>
> 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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