Carl's post raises fundamental questions. The distinction between utopian and scientific socialism was originally directed against those whose goal was to achieve just relations within the capitalist and nation-state framework. A scientific understanding would show that that was impossible, and the realisation of the golden rule between human beings as Marx described it in the early writings would require international abolition of the wages system, and production from each according to ability, distribution according to need. To achieve this, Marx said, the proletariat would have to purify itself of the (moral) muck of ages if it is to be fit to found society anew.
This insightfulness was converted by people like Social Darwinist Kautsky and Plekhanov into a positivist, scientistic, stagist, amoral textbook dogma, often terroristically imposed. In Ireland, after Connolly's death, this dogma has been used-- in the name of a science about class -- against the anti-imperialist gut feelings of the people, with disastrous results. The dogma is also a priori anti-religious, and unlike Connolly, right up to the New Left Review it punished the majority of the Irish people for being Catholic (Paisley is more progressive, being Protestant). There are a right and a left aspect to religion; one, acceptance of social order, the other, rejection of it in the name of the golden rule. (That's why Marx called religion the sigh of the oppressed creature and at the same time the protest against real suffering).
************************** On 25/07/2007 22:49:03, Carl Remick (carlremick at hotmail.com) wrote:
From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
On Jul 22, 2007, at 9:54 PM, Michael Perelman wrote:
Michael: Marx was denying justice as a basis for political organizing, calling for what he considered to be a scientific basis.
Doug: ...why object to capitalism if it didn't offend you in some moral/ethical sense? What other basis is there for revolutionary politics?
Carl: Bingo, QED. Marx was 100 percent in the Old Testament tradition of a fire-and-brimstone-spouting prophet denouncing a corrupt society for refusing to honor the Golden Rule.
The irony, IMO, is that Marx succeeded mainly in adding a new type of alienation to the capitalist world. The very complexity of Marx's thought, though impressive as science, serves to reduce the transparency of capitalism's abominations.
Ultimately, I think Marx has done more than anyone else to disenfranchise the masses from their visceral outrage and slow the progress of socialism in the world.
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