It’s been almost a century and a half since Karl Marx’s death, and decades since the collapse of socialism in the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and elsewhere. In the still nominally…View Post
The author doesn't know that exploitation is the extraction or surplus value, is lying, or is so confused that they sometimes know it and sometimes don't. For example, they mention that employers keep the difference between profit and what they pay the workers (not correct but at least it's in the ballpark), then a bit later imply exploitation doesn't exist if you can't get paid more to work the same job at a different company (not remotely what exploitation is about, lol).
With such basic errors you get to play the game of, "is this person honestly confused or entirely full of shit?" As they are a professor, it's the latter. They know better, which is why they're publishing a poorly-citing, incoherent, and simply incorrect ramble on some rag frequented by the lazy and ignorant rather than in any space that would be read by academics. They know exactly what they are supposed to do when writing a critique so thay it at least makes sense at a basic level and then decided not to, because their audience won't give a shit - the audience won't have read Marx, but will be happy to reject Marxism - an amorphous enemy blob of a concept, to them.
So... the remaining categorization is: hack or fraud? A hack is just bad at what they do and is treading water with shoddy work to stay in their position. But they also have an ego and think they're fighting the good fight and are doing a good job. A fraud is fully aware that they are full of shit and schemes about how to pull one over on their targets. They are very insecure and tend to lash out at others to keep the presumption of their expertise secure.
My vote is for hack. Their overreliance on pointing vaguely at Vivek Chibber feels like someone who really does think they're correct but is just lazy as shit and doesn't want to have to actually read, understand, or explain anything.
The author doesn't know that exploitation is the extraction or surplus value, is lying, or is so confused that they sometimes know it and sometimes don't. For example, they mention that employers keep the difference between profit and what they pay the workers (not correct but at least it's in the ballpark), then a bit later imply exploitation doesn't exist if you can't get paid more to work the same job at a different company (not remotely what exploitation is about, lol).
With such basic errors you get to play the game of, "is this person honestly confused or entirely full of shit?" As they are a professor, it's the latter. They know better, which is why they're publishing a poorly-citing, incoherent, and simply incorrect ramble on some rag frequented by the lazy and ignorant rather than in any space that would be read by academics. They know exactly what they are supposed to do when writing a critique so thay it at least makes sense at a basic level and then decided not to, because their audience won't give a shit - the audience won't have read Marx, but will be happy to reject Marxism - an amorphous enemy blob of a concept, to them.
So... the remaining categorization is: hack or fraud? A hack is just bad at what they do and is treading water with shoddy work to stay in their position. But they also have an ego and think they're fighting the good fight and are doing a good job. A fraud is fully aware that they are full of shit and schemes about how to pull one over on their targets. They are very insecure and tend to lash out at others to keep the presumption of their expertise secure.
My vote is for hack. Their overreliance on pointing vaguely at Vivek Chibber feels like someone who really does think they're correct but is just lazy as shit and doesn't want to have to actually read, understand, or explain anything.