The
prehistoric
development of gardening skills demonstrates that technological
progress did occur in "primitive" communities and,
moreover, that it tended to take more ecologically sustainable forms
than it has in class society. Thus the transition to agriculture did
not mark the beginning of technological progress.
Some
have suggested
that the Neolithic Revolution may have been socially regressive in
yet another sense. Contemporary Stone Age groups are culturally open.
Intermarriage is common across the boundaries not only of local bands
but also of broader speech communities. Among bushmen, "individuals
are free to move from group to group, partake of local resources, and
participate in whatever cooperative social efforts occur wherever
they are" (Cohen, p. 62). The same will apply, we hope, in a
future socialist society. In the view of many though not all
prehistorians, the wide geographical distribution of identical sets
of tools (e.g., the Acheulian tool complex) indicates a similar
cultural openness in the Stone Age. Only in the period immediately
preceding the shift to agriculture did Stone Age society fracture
into closed "tribal" groups.
The
argument,
however, that the Neolithic Revolution and the class societies that
emerged from it have been socially regressive in all respects
cannot be sustained. Their cultural, scientific and technological
achievements cannot be denied. But as we contemplate the last few
millennia, full of suffering, futility, and moral and ecological
degradation, we may well wonder whether the losses outweigh the
gains.
Will the
establishment of socialism justify in retrospect the painful path
that led to it? Socialism, unfortunately, is a much more uncertain
prospect than Marx assumed. If we don't awake in time from the
nightmare of class society, the Neolithic Revolution will have to be
regarded as the crucial event that triggered the fatal degeneration
of our species and the final devastation of our planet. After all, in
the Stone Age we already had socialism, even though it was at a
fairly low technological level.
To save
the species
and the planet, what we need is a return to the communal life of
those days but at a higher technological level.
Stefan
Stating
the obvious
Edmund
Phelps won the 2006 Nobel prize for economics for research into the
interplay between prices, unemployment and inflation expectations. A
press release gave the reasons:
“Phelps
suggested that in setting prices and negotiating wages, employers and
workers make judgements about future inflation that in turn influence
the inflation outcome. As a consequence, the long-run rate of
unemployment is not affected by inflation but only determined by the
functioning of the labour market. The academy said the theoretical
framework Phelps developed in the late 1960s helped economists
understand the causes of soaring prices and unemployment in the
1970s. Phelps's work has fundamentally altered our views on how the
macroeconomy operates.” (http://money.cnn.com/2006/10/09/news/newsmakers/phelps_nobel.reut/index.htm)
Phelps's
explanation for inflation amounts to the circular argument that
rising prices cause rising prices. This doesn't really explain
anything about contemporary capitalism and it doesn't explain those
periods of capitalist history when the general price level (including
the price known as a wage or salary) was stable or falling.
The
real explanation is to be found outside the circle of rising prices,
in the government issuing more currency than is needed for economic
transactions to take place. Whenever and wherever currency inflation
has taken place, rising prices have been the result. It is of course
true that once the psychology of inflationary expectations is
established, employers and unions will want to take into account
future inflation rates when determining wage levels. But the real
underlying explanation (currency inflation) is radically different
from Phelps's superficial view that rising prices cause rising
prices.
Up to the 1970s the ruling theory in economics was the
Phillips Curve. This basically said that there was a trade-off
between inflation and unemployment: we could have higher inflation
and lower unemployment or lower inflation and higher
unemployment. Until the 1970s, that is, when we had both rising
inflation and rising unemployment. That discredited the
Phillips Curve. But what would economists tell the ruling class now?
According to Phelps, the message is: “unemployment
is not affected by inflation.” Brilliant!
Give that man a Nobel prize! But even this isn't quite right, since
it is possible for inflation to get seriously out of control, causing
economic dislocation and rising unemployment as in Weimar Germany in
the 1920s.
Phelps is right to say that the long-run rate of
unemployment is determined by the functioning of the labour market.
But this is something we have said for many years —
well before Phelps. Can we have our Nobel prize now?
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