[ExI] David Brin: The Enlightenment Strikes Back (i.e. the continuing relevance of Marx)

[Jef Allbright]

Forwarded in its entirety (after reformatting) from another list.  Hat
tip to James Hughes:

-------------------------

The Enlightenment Strikes  Back

David Brin

* THE UNLIKELINESS OF A POSITIVE SUM SOCIETY

Today's "modern large-scale capitalist representative democracy cum
welfare state cum corporate oligopoly" works largely because the
systems envisioned by John Locke and Adam Smith have burgeoned
fantastically, producing synergies in highly nonlinear ways that
another prominent social philosopher — Karl Marx — never imagined.
Ways that neither Marx nor the ruling castes of prior cultures even
could imagine.

Through processes of competitive creativity and reciprocal
accountability, the game long ago stopped being zero-sum (I can only
win if you lose) and became prodigiously positive-sum. (We all win,
though I'd still like to win a little more than you.) (See Robert
Wright's excellent book "Non-Zero".)

Yes, if you read over the previous paragraph, I sound a lot like some
of the boosters of FIBM or Faith In Blind Markets… among whom you'll
find the very same neocons and conspiratorial kleptocrats who I accuse
of ruining markets! Is that a contradiction?

Not at all. Just as soviet commissars recited egalitarian nostrums,
while relentlessly quashing freedom in the USSR, many of our own
right-wing lords mouth "pro-enterprise" lip service, while doing
everything they can to cheat and foil competitive markets. To kill the
golden goose that gave them everything.

The problem is that our recent, synergistic system has always had to
push uphill against a perilous slope of human nature. The
Enlightenment is just a couple of centuries old. Feudalism/tribalism
had uncountable millennia longer to work a selfish, predatory logic
into our genes, our brains. We are all descended from insatiable men,
who found countless excuses for cheating, expropriating the labor of
others, or preserving their power against challenges from below. Not
even the wisest of us can guarantee we'd be immune from temptation to
abuse power, if we had it.

Some, like George Washington, have set a pretty good example. They
recognize these backsliding trends in themselves, and collaborate in
the establishment of institutions, designed to let accountability
flow. Others perform lip-service, then go on to display every dismal
trait that Karl Marx attributed to shortsighted bourgeois
"exploiters."

Indeed, it seems that every generation must face this ongoing battle,
between those who "get" what Washington and many others aimed for —
the positive-sum game — and rationalizers who are driven by our
primitive, zero-sum drives. A great deal is at stake, at a deeper
level that mere laws and constitutions. Moreover, if the human
behavior traits described by Karl Marx ever do come roaring back, to
take hold in big ways, then so might some of the social scenarios that
he described.

* SHOULD WE — SERIOUSLY — HAVE A FRESH LOOK AT OLD KARL MARX?

Do you, as an educated 21st Century man or woman, know very much about
the controversy that transfixed western civilization for close to a
century and a half? A furious argument, sparked by a couple of dense
books, written by a strange little bearded man? Or do you shrug off
Marx as an historical oddity? Perhaps a cousin of Groucho?

Were our ancestors - both those who followed Marx and those who
opposed him - stupid to have found him interesting or to have fretted
over the scenarios he foretold?

I often refer to Marx as the greatest of all science fiction authors,
because — while his long-range forecasts nearly all failed, and some
of his premises (like the labor theory of value) were pure fantasy —
he nevertheless shed heaps of new light and focused the attention of
millions upon many basics of both economics and human nature. As a
story-spinner, Marx laid down some "if this goes on"
thought-experiments that seemed vividly plausible to people of his
time, and for a century afterwards.  People who weren't stupid. People
who were, in fact, far more intimate with the consequences of social
stratification than we have been, in the latest, pampered generation.

As virtually the inventor of the term "capitalism," Marx ought to be
studied (and criticized) by anyone who wants to understand our way of
life.

What's been forgotten, since the fall of communism, is that the USSR's
 'experiment' was never even remotely "Marxism." And, hence, we cannot
simply watch "The Hunt For Red October" and then shrug off the entire
set of mental and historical challenges. By my own estimate, he was
only 50% a deluded loon — a pretty good ratio, actually. (I cannot
prove that I'm any better!) The other half was brilliant (ask any
economist) and still a powerful caution. Moreover, anyone who claims
to be a thinker about our civilization should be able to argue which
half was which.

Marx's forecasts seem to have failed not because they were off-base in
extrapolating the trends of 19th Century bourgeois capitalism. He
extrapolated fine. But what he never imagined was that human beings
might intelligently perceive, and act to alter those selfsame powerful
trends! While living amid the Anglo Saxon Enlightenment, Marx never
grasped its potential for self-criticism, reconfiguration and
generating positive-sum alternatives.

A potential for changing or outgrowing patterns that he (Marx)
considered locked, in stone.

Far from the image portrayed by simplistic FIBM cultists, we did not
escape Marx's scenarios through laissez-faire indolence. In fact, his
forecasts failed - ironically - because people read and studied Karl
Marx.

* HUMAN NATURE ALWAYS CONSPIRES AGAINST ENLIGHTENMENT

This much is basic. We are all descended from rapacious, insatiable
cheaters and (far worse) rationalizers. Every generation of
aristocrats (by whatever surface definition you use, from soviet
nomenklatura, theocrats, or royalty to top CEOs) will come up with
marvelous excuses for why they should be allowed to go back to
oligarchic rule-by-cabal and "guided allocation of resources" (GAR),
instead of allowing open competition/cooperation to put their high
status under threat. Indeed, those who most stridently tout faith in
blind markets are often among the worst addicts of GAR.

In particular, it is the most natural thing in the world for capital
owners and GAR-masters to behave in the way that Karl Marx modeled.
His forecast path of an ever-narrowing oligarchy — followed ultimately
by revolution — had solid historical grounding and seemed well on its
way to playing out.

What prevented it from happening - and the phenomenon that would have
boggled poor old KM - was for large numbers of western elites and
commonfolk to weigh alternatives, to see these natural human failure
modes, and to act intelligently against them. He certainly never
envisioned a smart society that would extend bourgeois rights and
social mobility to the underclasses. Nor that societies might set up
institutions that would break entirely from his model, by keeping
things open, dynamic, competitive, and reciprocally accountable,
allowing the nonlinear fecundity of markets and science and democracy
to do their positive-sum thing.

In his contempt for human reasoning ability (except for his own), Marx
neglected to consider that smart men and women would actually read his
books and decide to remodel society, so that his scenario would not
happen. So that revolution, when it came, would be gradual, ongoing,
moderate, lawful, and generally non-confiscatory, especially since the
positive sum game lets the whole pie grow, while giving bigger slices
to all.

In fact, I think the last ninety years may be partly modeled according
to how societies responded to the Marxian meme. First, in 1917, came
the outrageously stupid Soviet experiment, which simply replaced
Czarist monsters with another clade of oppressors, that mouthed
different sanctimonious slogans. Then the fascist response, which was
a deadly counter-fever, fostered by even more-stupid European elites.
Things were looking pretty bleak.

* THE ENLIGHTENMENT STRIKES BACK

Only then this amazing thing that happened - especially in America -
where a subset of wealthy people, like FDR, actually read Marx, saw
the potential pathway into spirals of crude capital formation,
monopolization, oppression and revolution… and decided to do something
about it, by reforming the whole scenario away! By following Henry
Ford's maxim and giving all classes a stake — which also meant ceding
them a genuine share of power. A profoundly difficult thing for human
beings to do,

Those elites who called FDR a "traitor to his class" were fools. The
smart ones knew that he saved their class, and enabled them to enjoy
wealth in a society that would be vastly more successful, vibrant,
fun, fair, stable, safe and fantastically more interesting.

I believe we can now see the recent attempted putsch by a
neocon-kleptocrat aristocratic cabal in broad but simple and on-target
context. We now have a generation of wealthy elites who (for the most
part) have never read Marx! Who haven't a clue how chillingly
plausible his scenarios might be, if enlightenment systems did not
provide an alternative to revolution. And who blithely assume that
they are in no danger, whatsoever, of those scenarios ever playing
out.

Shortsightedly free from any thought or worry about the thing that
fretted other aristocracies — revolution — they feel no compunction or
deterrence from trying to do the old/boring thing… giving in to the
ancient habit… using influence and power to gather MORE influence and
power at the expense of regular people, all with the aim of
diminishing the threat of competition from below. And all without
extrapolating where it all might lead, if insatiability should run its
course.

What we would call "cheating," they rationalize as preserving and
enhancing a natural social order. Rule by those best suited for the
high calling of rulership. Those born to it. Or Platonic philosopher
kings. Or believers in the right set of incantations.

* REVENGE OF THE DARKSIDE LORDS

Whatever the rationalizations, it boils down to the same old pyramid
that failed the test of governance in nearly 100% of previous
civilizations, always and invariably stifling creativity while guiding
societies to delusion and ruin. Of course, it also means a return to
zero-sum logic, zero-sum economics, zero-sum leadership thinking, a
quashing of nonlinear synergies… the death of the Enlightenment.

Mind you! I am describing only a fraction of today's aristocracy of
wealth or corporate power. I know half a dozen billionaires,
personally, and I'd wager none of them are in on this klepto-raid
thing! They are all lively, energetic, modernistic, competitive and
fizzing with enthusiasm for a progressive, dynamic civilization. A
civilization that's (after all) been very good to them.

They may not have read Marx (in this generation, who has?) But
self-made guys like Bezos and Musk and Page etc share the basic values
of an Enlightenment. One in which some child from a poor family may
out-compete overprivileged children of the rich, by delivering better
goods, innovations or services. And if that means their own privileged
kids will also have to work hard and innovate? That's fine by them!
Terrific.

When the chips come down, these better billionaires may wind up on our
side, weighing the balance and perceiving that their enlightened, long
range self-interest lies with us. With the positive-sum society. Just
the way FDR and his smart-elite friends did, in the 1930s… while the
dumber half of the aristocracy muttered and fumed.

We can hope that the better-rich will make this choice, when the time
comes. But till then, the goodguy (or, at least with-it) billionaires
are distracted, busy doing cool things, while the more old-fashioned
kind — our would-be lords — are clustering together in tight circles,
obeying 4,000 years of ingrained instinct, whispering and pulling
strings, appointing each other to directorships, awarding unearned
golden parachutes, conniving for sweetheart deals, and meddling in
national policy…