Debates

[JKSCHW at aol.com]

Hey, I wasn't endorsing the nonmoral view, just explaining how the cited 
proposition might not be a claim about distributive justice. In fact I think 
that Marx's normative basis for communism is freedom, not justice; see my 
paper "What's Wrong with Exploitation?", Nous 1995. I also think that Marx 
was wrong to reject justice, although Marx's arguments against justice are 
more subtle and powerfdul than they first appear. I have written on these 
things too, but once self-ciattion is enough for a post. --jks

In a message dated Mon, 16 Oct 2000 11:37:22 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
LeoCasey at aol.com writes:

<< Justin wrote:
<< Leo asks how the claim that "the free development of each is a condition 
for the free development of all" can be anything but a  principle of 
distributive justice. Well, it can be a factual claim: that there cannot asa  
matter of 
fact be free development for each without there being free development for 
all. Moreover, if it is a normative claim, it is not a distributive one. It 
does not tell us that we are to distribute freedom equally, or that we may 
distribute unequally just insofar as necessary in order to promote greater 
freedom. In fact, it tell sus nothing about the distribution of freedom or 
free development except that it must be universal for individuals to enjoy 
it. That's consistent with a very large number of inconsistent distributions. 
- --jks >>

Justin:

I have to admit that it was surprised and puzzled by your post above. 
Surprised because I would have thought that you would be most unsympathetic 
to rigorous Foucaultian claims that one needs to dispose altogether with the 
language of justice, as opposed to re-working and re-thinking it, most 
unsympathetic to claims that one can dispose altogether with normative 
standards for the type of society one is aspiring to bring into being. 
Indeed, I had figured you to be more wedded to re-working those notions than 
myself, who would say that we needed provisional, historically limited -- as 
opposed to concepts grounded in some notion of human nature -- notions of 
ideas such as justice.  Puzzled because this seems, to me at least, that your 
point is philosophically tendentious. For although one could make a technical 
claim that "from each according to their ability, to each according to their 
need" is a mere factual claim, it almost never been used in that way (I say 
"almost never" because although I can not recall of any such use, it is 
plausible that an "analytical Marxist" might try to force it into this 
apolitical form) and it was certainly not presented in that way by Marx, who 
quite clearly used it as a normative basis for communism. And I don't see how 
you read it as a claim regarding the distribution of freedom; I would have 
thought that it is quite clearly a principle regarding the production and 
distribution of material goods and resources -- each contributes to the 
production according to his ability and capacity, and each receives, in the 
form of distribution, what he needs. Certainly the Marxian conception of 
communism as a realm of freedom as opposed to necessity is based on this 
system of production, but I don't see freedom in this framework as a resource 
which can be distributed in lesser or greater amounts.

 
Leo Casey
United Federation of Teachers
260 Park Avenue South
New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869)

Power concedes nothing without a demand.
It never has, and it never will.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who 
want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and 
lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters.
-- Frederick Douglass --

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