[lbo-talk] Missing the Marx

Michael Dawson MDawson at pdx.edu
Wed Dec 29 13:12:09 PST 2004


Carrol, you are an asshole. For one thing, don't lecture me about comprehension. You either don't understand Karl Marx's explanation of exploitation, or you merely pretended you don't so you could find yourself on your preferred side of the argument. I suspect and hope for your sake it's the latter. I suppose it's better to be scurrilous than dense.

Meanwhile, let me clarify for you: You (and maybe Justin) think exploitation exists, but that it has nothing to do with ethics or ethical analysis. I think it exists as a provable fact, and that it is also thoroughly about ethics. I claim Marx saw it my way, that his purpose was to focus ethical analysis on the heart of the matter. You claim he saw it your way, which was to jettison ethical analysis altogether.

I find your position to be dunderheaded at best, and Stalinist and/or bourgeois at worst. It's a case of throwing out the baby to spite the bathwater. Exploitation is as ethically charged as it is real. Anybody who denies that is not a Marxist in precisely the sense KM used that phrase.

This is Marxism 101.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
> On Behalf Of Carrol Cox
> Sent: Wednesday, December 29, 2004 11:12 AM
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Missing the Marx
>
>
>
> Michael Dawson wrote:
> >
> > Well, the argument was not really over whether wages and profits are
> legally
> > correct under capitalism. Nobody disputes that. The argument was over
> > whether paying wages for work-time while capitalists keep the surpluses
> > created by wage laborers is exploitation. In other words, whether
> > capitalist property is stolen and unethical.
>
>
> Sigh.
>
> Yes, it is exploitative -- and the object of the workers' movement is to
> overturn this exploitative CMP.
>
> No, it is NOT "stolen and unethical."
>
> Can't you even state with minimal accuracy what Justin & I are saying.
> If you can't read us accurately, why should you expect us to take
> seriously your reading of anyone else?
>
> Carrol
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk



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