of Proudhon are not more “obscure” than the works of, say, Murray Rothbard. (Tucker and Warren are better candidates for obscurity, in that relatively few people know of them now except for people within the Anarchist movement. Lots of people outside the Anarchist scene know about Proudhon; probably more than know about Rothbard.)

However, in any case, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with old ideas, or obscure ones. Do you? Obscure ideas are sometimes right, and popular ideas are often wrong.

My point in mentioning the age of the original mutualist texts was to point out that it is ludicrous to present mutualism as a “pastische,” or an attempt at synthesizing, Marx’s ideas and Rothbard’s. As is the attempt to present Kevin’s work as such a synthesis, when it draws mainly from Tucker’s mutualism, with frequent mentions of more recent anarchists and libertarians (among them Rothbard and Colin Ward), and less frequent mentions of Marx (who is mentioned in Part 1 of SMPE mainly in order to attack his conception of the Labor Theory of Value).

3. The rest of your comment seems to be addressed to a “you” who you wrongly presume to be Kevin Carson. I’ll let him speak for himself as to your speculation as to his motives and methods. I will however say that I don’t know what you think makes for “an impressive academic theory” if it’s compatible with “[throwing] a bunch of crap on a pile and [seeing] what sticks.” Perhaps you are easy to impress; or perhaps you mean to suggest that academics are. In either case, if the claim is supposed to be that Kevin is more interested with showing off erudition or impressing academics than he is with getting to the truth or understanding people, then you are talking about something I am pretty sure you know nothing about, and making yourself ridiculous to those of us who have actually spent at least five minutes talking with him.

... In a message dated 1/4/2011 6:17:22 PM Central Standard Time, ... I didn't "ignore" this point, Mike. I gave you several examples of people who were born

... She was briefly permitted to return to the U.S., temporarily, for the purposes of a lecture tour in the mid-1930s. But she was never able to live in the

Just out of curiosity, have you ever read one of Kevin Carson’s books (such as Studies in Mutualist Political Economy), where he gives the arguments in favor of the economic claims that he makes? (I mean actually read it, from cover to cover.)

Or are you just taking it for granted that the conclusions he draws have been pre-refuted, since some part of those conclusions are, in some sense or another, shared by Marxists?

In particular, have you ever read Part 1 of Studies of Mutualist Political Economy, wherein (among other things), Carson discusses several different versions of the Labor Theory of Value, including but not limited to Marx’s version (Marx did not invent the idea, and there were many rival versions of the LTV at the time he wrote), explains why he finds Marx’s version severely lacking, and why the specific Labor Theory that he intends to defend (a version which he identifies with Tucker and radical interpreters of Ricardo) is not susceptible to the same counter-arguments that Marx’s version is?