"Plan Oder Markt: The Battle of Ideas Between Austro-Marxism and Neoliberalism in Vienna"

Johannes Maerk
Public Lecture
September 13, 2016
Co-sponsored by SFU's Institute for the Humanities, School for International Studies, Department of History, & Department of Sociology and Anthropology.
ABSTRACT:
This lecture analyses the battle of ideas on the role of the state in society between the neoliberals of the so-called Austrian school of Economics (Menger, von Mises, von Hayek) and the Austro-Marxists (Hilferding, Bauer, but also the Vienna Circle member Neurath) in Vienna of the 1920´s and 1930´s. Both proposals sought to achieve hegemony in a Gramscian sense with their respective outlooks over society. While the ideas of von Hayek et. al. did not find a fertile ground in their homeland and had its concrete political applications outside of Central Europe (mainly from the 1970s onwards in many countries of Latin America and from the 1980s in the UK and USA), the Austro-Marxists counterproposal was developed exclusively through specific Viennese public policies (social housing; culture and sports, public health, education) and did not have much influence outside Austria. The lecture attempts to recover the forgotten ideas of "Red Vienna", analyses the rise of neoliberal thinking and its impact in current times.
SPEAKER'S BIO:
Johannes Maerk, PhD. University of Innsbruck Austria (Political Philosophy), is the Director of the Viennese Ideaz Institute, Lecturer at the University of Vienna, and Professor at the University of Quintana Roo, Mexico (leave of absence). He also had research and teaching appointments at National University of Mexico (UNAM), Simon Fraser University/Vancouver, the University of the West Indies/Jamaica, State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ)/Brazil, and Warsaw University/Poland. His research interests are non-western and comparative social sciences (political thought, IR), epistemology, South-South relations, and development issues. He currently has research projects in Latin America and the Middle East. Among his publications are the edited volumes “Existe una epistemologia latinoamericana” and “Cómo democratizar la democracia,” as well as articles about political thought in Latin America and Canada, Red Vienna, and other topics related to his research interests.
RESPONDENT:
Duane Fontaine, MA, CPA, CGA, is a professional accountant who is currently a PhD student in SFU’s interdisciplinary SAR program. Duane is currently studying the nature of work in contemporary neoliberal society and is contrasting that with an examination of alternative visions of what the future of work might be, both in terms of a quantitative reduction of socially necessary work (e.g. through automation, job sharing, reduced work week, guaranteed basic income), and in terms of a qualitative redefinition of work from the standpoint of both Critical Theory and Virtue Ethics. His research will focus on the application of the Herbert Marcuse’s ‘aesthetic dimension’ (informed by Friedrich Schiller’s On the Aesthetic Education of Man), as well as contemporary applications of Aristotelian virtue ethics (through the work of Alasdair MacIntyre, Amartya Sen, Martha Nussbaum and others), to the problem of a how to re-envision and re-define work in a way that is more applicable to the goal of enhancing well-being.

[@RavW1776]

I haven't heard this era or region discussed from this academic perspective, and it's both fascinating and conveys important historical trends that still have relevance today.
Unfortunately, the first speaker is not confident in his English, and his speech is so halting, with heavy breathing sounds and "um"s littered every 4 or 5 words -- it proved to be hugely distracting. I've lived in Germany and am very accustomed to German accents, so it wasn't his non-native accent that's the problem; it's all of the violations of "good public speaking" principles that grates on listeners' nerves! They made it hard to absorb what he was saying. Especially for the first half, I wound up skipping over part of his lecture, because I couldn't ignore my annoyance and impatience!
In the first half, when his energy is so lethargic and halting, his speaking rate is also about 3x slower than a typical speech pattern. Later on, after a video, the speaker finally got animated and spoke at a normal, smoother pace (though still littered with too many "um"s!)

[@somedude5853]

I got to the point where first speaker tried to misrepresent this Hayek quote (about 13:00):
"It was men’s submission to the impersonal forces of the market that in the past has made possible the growth of a civilization which without this could not have been developed; it is by thus submitting that we are every day helping to build something that is greater than any one of us can fully comprehend"
The speaker tries to claim that Hayek is relying on mysticism and has a faith based belief in the market. Whether you support Hayek or not, this is dishonest. No point in going further.

[@johnramsko4535]

If you watch again, you'll find that Johannes didn't claim that "Hayek is relying on mysticism", he instead said there's a "mystical element" (14:06) of Hayek where he invokes his concept of "Civilization", which is a significant difference, as if it's just an element, it could be wrong and Hayek's higher-order claims could still be true, Johannes is not claiming at all it's foundational for Hayek like you suggested.
He's however indeed critiquing Hayek and being polemic about his definition of "Civilization" here, which the quote suggests, is "greater than any one of us can fully comprehend", note that "Civilization" in 20th cent Vienna among liberals is basically the same as "the (capital G) Good", so Hayek is saying here that "the Good" is something we can not individually "fully comprehend", yet in order to achieve it, we must throw ourselves into "submission to the impersonal forces of the market". So it seems to me fully justified that Johannes claims Hayek is phrasing his support of markets in mystical language here. Specifically due to describing Civilization as "something that is greater than any one of us can fully comprehend", which is claimed to be outside of reason and historically is how mystics defended their metaphysics or, simply, their version of god, against a rationalist critique.
Beyond this, I'd recommend for anyone to "go further" even if you feel attacked by someone's claim, as long as the someone is reasonable sticking to open, honest and charitable discursive form, which I think both interlocutors here are. I personally find Johannes's form to be a tad too polemical or heated at times, but he seems to make up for it by bringing an impressive interdisciplinary knowledge to the table, don't be fooled.
All the best.