Marx saw the fundamental problem with capitalist economies, which he posited would ultimately lead to their collapse, as the endless drive for capitalist accumulation through profit (which he called Excess Value). He saw the solution coming in two phases, first Socialism then Communism. In the Socialist phase, worker power, managed through worker's unions, would first tame and then displace capitalist structures with direct control by workers. The ultimate Communist phase could only arise after that, after minds steeped in socialist practice can fully abandon all exploitative forms, class, property, and even government itself, a pure utopia of human fulfillment. Marx didn't waste many words on the Communist phase. It has more seemed to me an ideal that can only be approximated. But me, accusing Marx of being Idealist? Following Marx, Marxists denounce Idealism in the harshest terms (while still harboring it?) I claim the world is more than we can comprehend, and Ideals are things too, somehow. And once admitting Ideals, the usual convention would be that I could not be Materialist (though I'm fine with a Materialist analysis, just not a blindness to Idealism). So if in fact Marxists are hypocritical regarding their Idealism, it's only in the direction of my more comprehensive view, that Idealism is a real thing too, and that much of the appeal of Marxism and Communism is and can be in its Ideals.
Keynes saw the primary problem with capitalist economies to be repeated depressions in which many people could be unemployed and thereby lose their livelihoods for years or more. (And though it is said Keynes didn't "focus" on inequality, less unemployment would be commensurate with greater equality, as things work in theory and practice.) Depressions are when capitalist economies are least supportive of actual human needs. Masses are starving and homeless. Keynes's moderately deep analysis of money showed that depressions arise from Excess Saving, which he explained, and pointed to solving them through Government Spending which could uniquely resolve it in many cases. His hopeful vision was of a future of "managed" capitalism with increasing wealth and leisure for all. (We might have continued on that path for more than 20 years after his death had we not blown the social surplus on endless war, something Keynes personally detested and denounced during his too-short life, but didn't fully disparage in his theory, any or all spending was useful in maintaining full employment, just not necessarily optimal social development. Money spent on war and excess concentrations of wealth mean less for the human needs of most people, so the latter is incapable of improving much over time. Once the huge tax cuts and resumed global militancy of Reaganism were baked in, quality of life has stagnated for most people, despite enormous technological gains, which are offset by baked in strangulation, as in health care, education, and housing.
I see both similarities and differences between these two views. This is not to say that Keynes was a Marxist, in fact he was strongly anti-Marxist and denounced Marxism in the harshest terms. But arguably Keynes was, even in later life, a kind of non-Marxian socialist. In his youth, in fact, Keynes was a Fabian Socialist. No doubt Marx would consider him a Utopian Socialist. But I think it's more fair to say that both Marx and Keynes were utopians, and similar in curious ways while also being different. (An argument is made that Keynes' economics came from an obscure predecessor, who had explicitly tried to cook up a capitalism-friendly economics including Marxian insights.) I think both Marx and Keynes provided interesting and useful ideas, and not in either case sufficient. However Marx's view was ultimately the deeper one, and so I might consider myself a Post Keynesian Marxist rather than a Marxist Post Keynesian.
Hard Money Marxists, however, may see these things differently than I do. (Personally, I find Hard Money Marxism a kind of contradiction in terms. Accumulation is pure evil, but saving money divine?) But still worth reading, and I fully understand that until wasteful military spending and insufficient taxation of the wealthy are fixed, there is little hope for making a world better oriented to meeting human needs instead of increasing them. In short, we can't merely "spend" all the way to Utopia. We need to end war, and tax wealth too. Even MMT'ers, at the liberal spending edge of Post Keynesians, will concede those things. Some capitalist strictures will just have to get tossed overboard. And doing that will require a proletarian revolution, because the capitalist powers that be will never consent.
I've long admired and followed Doug Henwood despite his Hard Money Marxism. He usually presents a very illuminating take on things.
I've just discovered another Hard Money Marxist, Michael Roberts, a retired City of London economist who apparently many people take seriously. I'm adding him to my Important Blogs sidebar, though my first discovery of him (a critique of Keynes and MMT) is seeming a lot more like heat than light to me.
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