OK, Ted, you win. You have made Marx immune to refutation; apparently, to even discuss him you have accept his premises as you understand him. Those premises cannot be criticized, except from within. And it's no good to even suggest a different, thinner interpretation than you propose. I note that it works both ways: Marx can't lay a glove on Hayek by your style of argument. So we end up with a situation on which by Ted's Marx, capitalism is wretched, and by Justin's Hayek (this is my reading of H, not a view I wendorse), capitalism's great, and they're both right! Sure that suggests there is something wrong with your mode of argument, Ted. However, I find this a dull game, and won't play. jks
jks
>Justin wrote:
>
> > It's not supposed to make any such assumptions. It's semantics, not
> > metaphysics.
>
>Some treatments of "semantics" embody unacknowledged ontological premises,
>e.g. G.E. Moore's treatment of the meaning of a "part".
>
> >>
> >> Consequently, the history of the development of rational
> >> self-consciousness can't be represented by reasoning that assumes that
>the
> >> "identity," in this sense, of individual self-consciousness remains
> >> unchanged in the face of changes in relations.
> >>
> >
> > You build a lot more into Marx than I do. I don't dounbt that of of it
>is
> > there. But it doesn't have to be to justify a move from capitalsim to
> > socialism.
>
>The ontological premises I'm attributing to him produce particular meanings
>for "capitalism" and "socialism." For instance, capitalism means, among
>other things, the domination of production by a particular kind of
>subjectivity; socialism means domination by a different kind of
>subjectivity. They also entail a particular meaning for "justification",
>e.g. they entail the idea of a good life to which I pointed, an idea which
>includes as aspects non-coercive, non-exploitive (including in this the
>treatment of persons as ends rather than means) social relations. You
>can't
>reject the premises and retain the same meanings for "capitalism,"
>"socialism" and "justify."
>
> >> Both the
> >> atomism and the concept of rationality are inconsistent with Marx.
> >>
> > Maybe, and ifs o maybe Maerx is wrong.
>
>To show that he is, though, you'll have to show that social relations are
>external and that rationality is properly identified with instrumental
>axiomatic deductive reasoning. This will be something different from
>dismissing the ideas as a "relentless holistic approach." Why, for
>instance, is the conception of "forces of production" as expressive of the
>development of rational self-consciousness, "the power of knowledge,
>objectified," and of this development as internally related to relations of
>production a less realistic and hence less "productive" conception of these
>forces and their relation to relations of production than technological
>determinism?
>
> > I'm not a communist. I'm a market socialist. But I don't arrive at this
>in a
> > rounndabout way from fundamental premises. I'm not a c-ist because I
>don't
> > think a nonmarket economy can be efficient enough to support a rich
>society,
> > for the reasons Hayek argued.
>
>Hayek's conclusions depend on his premises about individuals. These
>include
>atomism and the identification of rationality with instrumental deductive
>reasoning. They can't be used to reach conclusions about either
>"socialism"
>or "communism" as Marx conceives them. For instance, Marx has taken over
>from Smith the idea that capitalist relations of production are radically
>inconsistent with the full development of the rationality, the "productive
>powers," of those who work within them.
>
>"Capitalist production, therefore, only develops the techniques and the
>degree of combination of the social process of production by simultaneously
>undermining the original sources of all wealth - the soil and the worker."
>(Capital, vol. 1, p. 638)
>
>Relations more consistent with such development will, therefore, be much
>more "efficient" in Marx's sense which includes the sense of minimizing the
>time spent in producing the means necessary for life in the "realm of
>freedom."
>
>An argument about the relation of markets to efficiency that excludes by
>assumption any effect of the organization of production on the
>"rationality"
>of the producers can't show that Marx's claims about the "efficiency" of
>nonmarket forms of economic organization are mistaken. Such forms, e.g. a
>form characterized by "mutual recognition," embody premises about
>individuals inconsistent with Hayek's. For instance, "planning" by freely
>associated universally developed producers in relations of mutual
>recognition would differ radically from the idea of planning on which
>Hayek's argument is based.
>
> >> You can't demonstrate that Marx's premises are mistaken
> >> by showing that Marx's conclusions don't follow from premises Marx
>doesn't
> >> make.
> >
> > Oh yes you can. Marx thought that communism required the abolition of
> > scarcity. He argued that it would unleasre the productive forcesl. He
>was
> > wrong. Anyway, you can get to this point from Marx's own premises, as
> > Stanley Moore has shown in Marx vs. the Market. Marx argues (correctly)
>that
> > under historical materialsim, it is markets that drive the development
>of
> > the productive forces. So when you geyt rid of them . . .
>
>How does any of this show that you can "demonstrate that Marx's premises
>are
>mistaken by showing that Marx's conclusions don't follow from premises Marx
>doesn't make"?
>
>How do you know Marx was wrong? I take it you're not implicitly assuming
>that the relations of production in the former Soviet Union were
>"communist"
>in Marx's sense i.e. fully free relations of mutual recognition.
>
>Stanley Moore can't have shown that, on Marx's assumptions, nonmarket forms
>of organization are incompatible with the development of productive forces.
>On Marx's premises nonmarket forms are necessary to the full development
>and
>effective use of these forces because, on his premises, they are necessary
>to the "full development of the individual."
>
>The full development of the individual and the full utilization of the
>fully
>developed individual's productive powers require both "free time" in the
>"realm of freedom" and "freedom" in the "realm of necessity."
>
>"The saving of labour time [is] equal to an increase of free time, i.e.
>time
>for the full development of the individual, which in turn reacts back upon
>the productive power of labour as itself the greatest productive power. ...
>Free time - which is both idle time and time for higher activity - has
>naturally transformed its possessor into a different subject, and he then
>enters into the direct production process as this different subject."
>(Grundrisse, pp. 711-2)
>
>"Freedom, in this sphere [the "realm of necessity"], can only consist in
>this, that socialized man, the associated producers, govern the human
>metabolism with nature in a rational way, bringing it under their
>collective
>control instead of being dominated by it as a blind power; accomplishing it
>with the least expenditure of energy and in conditions most worthy and
>appropriate to their human nature." (Capital, vol. 3, p. 959)
>
> >> Unlike Hayek, Marx assumes that the content of a "good" life is
>objective
> >> and knowable.
> >
> > You are wandering here. I agree with Marx, but like Hayek I am also a
> > liberal, so I would not impose my conception of the good life on others
>who
> > disagreed, even if I thought they were wrong.
>
>No I'm not. On Marx's premises about the "good" life, market relations
>contradict "good" relations. Hayek's defense of such relations ignores this
>aspect of Marx's criticism of them. To impose your conception of the good
>life on others while agreeing with Marx's conception of it would be
>self-contradictory. Good relations with others as Marx conceives them are
>relations completely free of coercion.
>
>Ted
>
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