[lbo-talk] biz ethics and slavery

Charles Brown cbrown at michiganlegal.org
Fri Aug 13 10:35:15 PDT 2004


Does it make any difference from the perspective of the Engels' critique that Chuck Grimes said that capitalism has no ethics, which is amoral, not immoral ? Capitalism is atheistic too. The bourgeoisie qua bourgeoisie are atheistic. Atheism is an advantage over "believing" from the standpoint of political strategy in the class struggle.

C

From: Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu>

It seems to me that the argument between Justin & Chuck G overlaps the argument between Justin & Miles.

I do think it wrong to call capitalism immoral, for reasons analogous to the reasons Miles has been giving on the other issue. Morality is history-bound, not transcendent. Hence the charge that capitalism is immoral or unethical is a claim that the judge is outside history, but that is the implicit claim in all capitalist ideology.

Hence to call capitalism immoral is to fall victim oneself to capitalist ideology. Miles had it right when he wrote: "All of this is why moral philosophy drives me bonkers." Moral judgments (in contrast to judgments of political incorrectness) invariably generate incoherence -- the irresolvable clash of opposing metaphysical positions.

But I think Engels saves Chuck from the from Justin's charge of cynicism when (in his Introduction to the German edition of _Poverty of Philosophy_) he notes that judgments of the immorality of capitalism while wrong are indications that capitalism has exhausted its intellectual resources. My paraphrase, from memory, goes considerably beyond what Engels himself claims, but I think current posts by Miles, Justin, & Chuck are illustratory of this bankruptcy -- that is, of the necessity to achieve a perspective "outside" capitalism _without_ assuming a position "outside" history. Marx's concept of reality = struggle offers precisely that perspective.

Carrol



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