Magic Marxism

Continuing a little MMT critique of Adolph Reed’s critique of Magic Marxism , or (Reed, 2025) “Scientific Socialism” .

I did not find too many MMT critiques to apply, which is good, but I wanted to amplify one point Reed makes about the use of the word “Science” by the magic marxist socialist. The idea Reed gives about what “science” means is, I think, good.

Science seeks to identify physical reality, being that which exists externally for all observers, independent of the observer’s consciousness.

In short, science is a framework and set of practices that is human and conscious, but which seeks to remove the human and the conscious. What remains is referred to as the subject of science.

That note has nothing to do with Reed’s critique of magik marxism, but is important in contemporary topics associated with debates about “Free Will” and “artificial consciousness”. For Reed’s thoughts, reduced to MMT-dimwit (which is yours truly) readability, read onwards.

Scientific Marxism

What Reed critiques could be any fetishization of rationality and logic in the political realm. So it is not just Magic Marxists he is accusing of rank stupidity, it is also the neoliberal technocrats.

Proper Role of Science

My framework for anything human is spiritual. But you could say moral. I do not like things that are mystical unless they are private, and do not come out for lunch. At lunchtime, I need actual food. This means basic ordinary spiritual morality. All that means is being loving, kind, just, wise, compassionate, honest and also humble. I do not mean anything more than these attributes, this set defines spirituality for me to a decent approximation. You all know what counts, and what is maybe a little grey, and what is definitely not in the set “spiritual”. You know from deeds and actions, not from the phonemes or letters or words.

This really, was Reed’s point.

Real politics considers the human spirit.

There is a nicer way to state all this without Reed’s academic jargon, which is that Science and Religion are not in conflict, and never have been. This is also a Baháʼí philosophy.

When Science and Religion are not in harmony then one or both are false.

The modernist conceit is, “that which is at fault is religion.” That’s not only a dark and loathsome prejudice of our times, it is dangerous. Equally as dangerous as anti-religion masquerading as genuine religion, which is just about all churches, mosques, temples, seminaries and whatnot in the world today. You can however find genuine religion all over the place, in the hearts of decent people, and all the more so when they are not in church or temples, but actually out in the world helping people out of the gutter.

Now you know that, as a philosophical principle, you can use what you may believe to be honestly valid science to eliminate what is false religion (christian fascism for example). What really is the origin of fascism? It is not Christianity, it is anti-Christianity, a loss of faith, a replacement of faith with some creed like nationalism, the Nation becomes the Sacred $\sim$ anti-religion.

But you can also use what you may think to be honestly valid religion to eschew false science (anti-vaxx activism, anti-global warming propaganda, technocracy, authoritarianism, worker exploitation).

But genuine spirituality is more power, it is at least as powerful as science, because like science it is self-correcting. Once your religious ideology turns fetid and corrupt it will lead to hatred and violence, and then you know it is false. A bit like getting a negative result in an experiment that your ‘science’ predicted would be positive.

There is another thing I learned from the Baháʼí Faith, which is also something I got from Gödel.

Science and mathematics (logic) are incomplete, so provide us with exact knowledge but of very few things.

Religion is complete, but provides us within inexact knowledge yet of all things.

You can see how both are complementary and work in harmony.

When either science or religion becomes unthinking ideology it can quickly switch from being previously valid (in some context) to now false.

Ask any electrician or home-body, flipping switches can be a dangerous activity, especially when one is left ‘on’.

Reed Knows the Biz

I cannot critique this next bit, but just applaud Reed for getting it right.

He points out the scientific socialists are not only nutters, but probably dangerously so, because

(a) what cannot be measured cannot be adjudicated by science,

(b) “The problem is that intellectual systems and frameworks are developed by human beings within society, and to that extent those frameworks and systems must reflect the class reality of the social order. Therefore, since scientism as an analytic frame of reference (rather than merely a number of research techniques) is the product of bourgeois society, the method itself must reflect the biases of bourgeois social organization”

Which is a pretty good and heady take on, “You cannot necessarily fix the broken things using the tools that did the breaking.” In political economy this translates to: You cannot depend upon the goodwill of a Tory nor a Neoliberal, because their goodwill is what the worker sees as explicit ill-will. Actually, this can even be measured! So even a scientific socialist might agree.

Reed presents this as a Trichotomy: (1) science is bourgeois, or (2) science is suprahuman (so mystical), or (3) science is a pre-existing package we discover (so is reified).

Of course, all three pertain to how we go about things “scientific” in various contexts. But so do other aspects pertain, like having a great ball of fun mucking around in the laboratory or on an abacus. Science is, for me personally, above all else, playful inventiveness. The goal of which is to hope to be correct about the world, and uncover hidden realities, but not to expect by any divine right of “hard work” or rule-following protestantism that you will be successful.

Reed: “Science cannot be absolutized if it is taken as the product of a given form of social knowledge. Therefore, science cannot be considered the form of knowledge but only a particular form of knowledge”.

💯%🎯

The take-away is that we (by moral force) should never absolutize science. We cannot ever let science rule. This is not the purpose of science in a decent sloppy and democratic society. Science is, for the dirtbags, a wonderful artistic pursuit, with beautiful empirical concrete results. Useful in engineering, useful to keep the nerd riff-raff fully employed. Once we reify or totalitarianize science as in some monstrosity called Technocracy or whatever, or scientific socialism, we are doomed to moral failures and brainrot.

For the dirtbag, science by very good nature has to be explorative and playful, and should never be rigidized or driven by rules and norms. Those latter are the death of science. Science, the good kind, seeks to uncover Nature’s rules, but by some pretty odd-ball non-rules means, like this weird activity called 𝓭𝗼🅾𝗱𝚕𝖎ⓝ𝑔 & 𝔱𝗵ⓘ𝓃𝑘𝒊𝙣🅶. Which are equal parts mystical, reified (yes, we do discover “truths”), culturally filtered, and sometimes even crazy stupid. Not the sort of minds you necessarily want in government.

In government we want moral minds, not technocrats. However, to placate you nerds-who-want-to-rule-the-world, I’d say that of course those minds need to have a grasp of basic facts, and accounting logic, as well as their kindness and compassion. After all, if you mistake a minus sign for a positive sign, all your good-will can become by your sheer ignorance, some poor person’s abject misery & suffering though through no fault of their own (aka. unemployment).

That’s why you might prefer Stephanie Tinwoman Kelton (a fictional character) who has no heart running some government operations than Jacinda Adern with all the heart in the world but no comprehension of how the monetary system works.

I realize that all seems anti-Reedian. Aren’t I promoting the Bourgois here (Tinwoman Kelton)? No, I am not, it was just a cartoon example, a counterfactual, not the real world.

I mean, have a think about it! I’d far prefer full employment and a job guarantee, but under some heartless sociopaths dispensing the scorepoints, than the massive generational suffering and crippling of unemployment under some happy-go-lucky liberal clowns who go about defending LGBTQ+ rights. What human rights are worth having if you cannot get enough tax credits just to pay your rent?

This is, of course, a false dichotomy. Counterfactual.

More often the two minds go hand-in-hand, for the wise and compassionate person in some sort of position of temporary power, is far more likely to acknowledge the reality of MMT — the source of all unemployment is the government policy. They will then fix it, or at least die trying. But this takes time. Jacinda did not make the time. But she could have, she had the heart and soul for it. Labour Party neoliberal apparatchiks were too noisy in her ears — which is one reason why you do not want the Apple Inc. iphone ibuds airbuds or whatever, probably got some malicious neoliberal firmware etched into them! 🤣 They drowned out her better “angel” impulses. Hard to blame her completely.

BTW, I am happy to write all that under an Adolph Reed review, since I highly doubt Reed knows the deal either. Though if he were NZ Prime Minister, I dare say we’d not today have any child poverty. Tautologically? Since for Reed to ever become PM he’d automatically have a fully leftiepol dirtbag caucus and house majority. (Apologies to all Kiwi’s who would be even better Prime Ministers.)

The No.1 eligibility requirement for being in elected political office in my Book of Dirtbag is that you do not want to be in official government politics. The People force you to take up the burden, and you fight against them, until you realize you cannot win. The People basically stick the Bill legislation under your hand, and torture you with electrodes to move your hand so the pen marks your signature. OK, maybe not that extreme. I think I could do the job if the torture device was a ham & cheese sandwich.

The Kalecki–Robinson Mind-Meld

Reed parrots what Kalecki (and Robinson) thought of efforts to gain government policy of full employment:

He quotes Kalecki :

“…“under a regime of permanent full employment, the “sack” would cease to play its role as a disciplinary measure. The social position of the boss would be undermined, and the self-assurance and class-consciousness of the working class would grow. Strikes for wage increases and improvements in conditions of work would create political tension. It is true that profits would be higher under a regime of full employment than they are on the average under laissez-faire; and even the rise in wage rates resulting from the stronger bargaining power of the workers is less likely to reduce profits than to increase prices, and thus adversely affects only the rentier interests. But “discipline in the factories” and “political stability” are more appreciated than profits by business leaders. Their class instinct tells them that lasting full employment is unsound from their point of view, and that unemployment is an integral part of the “normal” capitalist system.”

… which is essentially why we do in fact need (perhaps) to pass through some sort of phase of Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

The point is (not often enough stressed by Cutrone) that such a dictatorship can be very nice for everyone. Even the formerly super-rich. They can probably even retain their pearls (we cannot eat them).

How do the workers make pearls and diamonds useless, hence valueless? Easy. Do not covet them, so you never need to buy them To you their fair price is zero. Who cares then about the market for them? “Not I,” said the Richard Wolff.

The Better MMT Frame

The issue is, we do not live under Capitalism.

So that Kaleckian argument does not apply.

We live under plutocracy (or oligopoly, take your pick).

However, I would guess the argument still works because governments are ꕷꖡꖹꘝꕯꕒ. That’s because they are largely controlled (or influenced) by ꕷꖡꖹꘝꕯꕒ oligarchs. They are undermining our collective real wealth with their imposed austerity.

The argument really is that stupid people cannot figure out that a decline in their real wealth can be accommodated with a net rise on overall real wealth. The Whole benefits more than some Parts.

So the Kaleckian Argument really just morphed a little bit. Under an unfair labour market, the oligarch has no cause for nightmares.

What they should fear is grass roots organization developing a take-over of government through entirely peaceful means, and de facto installing a virtual Dictatorship of the Prolertariat. Only it’d only be de facto. How? Simple. Ordinary decent people get the seats in government, but vote or crook or by hook. I’d prefer by vote”. But you know how that works! It ain’t gonna happen without grass roots organization, since the Top End of Town will never hand it to us on a wooden platter.

Like I was (trying) to tell my right-wing or “business sympathizing” friend the other day: He wants business people running government, since they, “know how to run a business.” I laughed (or suppressed a laugh) and explained the since the monetary system is critical for government functioning, and it needs to be more spending than tax return, we want the opposite of savers-by-mentality running government, we want Big Spenders.

At this stage in Twenty-first Century neoliberal post-capitalism (we are in worse then mere capitalism), we could do with totally Drunken Sailors in the Parliament seats of power. As long as they have kind hearts, and crack a lot of jokes. The more drunk the better. (I am not scared of the inflation boogeyman.)

Unemployment is Not a Productivity Story

Reed however does eventually disappoint, he writes of the (largely fantastical) “class harmony” in post-war USA:

““But how could the claim of mutual benefit and positive-sum class relations be credible if employers were ever more inclined to pursue productivity increases that resulted in net displacement of living labor?”

No argument that he is correct in pointing out the fallacy of class harmony.

He fails however, to realize the private sector and productivity/technology gains, are not an unemployment story. Presumably because Reed is unaware that the source of all unemployment is the government.

“Displaced labour” is a false narrative. That is freed labour that the capitalists care not about. The government can always hire the displaced labour, without question, and no capitalist ever “pays for” this, in fact they benefit. All the government payments to such newly public sector workers is net currency injection with which the firms can sell to to soak up and hoard driblets from after they have eaten and played gold, squirrelled away into their bank accounts.

This MMT account of course does not illegitimate the earlier endorsement of Kalecki and Robinson, since their arguments still apply, precisely because government is essentially (or is it virtually) run by the plutocrats and oligarchy, or their lapdogs, one or the other.

The rest of Reed’s essay I would say is academically interesting, but we can stop here, since this is the crux:

Take the base case for full employment in a market (not capitalist, not socialist, not anything in particular — just “some sort of government”) which is a Job Guarantee policy. Then the private firm has no fear. The JG is not competing with private employers, since it is a floor wage. All a firm needs to do is offer slightly better than the JG wage and benefits (or some suitable combination).

Kalecki and Robinson had no such understanding, so were in fact ultimately false framing the issue of full employment. Shame on them. However, their political power argument still gains some validity. It’s just not as bad for us as they made out.

Today this is a counterfactual argument, so a bit pointless, but it is still interesting to ponder. If the USA had a JG, would private employers really be complaining? They’d likely be making more sales, hence more profit. Only a few utterly oppressive employers would go out of business, and no one would shed tears for them.

My lazy guess is that the JG will still have opposition in Congress (or in NZ in our Parliament) because people are just ignorant, and cannot see their own benefit. In New Zealand in particular, since we have pretty historically low corruption rates compared to other nations. Our businesses are pretty “clean” I would say. Most are not rent-seeking scum. (I could be wrong.)

My lazy guess is that the bigger more powerful private employers and their lobby groups would just simply oppose a JG just for the hellofit. Cut off their sales & profit noses to spite their face. Of course, IRL that’s their employees faces. Their own faces get plenty of economic plastic surgery thanks to government hand-outs like Treasury bonds and LLC protection laws, failure to regulate monopoly price takers, rentiers, and all the rest.. They are not nice people. That is the crux of it. It is not a macroeconomics or political economy issue per se. It is a moral issue, a spiritual issue.

How to Raise Class Consciousness?

For most leftists, I would imagine, the lack of class consciousness among workers (people who for whatever reason need or want to sell their labour time, but do not own the business aka. “means of production”) is the major problem with modern political economy. The power elite and the general petite bourgeois actively try to prevent this conscisouness from being raised, in all manner of ways, from schools to lobyists and think tank whitepapers, to right-wing NGO’s to (fake)left-wing-centrist NGO’s, to advertising, to the media and entertainment cartels.

Reed points out Magic Marxists are not helping, since they all think ‘scientific’ forces (magical thinking)will automatically raise class consciousness via historical materialist necessity or dynamics. In this sense, most Marxists (who are materialists)) share more in common with the Silicon valley NerdReich than with myself. (“We are just wetware machines, so machines can also be conscious.”)

Reed asks, “How does consciousness arise form class position?”

He implicitly is saying that this requires acts of human will, organization, education, mobilization. He accuses Magic marxists (scientific socialists) of failing to grasp these hard cold concrete realities.

Whether actual people who conform to Reed’s stereotypical Magic Marxists exist around us is, to me, a moot point. Whether such people are polluting the discourse or not, when you hear them, then maybe take it upon yourself as a public duty to debunk them — for the purpose of actively raising class consciousness! Neoliberal rentiers never miss a chance to profit from a crisis. A good leftipol should never miss an opportunity to help others profit from a magical thinker.

Last Words

I’ll let Reed have the last words, and spare you needing to read his whole long-winded can-you-plz-get-to-the-point essay. It wraps things up, and his conclusion bears nothing I disagree with.

It’s just that one of the weaponized lies is a critical one that Reed has missed, the myth of mainstream macroeconomics, that the government “Needs to find the money, so has to either tax or borrow." Unless that myth is busted — in the minds of the workers who are prepared to organize — the efforts Reed urges us undertake could be utterly in vain. Not only is grass roots labour organization needed, but an educational layer needs laying first — or in parallel, since why wait for the learning, we can walk and shoot in The Matrix at the same time.

Workers have to know that when good people seize power and start “spending like drunken sailors by typing numbers into worker bank accounts” that nothing will “collapse” or crumble. No unit of account is going to head to zero. The State’s unit of account is always worth exactly what the government says you have to do to get one unit. If only Kalecki and Robinson had known, it might have filtered through to Reed and McAlevey, two fo the ‘good guys’.

“Countering the effects of a half-century of barely challenged neoliberal hegemony will require a great effort of political education and organizing to combat the weaponized lies and subterfuge that define American politics today. This will have to be conducted largely through slow, face-to-face processes that rely on establishing relations of trust and standing with others not already on our side. (On the electoral front, non-candidate, issue-based ballot campaigns can be a useful component of such organizing, as they can do political education and issue-shaping on a wider scale and facilitate making direct contacts with workers. And left-oriented initiatives have been instructively successful even in states that routinely spurn Democratic candidates.)
      As the late Jane McAlevey [in “No Shortcuts”] argued and demonstrated so forcefully, there can be no shortcuts in building the sort of movement necessary to challenge the dangerous forces arrayed against us. The effort required is therefore not reducible to electoral dynamics; we cannot elect our way out of this horrible moment. We can hope only to keep the worst at bay while we organize the alternative political force. And I shall disclose here the not-so-secret punch line of my book, which the last eighty years of American political history demonstrate and with which I know Jane would also agree: there is no effective substitute for an anti-capitalist left. And the most serious political work ahead of us for the foreseeable future is to throw everything we can into generating one.”