[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

LBird wrote:

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

Entrepreneurs are sociopaths.

What a profound and nuanced analysis.

Yeah, perhaps too profound for both Piketty and you?Wake up.

This may be of interest to the pair of you.

My 'entrepreneurs are sociopaths' comment was merely intended to highlight the political ideology of Piketty, which, quite strangely, seems to be being ignored by comrades who have read his book. It's almost as if they seem to think that 'facts' exist outside of any theoretical framework, and thus that Piketty's book can be read 'apolitically' for its 'apolitical' facts.In reality, Piketty is an ideological bulwark of the bourgeoisie, and he's chosen his concepts and facts to suit his political framework (as we all inescapably do). Thus, his use of 'entrepreneur' (a bourgeois category) and his placing of this category in a positive light. I'm surprised that more comrades haven't picked up on Piketty's ideology, which is opposed to ours.But why DJP chose to make their uncomradely comment? I've no idea. Perhaps, and I'm trying to read between the lines of our earlier exchanges about 'science', DJP does believe in the sancitity of 'facts', and that an 'entrepreneur' is a 'fact' and that Piketty is merely objectively reporting the existence of 'the facts of life', ie. Capitalism, which we have to deal with.Being a Communist, I don't accept those so-called 'facts', and wish to change those 'facts' for our 'facts'. I think Piketty is a bullshitter, an academic who doesn't know his economic arse from his ideological elbow.Again, I find it quite surprising that so many comrades seem to take bourgeois academics at their word and at face value. I don't, I criticise them.Just a trouble-making Commie, eh? Bit like you, aj, you stirrer, you!

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

Entrepreneurs are sociopaths.

What a profound and nuanced analysis.

Yeah, perhaps too profound for both Piketty and you?Wake up.

[LBird]

Piketty, pp.443-4, wrote:

No one denies that it is important for society to have entrepreneurs…. Entrepreneurs thus tend to turn into rentiers….[but we must act] while preserving entrepreneurial dynamism…

Entrepreneurs are sociopaths.What bit does ‘professor’ Piketty not understand about this?

Quote:

sociopath:a person with a psychopathic personality whose behavior is antisocial, often criminal, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sociopathAnd a ‘rentier’ is just a successful sociopath.So, to translate for the non-communist, pro-Piketty crowd:Piketty wants dynamic sociopaths, who are ‘important for society’, even though he realises that they succeed in their sociopathy, and so he proposes… ‘tax’?Perhaps Piketty, as a 60s judge, would have proposed that Hindley and Brady should have been punished by putting them in a higher tax band?The more I’ve read of this book, the more laughable it becomes.Whilst the people reading it give the term ‘entrepreneur’ any validity whatsoever, they are using the wrong ideology to understand Piketty.We need a translation from ‘bourgeois’ to ‘proletarian’, never mind from ‘French’ to ‘English’.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

…knowing…what it is…

That's the point that you're missing entirely, YMS.Humans 'knowing what something is' is a lot more problematic than your appear to realise.What Piketty 'knows' and what we 'know' of the apparently same 'it' is the problem.The 'it' doesn't tell us 'what it is'.The belief that the 'it' tells humans 'what it is' is an ideological belief, rooted in 19th century positivistic science, and, for Communists, rooted in Engels' misunderstandings of Marx.To 'know' an 'it', the 'it' must be defined first, by humans.Fish do not have 'fish' written upon their sides…

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Or, put another way: if we know the rod, know the river and the time we can accept the fish for our own porpoises.  We don't condemn for such choises, that would be foolish, because those choices mean something to us too.

But if the 'fish' is used for the 'porpoises' of making 'glue', what use it then for our purposes of producing a fish & chip supper?We can 'condemn such choices' and waste, unless you're happy to be given a 'bostik butty' for supper.We can't separate out 'facts' or 'raw data' from the purposes for which it was 'collected', YMS. By accident, some 'data' might be useful or relevant, but we would have to determine that by placing the 'data' within our contexts, if that is possible.It's a serious methodological error to think that 'data' is ever 'raw'. Choice is inescapable.We must examine the 'chooser' and their 'choices', and what 'concoction' is produced from the combination and structuring of those 'choices'.For me, Piketty's 'concoction' is a rancid 'fish' stew of uncertain status and origin. May contain nuts. Or porpoise penis.I think I prefer Marx's culinary skills and tastes.

[LBird]

Once more, for those unfamiliar with Carr's famous quote:

E. H. Carr, in What is History?, wrote:

"Study the historian before you begin to study the facts. …. The facts are really not at all like fish on the fishmonger's slab. They are like fish swimming about in a vast and sometimes inaccessible ocean; and what the historian catches will depend, partly on chance, but mainly on what part of the ocean he chooses to fish in and what tackle he chooses to use – these two factors being, of course, determined by the kind of fish he wants to catch. By and large, the historian will get the kind of facts he wants. History means interpretation."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_History%3FThis all applies to science, too. This is the proper scientific method.Hence, "Study Piketty", not just his book of 'economic facts'.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

That analogy doesn't hold, though, does it, by your own account. The selectivity of evidence presupposes that there is phenomenal evidence to select from.

This is all very difficult for you, isn't it, YMS?What do you think 'fish' represent in Carr's brilliant analogy?'Fish' don't have their origin in a Fisherman's head, do they?

YMS wrote:

To return to my natural history theme…

You actually mean:

YMSs ideology wrote:

To get away from philosophy of science, of which I know nothing, and get back to 'the real world' beloved of conservative thinkers…

And so,

YMS wrote:

So, the only point of contention is the extent to which an author:Is aware of their premises/presuppositionsArticulates their premises/presuppositionsConceals or attempts to concceal their premises/presuppositions

No, this is not about 'individuals', YMS.It's about how societies (especially classes) brainwash 'authors' into being aware of premises/presuppositions which make sense to that society.The bourgeoisie CAN'T be 'aware' of what we're aware, because they are not Communists, whereas we are Communists.In short, it's about the politics of the 'author'. The author is a glove-puppet for their socially-implanted ideology.Your 'point of contention' is like insisting we ask Sooty if he's aware of Mr. Corbett's 'premises/presuppositions'.Whatever 'Sooty' says, we know it's not Sooty's opinions, which we can change by talking to Sooty.To make it clear, for 'Sooty', read 'Piketty'. The bourgeoisie has got its hand up Piketty's arse, comrade. He'll 'fish' for the 'fish' that his training, tackle, bait and choice of river determine. The 'fish' he'll get won't be the same as us, because we're using different training, tackle, bait and a different river.And which sauce will the 'objective, raw, fish' be served with? To 'taste', another social factor…

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Anyway, L.Bird, have you reached chapter 10 yet on "The Inequality of Capital Ownership"? If so, I'd be interested in what you think of it.

No, I've only reached chapter 4, and that's only with some skipping!For me, reading bourgeois economists like Piketty is a bit like reading a 700 page account by a child about how the tooth-fairy puts a tanner under the pillow. It's full of 'interesting' detail like the wingspan of the fairy, how the pillow is filled with 'magic-down', so that the pillow floats up holding the head of the sleeper whilst the tooth-fairy deposits the 6d…No, I'm quite capable of seeing through the child's fairy-tale, I know where they've got this ludicrous idea from, and I just want to know why the tight-arsed parent only gave the kid a tanner for that bloody big, painfully extracted, molar.Pikitty, like all professors (and especially economists), is like a particularly slow kid who 'believes in' the tooth-fairy.I'm just surprised at how many regard his 'tales' as 'enchanting', rather than essentially misleading. pgb is apparently enamoured of the kid's curls and teddy-bear pyjamas. Ahhh, how cute! It must be the truth!Only the nasty Communists, LBird and alanjjohnstone (AKA "can't and don't know"), hate cute kids. Bastards!

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

LBird wrote:

I'm quite happy to play Cassius to your Brutus, Alan,

Interesting alliance between a Know Nothing and a Can't Know Anything !

Brilliant, ALB!

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

…by all means start a let's put the knife into Kunkel thread and whoever else you think is misleading and diversionery …a very long list …and i will happily add a few dagger strokes.

I'm quite happy to play Cassius to your Brutus, Alan, in our determined campaign to kill any Caesar-like economist.

[LBird]

pgb wrote:

Which makes me wonder: have you actually read his book?

Since I’ve already said on this thread that I’ve received and started to read the book, and I’ve already provided some quotes from Piketty, it ‘makes me wonder’ what the intent of your question is. I’ve already pointed out that your ‘tone’ in your first post to me was ‘uncomradely’, and I’m minded to think that you’re continuing in this vein.But, to give you the benefit of the doubt, I’ll assume that you’re just a bit slow, rather than being insulting.Your main failure, so far, is to completely misunderstand the nature of the term ‘cooked’ in relation to ‘data’, in my posts. You appear to think ‘data’ can be either ‘raw’ or ‘cooked’, depending upon the trustworthiness of the ‘scientist’. For you, the nature of the ‘data’ is dependent upon the morality of the scientist. And you ‘trust’ Piketty.

pgb wrote:

…you say that Picketty's data is "cooked"; he asked questions that already fitted in with his answers; his book is "ideological" (as opposed to "scientific"); he is a used-car salesman; just another apologist for capitalism, displays bad conscience, and of course is also a "hired prizefighter".

Yes, Piketty is employing ‘cooked data’, he is employing an ideology which determines his questions and answers, and he is what you say I’ve said.

pgb wrote:

I have been very slow in reading Picketty and am only now up to page 300. But nothing I have read so far gives the slightest support to your claims. Despite my long established skepticism regarding French theorists in many disciplines, I was pleasantly surprised to find Picketty lucid, no bullshitting, fair-minded in his assessment of others (incl. Marx), and certainly intellectually honest.

You seem to have no grasp of science and its method, pgb, notwithstanding your ‘pleasant surprise’. This has nothing to do with ‘lucidity’, ‘fairmindedness’ or ‘honesty’. The scientific issue is that all scientists select their ‘data’: Piketty, me, you, Einstein, Marx, etc., etc. All ‘data’ is ‘cooked’, in this sense. My posts, if you’d read them, constantly show this contrast between the mythical, bourgeois-inspired ideology of ‘raw data’ and the scientific method which stresses the ‘theory-ladenness of data’. The only ‘raw data’ is ‘everything, everywhere, at all times’. The pretence that any ‘slice’ of reality is ‘raw’ is a myth: to ‘slice’ is to ‘cook’. Selection means parameters of selection, and parameters mean pre-existing ideology.

pgb wrote:

In the end, all you seem to be saying is that your "ideology" would select different economic and social issues as objects of study than the issues Picketty has chosen. Which is not saying very much, and provides no ground at all for making judgments on the quality and significance of Picketty's research.

Well, do you make your “judgments on the quality and significance of Picketty's research” based upon Piketty’s ideology or upon Communist ideology? Or do you pretend to be an ‘individual’ with a unique opinion? That is, some sort of ‘liberal’ ideology. You haven’t been open with us, have you?I’m open in my exposure of my ideology, and thus my viewpoint or stance, from which I make my judgments of Piketty. I agree with Marx, that bourgeois economists (like Piketty) are ‘hired prize fighters’ of the bourgeoisie, and not ‘objective’ commentators upon ‘raw data’.So, Piketty can be lucid, fairminded and honest, from a bourgeois perspective, and still be bullshitting us Communists. That’s because he himself doesn’t understand how capitalism works; if he did, he’d be a Communist.

pgb wrote:

Which makes me wonder: have you actually read his book?

And I wonder if you even know what you’re doing, reading Piketty’s book. Do you know Piketty’s ideology? Do you even know your own? Do you know what science is? Do you know that all science is ideological, and that all scientists are ideological? If you don’t know any of these things, please read up on it before you continue beyond page 300. Otherwise, you’ll continue to waste your time on the rest of the book.

[LBird]

pgb wrote:

I've not read everything of Marx by a long way, but describing someone as "a hired prize-fighter for the bourgeoisie" doesn't sound like Marx to me.

Here's the source, pgb. A bit about 'science' and 'disinterested' enquiry, too.

Karl Marx, Afterword in Capital, wrote:

In France and in England the bourgeoisie had conquered political power. Thenceforth, the class struggle, practically as well as theoretically, took on more and more outspoken and threatening forms. It sounded the knell of scientific bourgeois economy. It was thenceforth no longer a question, whether this theorem or that was true, but whether it was useful to capital or harmful, expedient or inexpedient, politically dangerous or not. In place of disinterested inquirers, there were hired prize fighters; in place of genuine scientific research, the bad conscience and the evil intent of apologetic.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/p3.htm%5BPenguin Classics edition, p. 97]So, I have it on good authority that Piketty is displaying 'the bad conscience and the evil intent of apologetic'.

[LBird]

pgb wrote:

You on the other hand, seem to have an aversion to the use of statistical data (and of mathematics generally) in economic analysis. So can you tell me please what sources you would use if you were to undertake the same task as Picketty, ie. to map the elusive shape of wealth and income inequality in modern capitalist societies? Picketty uses the World's Top Incomes Database (WITD, accessible on the Net), National Income and other data from various governments, estate tax returns etc. I like his honesty in saying that these sources, though the most extensive ever assembled, are yet incomplete and imperfect. However, since you believe that facts are constituted by theory (and ideology) I assume that the data you would use re inequality would be quite different than Picketty's data since he is a "bourgeois economist" with a different theory (and ideology) to you, a Communist. So what data would you use?

I'm not sure where this uncomradely tirade came from, pgb.I've never expressed "an aversion to the use of statistical data (and of mathematics generally)".I've always argued that any scientist should reveal their 'ideological' beliefs, which determine what counts as 'data', whether statistical, mathematical, anecdotal, literary, palaeological, religious, philological, mythical, etc., etc.The 'data' I would use would be 'data' produced by my ideology.I'm a Communist.Since we live in a capitalist society, most of the 'data' we need is either not collected or is not regarded as 'economic data'.The data that does exist is ignored by Piketty, and all other bourgeois economists.I'm quite happy for 'statistical and mathematical' techiques to be employed to produce 'data' referring to 'exploitation'.But first, we need a unit of exploitation to be defined and measured. Of course, we would already be aware that much 'exploitation' is not 'objectively measurable', and so is not so amenable to 'mathematics or statistics' and can't be captured as a 'unit', as it regards such subjective proletarian experiences as feelings of boredom or resentment.As a simple example, I would argue that 'personal happiness' would be an 'economic measure' within Communist economics. This could be determined by asking each worker how they 'feel' about their work, on a scale of 1 to 10. Any worker scoring less than 10 would be offered a different job.This sort of 'statistics and mathematics' is meaningless to the profession of economics.Our Communist 'economics' would be a world away from Piketty's bourgeois concerns.

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Why did he include solutions that he even considers to be extremely unlikely to be turned into policy?This seems to be what his fellow professionals all draw attention to (as i have quoted from)…

I think he knows his solutions require a jettisoning of 'mathematical' economics, and that his profession isn't ready to do so, yet at least. His 'fellow professionals' aren't yet ready to return to 'political economy' (which is, in effect, what Piketty is pleading for) and prefer to persevere with 'economics' (ie. neo-classical, individualist, mathematics).They seem suspicious of where 'political economy' might go… given where it all ended up last time, in another book called 'Capital'.

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

I'm asking this question …Who did Piketty write his book for (rather than why)…

It seems that the ‘target audience’ for his book, Alan, is his own profession: that is, the bourgeois economists.

Piketty, Capital, p. 32 wrote:

To put it bluntly, the discipline of economics has yet to get over its childish passion for mathematics and for purely theoretical and often highly ideological speculation, at the expense of historical research and collaboration with the other social sciences… This obsession with mathematics is an easy way of acquiring the appearance of scientificity….Hence they must set side their contempt for other disciplines and their absurd claim to greater scientific legitimacy, despite the fact that they know almost nothing about anything….The truth is that economics should never have sought to divorce itself from the other social sciences and can advance only in conjunction with them.

And although you wanted ‘who’ rather than ‘why’, I have to hazard a guess as to ‘why’.I think that many experienced bourgeois economists can see that their discipline is disappearing up its own arse, under the deleterious influence of ‘anglo-saxon’ mathematics, and even students of economics in the universities have recently started becoming restless with being taught essentially meaningless mathematical formulae. I think that it’s no co-incidence that Piketty is French, and so from a different ‘European’ tradition which is far more aware of history (1871?), than the smug British-American ‘mathematical and statistical’ number-crunching idiots, who pay no attention to meanings or contexts, social, cultural and historical.So, I think Piketty is a good bourgeois economist, who seeks to wake up, to open the eyes, of his fellow capitalism-sympathisers and ideologists, before his profession becomes entirely worthless to the bourgeoisie in the class war. ‘Economics’ needs to regain some credibility, and Piketty is there to help.Piketty is, in the words of Marx, a hired-prizefighter for the bourgeoisie. We Communists shouldn’t be taken in by his ideology, methods, ‘data’ or resultsI think Piketty’s book is the result of a theoretical crisis with the economics profession, and will probably have no lasting effect (either within the profession or with the wider public), unless we are about to see the crumbling of the Anglo-Saxon, Thatcher/Reagan, Hayek/Friedman ideological axis within the discipline of economics.Whatever the outcome of that internecine struggle, we Communists have to pose a fundamentally different alternative, based upon Marx, or bourgeois economics will simply march on in either the old ‘mathematical’ mode or a new Pikettian form, both to our detriment.

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