[lbo-talk] "I'm so scared of this anti-Wall Street effort. I'm frightened to death"

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Fri Dec 2 06:47:17 PST 2011


Julio Huato : The ultimate basis of capital is inequality
> plus markets.

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This is nonsense. Two points about "inequality": a) It is not a basis, ultimate or otherwise, of any social system, but merely the _resdult_ (superficial) of all class societies; b) You are operating with a sentimental definition of "equality" and hence of "inequality." Absolute total equality is impossible, and Marx utterly rejects it. But abstract equality is the defining mark of capitalism, its reduction of human activity to time. The First International was grounded in the struggle for bourgeois equality; hence its members addressed each other as Citizen rather than the current Comrade!

All struggles to date, for the most part, have been struggles to achieve in practice this abstract equality. In practice capitalist equality is never achievable, but we have a pretty damn close approach to it now. The 'moral' implication of this equality is that everyone is personally responsible for their own poverty or riches.

Carrol



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