[lbo-talk] Progress and Cariucature (Was Re: Catholicism. . . )

SA s11131978 at gmail.com
Mon Dec 15 08:46:34 PST 2008


On Dec 15, 2008, at 6:35 AM, Michael Smith wrote:


>> He certainly hated capitalism. But his justification
>> for expropriating the expropriators isn't founded
>> on the immorality of the latter, is it? That would
>> presuppose some moral framework (founded on what?)
>> existing over and above or outside of the historical
>> dialectic.

Throughout human history people have strongly felt things to be immoral without being able to provide a perfectly grounded, transhistorical account of why they are immoral. Why wasn't Marx one of those people?

On a related point, every political persuasion has its all-purpose bullshit reply. For free-marketeers it's "Xyz? Market prices have already factored in Xyz." For Marxists it's "Xyz? Xyz exists only in a particular historical context." As in:

A: What a nice blue sky. B: That sky isn't "blue." Blueness exists only in a particular historical context.

[And.....scene.]

As an aspiring historian I'm a big believer in the historicity of stuff, but that historicity doesn't in the meantime make things any less real, important or meaningful. Like morality, for example.

SA



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