On Wed, Dec 31, 2025 at 08:32 AM, Jim Farmelant wrote, summarizing Remarkl's points:
> > Socialism fails because its incentive problems are *fatal* , whereas > capitalism’s incentive problems are *manageable through politics*. Here is where Marx's accidental Godwinism may be come in handy. Marx was deeply appreciative of the 1821 pamphlet, The Source and Remedy of the National Difficulties , which unbeknownst to him was a Godwin-influenced rebuttal to classical political economy. Godwin would reply to Remarkl that responses to incentives are conditioned and therefore it is not rational to suppose that one could change the world by simply imposing a different set of incentives. Godwin's argument against revolution is remarkably consonant with Marx's Theses on Feuerbach, aside from the fact that Marx was defining revolutionary practice. The point is that incentives do not exist in a vacuum. > > "The materialist doctrine concerning the changing of circumstances and > upbringing forgets that circumstances are changed by men and that it is > essential to educate the educator himself. This doctrine must, therefore, > divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to society. > > > "The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or > self-changing can be conceived and rationally understood only as > revolutionary practice." > Assuming "capitalism's incentive problems are manageable through politics" either assumes that responses to incentives are not historically conditioned or that the politics of managing those incentive problems excludes revolutionary politics. The latter seems a rather narrow view of politics and the former an ahistorical view of incentives. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#39938): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/39938 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/116961607/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
