[lbo-talk] Marx and Justice

Michael Perelman michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Mon Jul 23 07:28:27 PDT 2007


that is why he called capitalists the charactermasks of capital.

On Mon, Jul 23, 2007 at 01:29:59PM +0000, farmelantj at juno.com wrote:
>
> Marx was quite willing to allow that some capitalists, taken as
> individuals, might be very decent people. But that didn't in Marx's
> opinion didn't change the fact that capitalists still had to act in the
> ways that he described in Capital on pain of extinction. In other
> words the ruthlessness of capitalism is enforced upon them by the very
> laws of survival in the marketplace.
>
> Jim F.
>
> -- Michael Perelman <michael at ecst.csuchico.edu> wrote:
> Marx wanted to base everything on science. He saw his method as
> scientific.
>
> What this approach did was very positive in one respect -- for much of
> his work, he did not denouce capitalists personally, but saw them as
> the character maxks of capital.
>
> On Sun, Jul 22, 2007 at 10:13:33PM -0400, Doug Henwood wrote:
> >
> > On Jul 22, 2007, at 9:54 PM, Michael Perelman wrote:
> >
> > > Marx was trying to downplay the reformers who based their program on
> > > morality. Marx was saying that the problem was not individual
> > > employers unjustly ripping off their workers. The problem was the
> > > rules of the system. In short, he was denying justice as a basis for
> > > political organizing, calling for what he considered to be a
> > > scientific
> > > basis.
> >
> > Yeah that's the standard line, but do you really believe it? Sure he
> > was annoyed by the screeching moralists of his day, as am I by their
> > counterparts today, but why object to capitalism if it didn't offend
> > you in some moral/ethical sense? What other basis is there for
> > revolutionary politics?
> >
> > Doug
> > ___________________________________
> > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
> --
> Michael Perelman
> Economics Department
> California State University
> Chico, CA 95929
>
> Tel. 530-898-5321
> E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
> michaelperelman.wordpress.com
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>
>
>
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-- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu michaelperelman.wordpress.com



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