Feature Article of Saturday, 24 January 2015

Columnist: Kwarteng, Francis

We should like to take this opportunity to thank Mr. Philip Kobina Baidoo, Jr. for responding to our rejoinder. That aside, we should quickly add that though he made some efforts to respond to our piece, he failed abysmally to address most of the substantive issues we raised therein. We may, however, forgive him for serious intellectual lapses because, among other things, his frank admission on not reading Marxs four-volume piece in its entirety (and other writings) we recommended for his perusal says a lot about where his intellect stands on important global issues. Thus, we shall not waste too much time on him.

How can anyone read one or two writings in a writers larger corpus of written works and decide to draw general conclusions? Who says the subject matter Marx discussed in his first volume is what he also discussed in his three other volumes? What sort of faulty reasoning is this? Using the same logic, however, can we read Maps in Nuruddin Farahs so-called Blood in the Sun trilogy, and decide to draw general conclusions on Secrets and Gifts which are also in the trilogy? Can one even read a chapter or two of the same book and begin to draw general conclusions based on the books subject matter? Again, let us assume that Mr. Baidoo, Jr.s statement to the effect that he had only read the first volume in Marxs four-part volume is hypothetical, nothing to be taken serious, but has it occurred to him that the summary he gave on Marxs first volume may not be represented in the other three volumes?

Simply put, what Mr. Baidoo, Jr.s says about Marxs first volume is not representative of Marxs larger work. What we want to say, in effect, is that what Mr. Baidoo, Jr. attributes to Marx in his reading of the first volume is a small component of the larger context of Marxs entire corpus of written works, and therefore, we cannot read too much into it. Does this not fall under fallacy of defective induction, faulty generalization, or overgeneralization? The issue we raise is analogous to reading Nkrumahs 1967 Consciencism: Philosophy and Ideology for Decolonization and then making general conclusions without also reading the revised version (1970). One word, one paragraph, one additional page, and a new introduction can make a huge difference in the general interpretation of two same books, one being a revised version of the other. Nkrumahs revised position on the class nature of traditional African society, for instance, has created major divisions among scholars around the world as to what to make of the new information in the general exegesis of the two texts.

Another good example is Einsteins forced use of cosmological constant, a constant he created to address a problem that did not fit the constant. Einstein, in fact, regretted inventing it and using it. What is more, he continued to use it over other mathematicians and physicists objections only to retract it later. At one time, Einstein even ignored the correct implications of his mathematical computations based on some of his ideas because, apparently, the German scientist Erwin F. Freundlich, his friend, had given him astronomical data that happened to be entirely correct about the Milky Way (See Amir D. Aczels The Mystery of the Newly-Discovered Einstein Manuscript: Why Did He Come Back to Lambda?).

Why does Mr. Baidoo, Jr. read too much into Marxs first book and what, in his limited opinion, was Marxs faulty reasoning with regard to some of the underlying assumptions for his theories? Of course, there is nothing wrong with aspects of Marxs ideas being wrong. Egyptian, Indian, Chinese, Greek, Babylonian, and Mesopotamian mathematics and science were not always right. Yet a revision of Ancient Egyptian calendar engendered the calendar we use today. We can say the same of mathematical pi and of hundreds of other ancient ideas. Even not every aspect of the moral philosopher Adam Smiths ideas is relevant today. How much of todays capitalism is owed to Adam Smiths classical economics? How much of todays Marxism is owed to Karl Marxs and Friedrich Engels theories? How much of todays evolution is owed to Charles Darwin (Alfred Russell Wallace and Al-Jahiz)? How does Darwins atheistic evolutionary theory different from Francis Collins theistic evolutionary theory? Did Isaac Newton, the man who gave us the Three Laws of Motion and Gravitational Theory, and Gottfried W. Leibniz, who together with Newton gave us calculus, infinitesimal calculus that is, dabble in alchemy, a now discredited science (now seen as pseudoscience; there is some evidence that point origin of infinitesimal calculus to India, which later made its way to Europe)?

Did Greek thinkers like Aristotle and Anaximander not advance the so-called spontaneous generation, generally meaning life forms originate from lifeless matter, a pseudoscience discredited by Louis Pasteurs (and others) germ theory? Again theories and hypotheses undergo radical changes all the time, so too are assumptions. And yet Karl Marxs theories are not the only ones. It is why Leninism, Maoism, Stalinism, and Fidelism (Castroism) are variants of Marxism, as it were subject to the realities and dictates of circumstance, time, revisions, geography, and the like. Thus, the infinite assumptions which Mr. Baidoo, Jr. associated with Marxs first volume can be found in natural science, mathematics, logic, philosophy, and other branches of social science, too. Even labor time is a staple of capitalism.

What are we saying? Our point is that Marxism and capitalism are merely theories and therefore not carved in stones or, alternatively, are not expected to work all the time. The Supply-Demand Curve, for instance, does not always work in practice. But it is always beautiful and workable in theory. Therefore, it is not everything that Adam Smith and Karl Marx said that should be religiously pursued to its logical conclusion in the complex praxis of human interactions (Note: the supply-demand theory is implied in Smithss invisible hand concept; insider trading (privileged information), incomplete information, monopolies, greed, patrimonial capitalism, time, politics, decisional irrationality, corruption, oligarchies, and geography are some of the variables that limit the operational utility of Smiths invisible hand theory, the basis of free market; this is also why regulation and state intervention models are called for). If the markets are so predictable, for instance, how come Alan Greenspan and his team of world-class economists could not foresee Americas recession at the coming of the Obama Administration and putting corrective mechanisms in place to nip it in the bud?

The fact is that markets do fail all the time, and has actually been so throughout human history. This is one of the major criticisms leveled against Milton Friedman. This is where regulation, legislation, and state intervention come in. But he slipped all too easily into claiming both that markets always work and that only markets work, Paul Krugman writes of Milton Friedman. Its extremely hard to find cases in which Friedman acknowledged the possibility that markets could go wrong, or that government intervention could serve a useful purpose (See Krugmans Who Was Milton Friedman?, the New York Book Review, Feb. 15, 2007). Krugman also maintains: Friedman was wrong on some issues, and sometimes seemed less than honest with his readers, I regard him as a great economist and a great man. Sadly, Mr. Baidoo did not inform his readers that Keynes economic theories had always been part of the political economy of the 20th century, that they are back in full swing in the 21st, and that Keynes work and ideas made the British Treasury more powerful.

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Using Cuba To Defend Nkrumahism Is Laughable