[lbo-talk] You Can't Make Me Talk

[Tayssir John Gabbour]

On 4/8/07, Ted Winslow <egwinslow at rogers.com> wrote:
> None of these deal with the problem of organizing instrumental
> activity in an ideal community as conceived by Marx.
>
> He understands the "economic" problem in ancient terms as the problem
> of meeting the "needs" of a "good" life.  The content of a good life
> is non-economic; it is ethical - creating and appropriating beauty
> and truth within relations of mutual recognition.  It is the problem
> of "friends" (in a sense derived from Plato and Aristotle) who, as
> friends, "should have all things in common."

Yeah, Von Mises explicitly punts on that:

    "The knowledge of the fact that rational economic activity is

    impossible in a socialist commonwealth cannot, of course, be used

    as an argument either for or against socialism. Whoever is

    prepared himself to enter upon socialism on ethical grounds on the

    supposition that the provision of goods of a lower order for human

    beings under a system of common ownership of the means of

    production is diminished, or whoever is guided by ascetic ideals

    in his desire for socialism, will not allow himself to be

    influenced in his endeavors by what we have said."

  <http://www.mises.org/econcalc/CONCLUSN.asp>

Incidentally, Michael Albert has an interesting counterpoint:

   "In a Participatory Economy we want to be Efficient.

    "Does the word induce a bit of nausea in some of you? It does in

    me. But we need to get over that, because efficiency really means

    seeking to attain our aims and in doing so not wasting things we

    value. We should all therefore favor efficiency. The alternative

    to favoring efficiency is to favor either not attaining our aims,

    or to favor wasting things that we value.

    "So why does the word induce some nausea? In capitalism owners

    preference become the sought after ends, and what owners value is

    not wasted. So in capitalism efficiency means seeking maximum

    profits while reproducing the conditions of profit-making without

    wasting assets that owners can exploit. Capitalists don't mind

    destroying humans with black lung disease, or exterminating humans

    with weapons or with hunger, when the people afflicted are

    expendable as far as profit is concerned. Capitalists don't mind

    sickening people in the wake of their workplaces' pollution. They

    don't mind blowing up or destroying assets that they themselves

    can't exploit, though others will suffer from the loss. Under

    capitalism being efficient means being vile, because it is a vile

    system – and this is why we have some antipathy to the word

    efficiency as it is used all around us."

  <http://www.zmag.org/Parecon/writings/albert_lac.htm>

Tayssir