“Economists have a singular method of procedure. There are only two kinds of institutions for them, artificial and natural. The institutions of feudalism are artificial institutions, those of the bourgeoisie are natural institutions. In this, they resemble the theologians, who likewise establish two kinds of religion. Every religion which is not theirs is an invent of men, while their own is an emanation from God. When the economists say that present-day relations -the relations of bourgeois production- are natural, they imply that these are the relations in in which wealth is created and productive forces developed in with the laws of nature. These relations therefore are themselves natural laws independent of the influence of time. They are eternal laws which must always govern society. Thus, there has been history, but there is no longer any. There has been history, since there were the institutions of feudalism, and in these institutions of feudalism we find quite different relations of production from those of bourgeois society, which the economists try to pass off as natural and, as such, eternal” -a quote from Marx’s The Poverty of Philosophy extracted from Slavoj Žižek’s First as Tragedy Then as Farce
There is a lot here in the context of my process. Unfortunately, in my IADD (Intellectual Attention Deficit Disorder), I’m a little like Trump in that I’m easily distracted by the next shiny object which could be the next quote I come across in Žižek’s book. But I’ll do the best I can with the window I have. And I would start with my mixed feelings on this. On one hand I’m with Žižek when he says:
“Economists have a singular method of procedure. There are only two kinds of institutions for them, artificial and natural. The institutions of feudalism are artificial institutions; those of the bourgeoisie are natural institutions.”
But I would humbly revise the point by noting a kind of imperative that economists tend to work under. But first we have to drop the loaded terms of Capitalism and Socialism and think in terms of a spectrum between a market economy and a command economy. It is easy to see (to Žižek’s point (why economists might lean towards the market side of the spectrum. The market is dynamic and seemingly unpredictable. The command economy less so: the leader sees that people need more bread and declares that more bread be made –it’s just that simple. So it makes perfect sense for economists (in their effort to be a science (to take on the challenge of the dynamics of a market economy. It’s their bread and butter.
I would even agree with Žižek (as well as Marx, BTW( that this can lead to a kind of religious approach to Capitalism. I mean what is the “Invisible Hand” but some god-like force that neo-liberals imagine. And as I’ve always liked to joke:
It use to be: pray hard and follow these principles and you too can enter the kingdom of Heaven.
Now it’s: work hard and follow these principles and you too can enter the kingdom of success.
Where I depart with Žižek (and Marx as well (is that economists are not always as committed to the above described dynamic as Žižek or Marx or even myself in the above point make it seem. My process of being a critic of Capitalism has been blessed with the influence of such economic thinkers as Paul Krugman and Ha-Joon Chang and Robert Reich (all economists), as well as Ali Velshi and Stephanie Ruhle of MSNBC fame.
I just think that in a confrontation with Capitalism, it would be unwise to dismiss a discipline that is often attacking it from the inside.