> I have read Tamas, I have read Marx, and I do understand their description of capital production as a system that must operate by certain rules. But so do all systems. And yet, being conscious historical subjects, we can step outside of this system and make a judgment whether that system benefits humanity.
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Would you care to specify the steps whereby people other than yourself can do that?
> Creating jobs in a wage-slave economy is creating more slavery. Is it possible to condemn slavery without reference to some kind of ethics?
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To call it a wage-slave economy is political rhetoric; it is not an indefeasible ethical truth. One could go so far as to assert it's not even a truth-apt proposition.
One could, with some rigorous analyses/arguments condemn slavery without engaging in any kind of moral/ethical judgements. One would not even need the self-ownership theory that's been floating around since at least the protestant reformation. Indeed, it may be more productive and persuasive to use unfreedom as the key term for showing the political harms of slavery.
> In the absence of the overthrow of the systems that define our lives, we still have a choice about the extent of our collaboration. This choice also is made with reference to some kind of ethics.
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I seem to recall your claiming, on multiple posts throughout the years that capitalism *does not* offer us any choices at all. I think this links up with your claim up above regarding 'stepping outside the system', but I can't be sure.
If capitalism does not offer us any choices, problems of grammar aside, then where does the choice of 'stepping outside the system', along with the vocabularies to condemn and then overthrow it come from?
>
> Of course, focusing on the immorality of the Koch brothers misses the larger point and is a waste of time. But I find it equally misleading to reject ethical concerns in understanding our struggle.
>
> Joanna
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People cannot even agree on what the larger point is or whether there even is one. One need only look at all the dead trees on labor law or environmental law or tax law to see that is the case.
Every attempt to come to a definitive, final adverse set of judgements regarding capitalism simply generate more argument and violence and the use of moral-ethical discourse and narratives does not seem to have played any significant role whatsoever. Was the Wagner Act created because it was the ethical thing to do at the time? Was the tax on capital gains or Sarbanes-Oxley created because of superior moral argument? Is global warming a moral problem at all? Are revolutions moral events? At a more individualistic level, was William Halsted's use of cocaine while performing surgery unethical? Why is it unethical now?
Ethics-Morality is politics by so-called 'other' means.
Ian