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/287/ What Was Communism (II) ft. Branko Milanovic (Patreon)

Published:
2022-09-06 06:03:00
Imported:
2026-06
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On the history of inequality.In the second part of this episode, we continue our chat with Branko Milanovic. We discuss how inflation is likely to impact inequality, ask Branko what he means by the "paleo-left" as an ideological position and why we should adopt this perspective. 

We also look forward to Branko's upcoming book, on the history of studies on inequality, and find out why Marx and libertarians have more in common than we often might think.

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Andrea

Instead of going back to Montesquieu, Milanovic could look at more or less a hundred years of economic anthropology research. The literature on the commodification of social relations, the impact of supposedly fully commodified societies and supposedly fully communitarian ones on what Sohn-Rethel called abstractions; the ways in which people collectively and individually moulded their existences and both their taken for granted common sense ideas and explicit reflections around different ways of gaining access to goods whether through the only option of the market or through other ways; the social structures that develop around and together with commodified relations; the difference between the Northern and the Southern hemispheres experiences in gig jobs; and, crucially for his interests, the presence of amical, Kin, love, and other kind of relations always present even in the most commodified and monetized contexts... All of these things have been looked at through different lenses in one century of economic anthropology. Of course most economists don't even bother to look just a little bit outside of their circle, being one of the most inbread of the social sciences. But yeah, there are a lot of enquiries into those themes, and a lot of them also from an explicitly Marxist perspective. Other than that, I find it always frankly puzzling to hear about the necessity for growth between Marxists without talking about the value form, or how growth is produced and calculated in a logic spawn by the economic liberal thought. Yeah, he talked a little bit about the fact that commodification of already existing transactions or services, makes it look like there's growth while things are actually worse off, but still, the statement is left there as if this doesn't contradict the discussion about the necessity for GDP growth everywhere. GDP growth calculations can capture the bettering of life conditions badly needed especially in low income countries, but the same is not at all obvious for high income countries. Moreover, I get that there will be no revolution tomorrow, or the day after that. And yet, using the capitalist logic of growth of the value form to reduce inequality as a Marxist recipy feels quite stale. Can we think of a possibility of growing human potential and resources with a logic that breaks with the value form and promote that idea as a break with existing system? Otherwise why would one call themselves communist or Marxist?

Andrea

Oh, looking at my comment again I think I was just referring to the annoyance of the usual attitude by economists to ignore other social sciences and to rediscover the wheel over and over again (and winning (non) nobels in economics for that). I have to admit, I don't know if he can be counted as one of those (he's well versed in marxian thought at least, contrary to other inequality-centred economists like Piketty, even though I found some of his statements about the bearded man quite puzzling and inaccurate). I actually only encountered him as a cited author on the topic of inequality, so I am not talking of a specific work by him. If I rember correctly, I was referring to the thing he said about wanting to inquire on the effects of commodification on social ties (the fact that people you exchange commodities with cannot be friends, or something like it, sorry, I don't remember precisely now). In fact there is a very rich and wide literature on that theme, and at the moment I perceived his very short mention of his interest in that in a way like "oh no, another economist rediscovering the wheel and being praised for that". Maybe I was a bit unfair now that I look back at my comment? Don't know, but well, this is what I meant, I hope I answered your question!