The 3rd-Greatest Rap Song of All Time
"Mises vs. Marx - The Definitive Capitalism vs. Socialism Rap Battle"
The song below—and its predecessors, the Keynes vs. Hayek rap battles—are so good that they have ended up among my all-time favorites. As the (current) first comment in the video’s Youtube thread says, “Dude this is actually fire for someone who loves history and politics.” Exactly.
Thus, I jokingly call them the three greatest of all time.
Needless to say, that is an exaggeration, since the best rap/hip hop song of all time is obviously “White Lines” by Grandmaster Flash & Melle Mel. Obviously.
The other top comments also recognize the vibe that the producers were going for—a fair debate, without straw-manning one side or the other…something that is fun and can be enjoyed by both sides:
“Absolutely wonderful that they can turn a topic that is so controversial into something fun that is enjoyed by both leftists and rightists.”
“Imagine having a very different opinion on such a subject with your friend, and not letting it divide you.”
“from now on: every political debate has to be done through a rap battle.”
The way the video is done, someone who goes in supporting one side or the other may still come away thinking his side won. But that’s okay. It gets people talking.
It also has tons to teach, if you look deeply enough. The rappers reference complex ideas and theories from both schools of thought—the whole thing is happening on many levels. I am able to go a couple of levels down, but I know that there are more things that experts would catch, or at least understand on a much deeper level.
Naturally, I am on Team Mises. I have some sympathy with a few of Marx’s general critiques, but I also know that—even if we ignore the poems to Satan and the fact that Marxism spawned democidal monstrosities that slaughtered a nine-digit figure of irreplaceable human beings—he also just plain got most things wrong.
You can see a partial list of them at 9:16:
Wealth didn’t concentrate—capitalism made the poor richer than they had ever been before.
The immiseration thesis proved to be completely backwards. Capitalism was making the workers’ lives better, not worse. As a result, the “workers of the world” didn’t revolt.
The middle class did not collapse; it expanded.
Profits did not fall; they grew wildly. Across all income spectra, people got wealthier and living standards rose.
We did not end up with a world of monopolies, and those that did form needed government help to establish and maintain their monopoly. (That is not proper capitalism; it is corporatism, crony capitalism, economic fascism, corporate socialism, or whatever else one might wish to call it.)
And obviously we have not reached a post-scarcity world, nor will we do so any time soon.
Marx’s failed predictions caused the Crisis of Marxism in the late 1800s, in which leftists briefly questioned their ideology. Of course, we know how that turned out. Instead of rethinking, they have spent the subsequent 130 years scrambling to cover for those errors.
Some serious pathologies exist in our economic system, but they are not the result of capitalism, or at least not capitalism alone. “Capitalism” is just a baggage-laden label for a system in which people are free to engage in voluntary transactions. Cronyism…government providing protection for concentrations of wealth…government providing a vehicle for the wealthy to impose their will upon the rest of us—those have to get added into the mix.
Plus there was whatever the heck happened in 1971. (If you ask me, it is because we finally fully uncoupled our money from gold. That is just an instinct, however; I do not know enough about monetary theory to argue the point.)
Anyway…enjoy!
(PS: This is not an official #FreedomMusicFriday post, but it’s music so it’s getting thrown in with the rest!)
This reminded me of a pair of YT channels I came across a couple yrs ago that is nothing but these types of rap battles, some historical/living people, some fictional characters from movies/TV. Good stuff all around.
https://www.youtube.com/@ERB/videos
https://www.youtube.com/@ERB2/videos
Love this! Thanks for sharing.