^^^^ CB: I can't quite understand how as a respecter of Marxism you don't consider that since the _Manifesto_ declares quite prominently that history hitherto is a history of class struggles, clearly making a tranhistorical reference if there ever was one, that Marx and Engels suggest that there is some instinctive basis to resisting exploitation and oppression. So, by their actions , if not in their expressed consciousness, Spartacus and others, pointed to a principle of morality - freedom from ...slavery and equality of human beings in their abstract laboring ability. This is further implied in Marx's discussion of abstract labor in _Capital_. Marx very much seems to say that abstract labor power - ability to expend a certain amount of nerves, muscles, brain function, etc. in conjunction with other humans, the ability to imagine in the process - is part of the human essence. And that to control and consume the fruits of this labor is the basis for a moral principle. Why do you think that Spartacus was Marx's famous character in ancient European history ?
^^^^
By the 18th-century thought on what it _meant_ to be human (rather than, for example, a "talking instrument")had changed in the context of new social relations, and the instituion of slavery could be condemned out-of-hand, its continued existence being legitimate grounds for war, and a war, moreover, in which the demand for unconditional surrender was the only rational strategy. Note that on this list there are sharp divisions as to what constitutes a human being; that is the context for debates over abortion. "Humanness," what it means to be human, is therefore socially constructed, not "given" as a transhistorical metaphysical fact.
^^^^ CB: How can you deny that Marx and Engels make a transhistorical claim with respect to class struggle ? It's patent. It would be another thing if you weren't a "fellow Marxist". There claim is not metaphysical , of course, but allegedly based on the evidence of history.
^^^^^^
Acts and institutions which violate the historically established concept of wht it is to be human provoke anger and revulsion. Attempts to block conversation through deliberately false statements of the positions of others also provoke anger and revulstion. That is history, not an abstract principle holding in abstraction from time and space.
Capitalism is history, not an evil plot.
^^^^^ CB: Capitalism is the latest class divided society, from a historical materialist standpoint.
^^^^^
But even within capitalism social practice eventuates in the establishment of allowable and not allowable economic activities. Again, no abstract principle of Justice or Rationality need, only the historical fact. Hence no abstract morality or moral judgment is needed for Ian's argument that systematic malfeasance needs to be crushed.
Carrol