[lbo-talk] Nietzsche again

[Rakesh Bhandari]

Perhaps Marx and Nietzsche would find greatest convergence in their 
suspicion towards the ideals of the criminal justice system, 
including (as several have already said) the implicit assumptions 
about responsibility and the insidiously common sensical 
understanding of punishment as paying back a debt to society. To say 
nothing of what gets counted as crime. Marx does not seem to have 
thought that exploitation could be shown to be unjust. Here is one 
reason to abandon justice as the basis of critique.  And Marxists 
have surely been critical of what is done in the name of criminal 
justice, have wanted to replace the ideal of punishment as just with 
other goals and aspirations. I am thinking here of Jeffrey Reiman 
(How the Rich Get Rich and the Poor Get Prison) who makes very 
interesting use of Pashukanis. On this list years ago (Thu Apr 5 
11:43:15 PDT 2001) I faulted Reiman for not working through 
Pashukanis's critique in his entry for the Cambridge Companion on 
Marx but found out later found that he had in fact elaborated with 
great acuity P's importance for a critical understanding of the 
ideals of criminal justice. I think we should  welcome a skepticism, 
a hermeneutics of suspsicion towards hallowed ideals like justice. 
Perhaps the left needs to free itself from transcendental idealism, 
the kind of plaintive crying about the world one associates with the 
left.   Perhaps the most one can say is that free market exploitation 
is not just; what is done in the name of criminal justice is barbaric 
however. Leave justice to the theologians and lawyers. James, I am 
sure will disagree! 
Rakesh