You say that Marx is ironic when he says that the worker is not treated unjustly. But perhaps his target here is justice itself? And the annals are written in blood and fire--not sure that this an ethical judgement rather than an unblinkered chronicle. In other words, to those who would morally justify capitalism due its origins in putatively just transactions, Marx reintroduces the real history of capitalism. Is this itself an ethical judgement? Or a critique of an ethical defense of capitalism
I think Marx says plenty that suggests he was an ethical nihilist, and he says plenty that suggests the opposite as you eloquently suggest. His ethics seem confusing and perhaps confused.
Yours, Rakesh
Rakesh and others,
The 10 Point Program at the end of The Communist Manifesto proposes to address some ills of society. Marx & Engels wrote it.
Did Marx do this ethics-free? Like, hey, why the hell not have "Free education for all children in public schools [a]nd abolition of children's factory labor in its present form"? (Point 10 of the Ten Point Program ). No ethics -- just do it for the hell of it. Why not?
When Marx says that surplus value does not rightfully belong to the worker, he's talking about our current juridical/economic system, where in fact it doesn't. Often he's speaking with bitter irony when he says the worker is not treated unjustly - indeed, from the standpoint of bourgeois morality, the worker isn't. Joe Proletarian is free, free, free! And so Marx recognizes that viewpoint, pays cynical homage to it, even when spelling out the absolute hell workers endure every day of their life. The annals of working class suffering are written in blood and fire -- Marx said something like that, too. All ethics-free, I suppose.
-B.
Rakesh Bhandari wrote:
"But Marx says the surplus value does not rightfully belong to the worker. [...] So I think if you want to construct an ethics, you'll have to work against Marx, the Nietzschean like nihilist. Or at least the ethics which are implied in Marx's critique is so deeply buried that its recovery will have to be much more than an interpretation of him."