[lbo-talk] Exploited

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>joanna bujes wrote:
>
>>Carrol Cox wrote:
>>
>>>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.
>>>
>>>
>>NO. Placing the right to private property over the right to life
>>(and quality of life) is immoral.
>
>Oh, but Carrol is taking too seriously Marx's rejection of 
>"morality" in favor of "science." But what other reason is there to 
>object to exploitation, if not morality? I think it's pretty safe to 
>drop that 19th century remnant; the rest of the Marxian system could 
>survive nicely.
>
>Doug

What if exploitation as such in the Marxist sense is less likely to 
cause the most exploited (e.g., highly paid workers who produce much 
exchange values at high rates of productivity who are given stock 
options by profitable companies) to raise moral objection to their 
own exploitation than the least exploited (e.g., workers who toil for 
long hours for pittances at low rates of productivity in sweatshops 
equipped with old machinery) or the unexploited (e.g., the 
unemployed)?  That's where theory comes in.

Yoshie