> [Gotha quote snipped] This assumes the existence of an ultimate
> eternally valid principle of “right” that will characterize “the
> true realm of freedom” that constitutes, according to Marx, the
> “telos” of humanity, i.e. a principle that will constitute the
> content of human willing when that content becomes “universal” and
> actualizes fully “free self- determination.”
Whether or not this is a reasonable reading of the late Marx (and the passages Ted repeatedly loves to quote at length haven't convinced me), I'd like to focus on a practical question: is it politically useful to rely on the Ted-Marxist goal of "fully free self-determination"? I have two serious misgivings about this.
1. The notions of autonomy and self-determination are ideological products of our capitalist system. This is one of Foucault's points in the debate with Chomsky:
> And contrary to what you think, you can't prevent me from believing
> that these notions of human nature, of justice, of the realisation of
> the essence of human beings, are all notions and concepts which have
> been formed within our civilisation, within our type of knowledge and
> our form of philosophy, and that as a result form part of our class
> system; and one can't, however regrettable it may be, put forward
> these notions to describe or justify a fight which should-and shall
> in principle--overthrow the very fundaments of our society. This is
> an extrapolation for which I can't find the historical justification.
> That's the point. ..
I know Ted wants to argue that there is a distinction between the "bad" capitalist notion of freedom and the genuine Ted-Marxist(tm) notion of free self-determination. However, this distinction between false freedom and true freedom is in itself an ideological product of our society (for God's sake, even George Bush uses the rhetoric of true "self-determination" to contrast the noble U. S. with the jihadists who claim they are freedom fighters!). Thus, in perpetuating the notion of "genuine self-determination", we inadvertently reinforce the ideological bulwarks of our capitalist society.
2. The notion of self-determination obscures the many ways in which social relations actively create human characteristics and tendencies. For the Ted-Marxist (and Chomsky), the problem with our society is that it is repressive; we are naturally free, and capitalist society is bad because it constrains that natural potential for creativity and freedom.
I agree with Foucault that this way of thinking about power is at best incomplete and at worst misleading. Power does not only work by repression; it works via the creation of the types of people--including "free, autonomous individuals"--that reproduce power relations. Thus political change is not contingent on unleashing restraints on some ur-form of human freedom; rather, political change is all about creating social relations that make possible new human capabilities and tendencies. Maybe I'm reading too much into the Theses on Feuerbach, but I see no contradiction at all between Marx and Foucault here.
Miles