Hey, thank you for writing!

I’ll first briefly discuss Michael Hudson, then your discussion of J. W. Mason.

Broadly speaking, I don’t think Hudson is a Marxist. To illustrate why, let’s look at how Marx engaged with Proudhon in France in 1865:

Proudhon’s discovery of “interest-free loans” [“crédit gratuit”], and the “people’s bank” [“banque du peuple”] based upon it, were his last economic “deeds.” […] That under certain economic and political conditions the credit system can be used to accelerate the emancipation of the working class, […] is quite unquestionable and self-evident. But to regard interest-bearing capital as the main form of capital, and to try to make a particular form of the credit system comprising the alleged abolition of interest the basis for a transformation of society, is an out-and-out petty-bourgeois fantasy. https://redsails.org/on-proudhon/

Marx could be speaking about Hudson here. Hudson, like Proudhon, explicitly plays down the contradiction between capital and labour, and insists on centering instead one between industrial capital and financial capital instead. Thus we see Hudson arguing in “The ‘Next’ Financial Crisis and Public Banking as the Response”:

Now suppose that Citibank would had been taken over by the government and operated as a public bank… https://michael-hudson.com/2018/08/the-next-financial-crisis-and-public-banking-as-the-response/

Such divergence in strategies is the inevitable outcome of substantial theoretical disagreements.

Marx says, about his work Capital, that the second of two “best points in my book” is “the treatment of surplus-value regardless of its particular forms as profit, interest, ground rent, etc.” (https://web.archive.org/web/20140427183523/https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867/letters/67_08_24.htm) In other words, one of Marx’s biggest achievements, by his own account, was the discovery that wage-employment is of a kind with “interest” and “ground rent,” and thus that the gentleman’s “profit” is not more fundamentally virtuous. For Marx the industrialist is already a speculator: he speculates on labour-power.

How does Hudson paraphrase Marx?

He [Marx] thought that as industrial capitalism evolved toward more enlightened management, and indeed toward socialism, it would replace predatory usurious finance, cutting away the economically and socially unnecessary rentier income, land rent, and financial interest and related fees for unproductive credit. https://michael-hudson.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/04866134211011770.pdf

The term “profit” isn’t even indicted! Instead much is made of “predatory usurious finance”, etc. Marx’s main and central finding, that the employer’s surplus value as extracted from their employees already is fully constituted as a rent on labour, vanishes completely. (Notice also Hudson wrongly implying Marx thought of industrial capitalists as “enlightened management”–more on this later.)

This is how Hudson proceeds generally as a “Marxist”, always trying to give his Proudhonism some Marxist prestige. Now, onto Mason.

You commit similar errors to Hudson. From reading through the thread, you repeatedly “see what you want to see.” This confuses you, and then also confuses everyone else (who takes your word for it without verifying), and the discussion generally proceeds in an unproductive way, with everyone commiserating against Mason by contributing their opinion without actually citing the target of their complaints. In other words, you rewrite in your mind and then paraphrase what you read from Mason to cast him in a villainous role, and then do something analogous to Hudson, to make him more palatable and admirable to you and your readers. Speaking of Lenin, this very much goes against his rule that “to criticise an author, to answer him, one has to quote in full at least the main propositions of his article”.

Take, for example, your responding to a comment about “[Metabook, Google taking a massive cut on apps payments, or stores on Amazon having to pay to have their products appear when searched]”. You reply, “I don’t think Hudson or Doctorow have called it feudalism.” You get 6 upvotes, but this is patently false. Hudson is very clearly cited by Mason using precisely that term. Not only does Hudson present “feudalism” as a possibility, he presents it as a fait accompli: “What promised to be a democratic and ultimately socialist dynamic has relapsed back toward feudalism and debt peonage, with the financial class today playing the role that the landlord class did in postmedieval times.” The word feudalism is literally used, and yet you insist on softening Hudson’s claim to make him look like a good Marxist. Mason, meanwhile, is presented as a bad one, and in fact as a sinister one for having somehow mischaracterized Hudson. Maybe Hudson says some other contradictory things elsewhere, but that’s not Mason’s problem, since he cites his claims here.

You repeat the error when you write “One of his [Mason’s] arguments that the richest people are still industrial capitalists”. This is, again, not what Mason says. What Mason writes is “Jeff Bezos (#1), Bill Gates (#2), and Mark Zuckerberg (#3) all gained their wealth through control over newly created production processes, not via financial claims on existing ones.” This is completely correct, they didn’t “usurp” anything from anyone (other than their employees).

Mason is, moreover, perfectly in line with Lenin’s “Imperialism”, while Hudson isn’t. Lenin posits a process very much of mutual attraction–it’s not that banking capitalists sweep in like vampires, it’s that industrial monopolists willingly and proactively meld with them to form the entities of financial capital:

The concentration of production; the monopolies arising therefrom; the merging or coalescence of the banks with industry–such is the history of the rise of finance capital and such is the content of that concept. […] We now have to describe how, under the general conditions of commodity production and private property, the “business operations” of capitalist monopolies inevitably lead to the domination of a financial oligarchy. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ch03.htm

This is precisely Mason’s point. Mason insists it’s misguided to romanticize “industrial capitalism” in order to damn “financial capitalism” because it erases the objective fact that they’re the same beast at different stages: “I am not sure this kind of program, even if feasible, does much to support a more transformative political project.” You completely gloss over Mason’s correct understanding. He plainly says that Jeff Bezos, etc. start from a position of control over industrial processes, but you argue their becoming financial ones or rentiers is a kind of categorical dilemma. In reality, one becoming the other is precisely why Hudson’s strategy of arresting development of one onto the other is futile.

Mason also insists, like Marx, that industrial capitalism is grotesque even at its best: “one is struck by the lack of discussion of other ways in which industrial capitalists seek to reduce the cost of labor–by lowering the subsistence level of workers, or reducing their bargaining power, or extracting more work effort, or shifting employment to lower-wage regions or populations. The idea that the normal or usual result of industrial capitalists’ pursuit of lower labor costs is public investment seems optimistic.”

In Hudson, by comparison:

• “The industrial capitalism that Marx described in volume 1 of Capital is being dismantled. He saw the historical destiny of capitalism to be to free economies from the legacy of feudalism–a hereditary warlord class imposing tributary land rent and usurious banking.”
• “Although banking developed ostensibly to serve foreign trade by the industrial nations, it became a force-in-itself undermining industrial capitalism.”
• “Smaller companies are “the primary source of job creation and innovation,” […].”

This stuff is quite embarrassing, really. Hudson is, exactly as Marx says of Proudhon, a champion of the petty bourgeoisie passing himself off as a champion of the workers. He really believes the scrappy entrepreneur is a hero against the evil rentier. It’s not hard to see why the comment sections of Hudson’s lectures are littered with chatter that gives off a vaguely antisemitic stench, since they clearly evoke the imagery of a muscular, virtuous industrial capitalist undermined by an shadowy, scrawny financial one–imagery infamously championed by capitalists at various horrific points in history. As Mason rightly points out, this theory appeals to workers to cast their hopes and aspirations with the “small business owner” rather than to find their own pride and self-determination.

Anyway, I plan to write about this at length sometime. If anything, I find Mason is quite collegial and conciliatory with Hudson, whereas I would treat Hudson much more harshly. At any rate, I do not think Mason should be cast aside. You’re allowed to share these draft notes if you need to, it’s all just taken from various tweets I have put out there.

Best regards,

Roderic

Thanks for the response!

This has given me a higher understanding of the meaning of Mason’s work.

Hudson, like Proudhon, explicitly plays down the contradiction between capital and labour, and insists on centering instead one between industrial capital and financial capital instead.

Putting it this way reminds me of the far more blatant liberalism of the bourgeois faux radical rapper Killer Mike who started a black bank (with white capital) to black entrepreneurs to supposedly lift up the nation. This is indeed a serious error.

Marx says, about his work Capital, that the second of two “best points in my book” is “the treatment of surplus-value regardless of its particular forms as profit, interest, ground rent, etc.”

I was not aware of this. I suppose these contemporary economists make similar errors to Adam Smith who thought that landlordism should be abolished because it is a fetter on capital (cheap land is good for production).

Speaking of Lenin, this very much goes against his rule that “to criticise an author, to answer him, one has to quote in full at least the main propositions of his article”.

True, I did not sufficiently refer back to the text or make specific critique. Truth is I wasn’t sure who to agree with and simply wanted to get a post out so others could make better critiques with more specific targets. When the [now, seemingly] insufficient critiques appeared I suppose my psychological bias to agree with the second response kicked in. I was hoping someone else had done the investigation which I admittedly was lacking.

You get 6 upvotes, but this is patently false.

I’ve listened to hours of both of them and didn’t hear them suggest that capitalism had been superseded by some sort of “techno-feudalism” like the third theorist in question. That’s all I meant. I was not aware of the review by Doctorow of Varoufakis’ work that was shared. Of course, the argument clearly could and has been made that their arguments of a capitalism lapsing into worse feudal aspects is un-marxist and a similar great mistake.

He plainly says that Jeff Bezos, etc. start from a position of control over industrial processes, but you argue their becoming financial ones or rentiers is a kind of categorical dilemma.

I see. That makes more sense.

Mason insists it’s misguided to romanticize “industrial capitalism” in order to damn “financial capitalism” because it erases the objective fact that they’re the same beast at different stages:

Makes sense. The argument I understand Hudson to have is that Amerikan capitalists made the mistake of financializing the US while countries like China that actually produce things are rising. That does not fully consider that China and the US are part of the same global system and their capitalists are happy to work together. The difference is that the Chinese state controls a sizable portion of both financial and industrial capital and directs the economy toward positive ends. Meanwhile, the US wasn’t any good with industrial or financial capitalism. The only part where it was decent for the average US citizen was not because of industry, but because of a strong labor movement combined with a rising empire. The problem with the offshoring and “financialization” is that it’s not sustainable for the long term prospects of empire.

Comrade 小莱卡 makes a good point about the falling rate of profit as a cause of the rise of rentierism and decline of innovation, but falsely attributes it to Hudson in defense from Mason (who doesn’t have anything to say on the subject).

Mason is, moreover, perfectly in line with Lenin’s “Imperialism”, while Hudson isn’t. Lenin posits a process very much of mutual attraction–it’s not that banking capitalists sweep in like vampires, it’s that industrial monopolists willingly and proactively meld with them to form the entities of financial capital:

A good point. Hudson claims finance “dominates” industry when in fact they work in tandem.

You’re allowed to share these draft notes if you need to, it’s all just taken from various tweets I have put out there.

I’m not on twitter so I did not know of such tweets. I will be sharing this.

Thanks again,

QC