Marxism and scepticism

Shuggy is good on that old question - why do people tend to become more conservative as they get older? It is, he says, "all to do with scepticism." As we grow older, we grow more sceptical.
He distinguishes two forms of this. There's epistemological scepticism - the belief that "nobody knows anything so one learns to be suspicious of those who have a theory that can explain everything." And there's a scepticism about the human condition - a recognition that people  have limited rationality, and that the human condition is hard to improve.
Shuggy's right. But I don't think these scepticisms justify anyone abandoning anything but the most half-baked varieties of Marxism.
And here's the paradox - this half-baked Marxism has been adopted by our ruling class. I pointed this out here, but it's also evident in  Tony Blair's recent speech at the Lord Mayor's banquet:

This is a world integrating at a fast rate, with enormous economic, cultural and political consequences...Globalization isn't something done to us.  It is something we are, consciously or unconsciously doing to and for ourselves....There is a real danger that the institutions of global politics lag seriously behind the challenges they are called upon to resolve...This is a test for all of us.  A test of our commitment to make globalization work.  A test of our global leadership.

This expresses several Leninist features: a belief in a law of economic development (globalization), the notion that this economic base should determine  the superstructure ("institutions of global politics") and the belief that these laws can be harnessed for the good of all by a vanguard ("a test of our global leadership.")
Those of us who are aware of the limits of rationality - epistemological scepticists - oppose this managerialist rhetoric. Scepticism, then is opposed to New Labour and the boss class, as much as to Leninism.
Indeed, there's much Marxism - when shorn of Leninist nonsense - that's consistent with scepticism about rationality and the human condition: his theory of history (stressing the importance of technical change), his analysis of profits and exploition and his concept of primitive accumulation.
What's more, Marx's theory of ideology can be seen as a more sophisticated version of the Conservative idea that people are irrational. Whereas Conservatives think irrationality is a feature of the human condition, Marxists try to ask whether particular forms of irrationality are produced by social structures. It's only when this theory of ideology takes the degraded form of believing that you and your friends alone have true knowledge of society that Marxism and scepticism collide.
Is it a coincidence that one of the greatest modern scholars of Marxism  - Jon Elster - has also written extensively about the limits of rationality?
One final point. In one sense, Marx was a conservative in that he was deeply sceptical about the prospects for reformism. G.A. Cohen has said (Self-ownership, Freedom and Equality p11):

[Marx] thought that anything short of an abundance so complete that it removes all major conflicts of interest would guarantee continued social strife.

Conservatives would agree.

Comments

[Shuggy]

Thanks for the link.

I don't think these scepticisms justify anyone abandoning anything but the most half-baked varieties of Marxism.

Fair point; I guess my Marxism was rather half-baked at that age and I'd agree that there's much that is still useful, particularly the emphasis on technological change. Hardly any economic historian dispenses with his framework entirely although I'd have to say that like Eric Hobsbawm, I think much of his theory of history now needs to be junked. I'm interested in the notion of revolution in particular: a lot of commentators see this as realism that is a strength in his ideas that is lacking in classic liberalism but I rather agree with whoever said Marx was never less realistic when he saw this as an inevitable and essential engine of social progress.

[sean morris]

easy "children"..and those with the buggers will understand.

[Backword Dave]

As ever, another excellent post Chris.

" ... his [Marx's] theory of history (stressing the importance of technical change)... "

Indeed. I may have commented on this before, but it strikes me as odd (with hindsight) that Wapping and the Miners' Strike took the left by surprise. Surely Marx predicted that sort of thing. (You may object to "by surprise" but that's my reading of the left's response, and I'm sticking to it.)

Your "leninist" reading of Tony Blair fits with mine and Jarndyce's. http://www.thesharpener.net/?p=205

Of course, not all people grow more conservative as they get older. What will happen to Peter Cuthbertson? And I believe there are Blairites in student Labour clubs up and down the country. What can the future hold for them? And surely Michael Foot meant something more than that when he said that Tony Benn "immatures with age"? (Though Benn did move leftwards.)

"... and that the human condition is hard to improve ..." In so many senses I agree with you, but didn't you recently argue that living standards have risen? And isn't keeping your teeth and showering every day an improvement?

[dearieme]

It's time some newspaper offered Shuggy a job so that the poor sod can escape from the pig-pens of secondary education.

[Robert Schwartz]

My own conservatism has grown as I have come to realize that all theories of man, history, politics and society are more or less junk. I also believe that conservatism is a natural outcome of age and wisdom as we accumulate attachments to our families, friends, and communities, accumulate property and position in society, and begin to understand the importance of these attachments and accumulations to human happiness.

I was never a Marxist. However, I simply do not see that Marx's system has any insights into history, economics or politics that make it worthy of my attention. Marx's theory of historical evolution is at the very best a 19th century pseudo-science that set back the understanding of history like phrenology set back the understanding of psychiatry. Marx's economic theory of the inevitable self-destruction of capitalism was disproved by the discovery of equilibrium theory before the last volume of Kapital was published.

To me, Marx was just a steep downhill piste on the toboggan ride to hell that is the history of German philosophy from the French Revolution until the collapse of the Berlin Wall. A decent burial and a time to mourn its hundred million victims is all that can be hoped for.

[Jonathan]

As soon as one starts to reason against rationalism it all gets a bit circular.
From one who wasn't shy to exercise reason, a few quotes on Marx...

http://www.mises.org/quotes.aspx?action=subject&subject=Marxism

[rjw]

I think as you get older you also start to realise that intentions are one thing, but the means are another. I don't think my political sympathies have changed much in 20 years - still broadly social democratic -but I've certainly grown much more sceptical about the scope for social engineering. Too many unintended consequences. Nowadays I'm only in favour of government intervening when I can see how it might actually work, whereas when younger I probably felt that it was having good intentions that counted and that the rest would follow without much effort.

[jossah]

Robert Schwartz -

"A decent burial and a time to mourn its hundred million victims is all that can be hoped for."

Oh god Robert that's so dull. What you mean is "the 100 000 000 victims of C20th primitive accumulation on the Eurasian landmass."

There is a spectre haunting Europe, still.