[lbo-talk] Re: wotsit madder

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Sun Mar 7 10:44:38 PST 2004


Eubulides wrote:
>
>
> Fair enough, but they too would still need a definition of
> non-self-estrangement on which to base claims to compel-persuade others to
> cease the behavior that they assert results in said self-estrangement.

I quote only this snippet, and I give only snippets of a response. We'll see if it helps or hinders the discussion.

Apparently Marx considered it important to work out this business on self-estrangement _for his own purposes_. His published works (and even his later unpublished works) can be shown to be consistent with it, but that is all; they are intelligible without reference to the concept of self-estrangement. He did not think that convincing others on these issues was important enough to even try to develop a publishable version of the argument.

My personal response is that I couldn't care less whether or not these questions be resolved.

I quite seriously don't see why anyone should want to persuade or compel anyone that X results in self-estrangement. The concept remains important only as a private scribble of Marx's as he was working out his understanding of capitalism and the struggle against it.

Reporter: What is?

KM: Struggle.

I don't see how one can in any conceivable way go beyond that in response to the questions you raise about "who decides" or "how does one prove in advance" etc.

Carrol



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list