>Good luck with that, Todd. "Here's how exploitation happens, but I'm not
>saying it's bad." >Excellent.
I figure when exploitation, for example, is laid bare for most people to see, they'll be able to connect the dots and come to their own conclusion about it being good or bad for them (pace to Doug and his critique of Chomsky re reporting). Note I'm not including ideology distorting this being able to figure things out.
If you get burned and someone explains why, how would you feel if the info lecture ended with, "And now you see why getting burned is a Bad Thing"?
>BTW, why the word "exploitation," if Marx didn't think his work was, in his
>title phrase, critical >morality?
I think Marx had two very different ideas of what constitutes morality: bourgeois morality ie the norm, and what he meant by the term. He wanted to cut through all the high-flown bullshit the capitalists churned out about freedom, morality, etc. and show people exactly what was going on.
What I suspect you're doing is reading your own moral interpretation onto Marx's description. And that's fine, as far as it goes. That stuff I pointed towards by Ollman mentions down at the bottom shows how, should one assume Marx was fighting a battle of morals, such thinking puts him basically on the same plane as his opponents, so it's easy for the capitalists to reject Marx logically and morally
"It is to suggest that Marx, for all his effort at historical explanation and despite his explicit denial, criticized them because he favored different principles. In which case, the capitalist ideologist easily removes the noose Marx has placed around his neck by the simple device of rejecting what passes for the latter's principles. Either he declines the honor of serving the goals of communism or of human fulfillment as understood by Marx because he doesn't consider this state of affairs possible, or he refuses to serve the interest at the proletariat or of humanity because -- for reasons best known to himself -- he prefers other ends, whether of this or the next world. To berate such refusals as irrational only begs the question, as it uses the very ends put aside as guides to what is rational."
If one presumes Marx wasn't making moral judgements in the standard sense of the term but instead was "merely" describing how things work for people to make their own judgements, Marx isn't then providing his opponents a shield to hide behind; one can't very well dispute facts with morals.
>"Exploit" is certainly a morally loaded word. Biased, in fact. Why didn't
>he just call it "profit >margins?" That's what it is. Why the distinction?
Simply put, the two aren't the same thing. If I buy something on eBay for 10 bucks, then sell it for 20, anything I have left over after expenses makes my profit margin. No exploitation is here.
If I'm an employer, I exploit people at every turn (even if I don't like to think of myself as "that sort of person"): the fact they have little choice but to work for me or someone like me, the unpaid labour I get out of them (even if I pay them well). There are probably other ways I don't know about. I use that exploitation, among other things, to make my profit margin.
(Economists: correct me if I'm wrong, please.)
And exploit doesn't have to be morally loaded; it can be an accurate, relatively value-neutral term ("scientific" Marx might have called it). We exploit resources. Fleas exploit their hosts (and don't always cause harm).
The microbes living in our guts exploit us, as we do them. Morality isn't involved in these "transactions". And the word does connote that, even though one is exploited, good can come of it (or at least it doesn't absolutely refuse to allow for that).