Production and Learning

The following outline was composed to help students connect the Marxist worldview, in particular its notions of production and mental appropriation of the world, with econometrics.

This goal of the discussion was to frame the process of learning (or the process of knowledge production) in general. In so doing, I could not avoid referring to my own personal approximation to dialectics, which began with Marx and only later to Hegel, Spinoza, and Kant.

In my view, the best use of my lecture time is to expose students to material that

• is rarely available to U.S. undergrad or grad students but that (I believe) is very powerful in obtaining a proper sense of the world and
• to work with the students on the most challenging technical aspects of econometrics and math, which may be the ones most difficult for students to acquire on their own.

As a result, I do not emphasize some of the most qualitative elements of the material. Based on my experience, students can easily absorb this type of information on their own, by reading carefully, actively, and critically. On the other hand, econometric methods are couched on concise mathematical language, with algebraic derivations (let alone proofs) only insinuated, which – as a result – intimidate many students.

Human cognition (learning), the “appropriation of the world” by and in our minds, is an aspect, property, or attribute of production broadly conceived (e.g. as in the Introduction of Marx’s Grundrisse). Cf. also Marx, Capital I, ch. 7. Learning is part or an aspect of (re)producing ourselves as individuals in a social setting.

Marx’s chief dialectics is that between alienation and its negation, socialism. Marx never abandoned the fundamental emancipatory project of his youth. He viewed socialism as an enlightened extension of human labor generally conceived. Humans are at the center of production of wealth and of knowledge – i.e. of themselves. Cf. the letter to Ruge: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/letters/43_09.htm . Also: Cf. Gerry Cohen, Marx’s Theory of History’s short description of history in Hegel.

For Hegel’s dialectics (cf. Hibben https://archive.org/details/cu31924029069833, especially the first few chapters). Hibben is masterful at describing Hegel’s dialectics as the interplay/progression from (1) abstract understanding to (2) negative reason to (3) positive reason.

As to Hegel’s Logic:

• Being = Being, Nothing, Becoming; motion, dynamism, progressive development; Quality, Quantity, Measure.
• Essence = Mediation (vs. Immediacy), Essence (vs. Phenomenon, Appearance); Negation (vs. Position or Affirmation), Reflection, Permanence (vs. Transience), Systemic integration (vs. Disjointness); Reality (vs. Possibility).
• Notion = Unity (Truth) of Being and Essence; of Content and Form; of Subject and Object; of Necessity and Causality; for itself vs. in itself; total (concrete, concrete organized) vs. general (abstract); Reason (category, syllogism, argument) vs. empirics; the Idea.

Marx’s inversion of Hegel: It’s not the re-assertion of a raw sort of materialism, but the claim of a materialist synthesis with the idea aspect inhering to matter. Spinoza’s devastating critique of Cartesian dualism (cf. Ilyenkov’s chapter on Spinoza) was being taken to a higher, more concrete level. Thesis on Feuerbach: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/theses.htm

Knowledge as “the concrete organized” in our minds. Cf. Grundrisse, Introduction: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch01.htm