From: Doug Henwood
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
^^^^^^ Do you mean what reason do those other than the exploited have to object to exploitation ? Those exploited have naked self-interest ( self-interested action defines non-moral action)in objecting to exploitation.
Since the overwhelming majority are exploited, the Marxist theory is that the world is changeable based on self-interested, non-moral motives. The theory is also one on human nature: class struggles have always arisen through history because the exploited will eventually resist and overthrow their exploiters, because it is against the natural self-interests of the exploited to be exploited. It's natural, not moral for the exploited to object to being exploited. Certainly, this seems an implication of the Manifesto thesis.
It is the exploiters who would need moral reasons to object to exploitation. Engels was actually acting out of morality in being a Marxist. Marx lived off of "surpluses" too, so his whole work is moral, in the sense of altruistic. Philosophers changing the world are acting based on altruism, which is synonymous with "moral" in this discussion
Charles