Fair to say Wosbald, that Marx was less concerned about equality than he was about fairness. That it was the non-exploitation of workers that concerned him more than the fact of everybody having the same, being 'equal', as it were?
For some reason (if it's true) this seems to have been lost or misplaced, in the popular conception of the man.
What are you reading in general?
Moderator: Orlion
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peter
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What are you reading in general?
All we are saying, is "Give Peace a Chance." Jaw-jaw is better than war-war.
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
-
Wosbald
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What are you reading in general?
+JMJ+
And in this reading, Marx has two overriding concerns suffusing his professional work:
As such, this constant drumbeat in Marx leads one (or at least, leads me) to think that his central focus was not tinkering around the edges of the present system in order to make it more "fair" but was rather, the Revolution, the "quantum leap", that would usher in the New Order. (One caveat is that, for Marx, pure equality doesn't necessarily mean "everybody having the same", but it does mean everybody having what they need.)
Now, it's possible that Marx set aside his utopian philosophical obsessions in his "regular life" and worked toward more realistic goals such as "fairer treatment", but I can't really speak to that. You'd hafta ask someone less versed in Marx the Metaphysician and more in versed in Marx's biography or Socialist history.
Firstly, there are "many Marxes". Marx is one of the most (over)interpreted of philosophers. Many interpreters jockey to be the seen as the authentic inheritor of Marx and many others seek to redeploy Marx in novel contexts. But since you're asking me, I'll say that I interpret Marx fairly classically, viz., in continuity with the grand metaphysical tradition of German Idealism.peter wrote: ↑ Fair to say Wosbald, that Marx was less concerned about equality than he was about fairness. That it was the non-exploitation of workers that concerned him more than the fact of everybody having the same, being 'equal', as it were?
For some reason (if it's true) this seems to have been lost or misplaced, in the popular conception of the man.
And in this reading, Marx has two overriding concerns suffusing his professional work:
- The Class-struggle between:
- Capital
- Labor
- The Valuation-struggle between:
- Exchange-Value
- Use-Value
As such, this constant drumbeat in Marx leads one (or at least, leads me) to think that his central focus was not tinkering around the edges of the present system in order to make it more "fair" but was rather, the Revolution, the "quantum leap", that would usher in the New Order. (One caveat is that, for Marx, pure equality doesn't necessarily mean "everybody having the same", but it does mean everybody having what they need.)
Now, it's possible that Marx set aside his utopian philosophical obsessions in his "regular life" and worked toward more realistic goals such as "fairer treatment", but I can't really speak to that. You'd hafta ask someone less versed in Marx the Metaphysician and more in versed in Marx's biography or Socialist history.
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peter
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What are you reading in general?
Gratitude Wos.
I'll need to work on some of that to get my head fully around it, but it surely helps to have it expressed in terms I can at least begin to comprehend.
I'll need to work on some of that to get my head fully around it, but it surely helps to have it expressed in terms I can at least begin to comprehend.
All we are saying, is "Give Peace a Chance." Jaw-jaw is better than war-war.
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
-
Wosbald
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What are you reading in general?
+JMJ+
If I can offer any other help, just holler.
Please indulge me to offer a brief conclusion to my earlier post, as this may also be helpful:
Short Form: A sanitized, domesticated Marx — Marx the social reformer, Marx the petit bourgeois do-gooder — does a double disservice in that it can anesthetize one to the real dangers inherent in Marxism as well blunting the positive elements which can be recuperated like the gold from the dross.
I'd rewritten it a few times to remove superfluities and to try to improve clarity. I hope I was successful.
If I can offer any other help, just holler.
Please indulge me to offer a brief conclusion to my earlier post, as this may also be helpful:
Short Form: A sanitized, domesticated Marx — Marx the social reformer, Marx the petit bourgeois do-gooder — does a double disservice in that it can anesthetize one to the real dangers inherent in Marxism as well blunting the positive elements which can be recuperated like the gold from the dross.
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peter
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What are you reading in general?
That's an interesting little addition Wos.
I'm loath to ask someone else to do all the heavy lifting and then pick their brains on a subject, but will risk a brief further trespass on your time in the spirit of your offer.
Sanitised in the sense of simplified, or in the sense that there is a 'malevolence' or 'malice' in it, not usually mentioned by those who champion the 'ism' that has developed out of it?
Presumably the different interpretations of Marx come not least because of the breadth of disciplines his work covers, and the tendency of each reader to come at it from his or her own background (I'd be interested in it more from an economic perspective; how it would sit against the work of Smith {or even later, Picketty perhaps}).
But could you indulge me with a brief summary of "the real dangers inherent in Marxism", if they are other than that they lead inexorably and invariably to the horrors of Stalinism or Maoism? (Why this would be would be a question that I'm sure would require a book in itself to answer.) Should they concern me as a social democrat (or probably closer, a democratic socialist)? Brute monsters we can see: the snakes in the grass (if they are there), more difficult.
I'm loath to ask someone else to do all the heavy lifting and then pick their brains on a subject, but will risk a brief further trespass on your time in the spirit of your offer.
Sanitised in the sense of simplified, or in the sense that there is a 'malevolence' or 'malice' in it, not usually mentioned by those who champion the 'ism' that has developed out of it?
Presumably the different interpretations of Marx come not least because of the breadth of disciplines his work covers, and the tendency of each reader to come at it from his or her own background (I'd be interested in it more from an economic perspective; how it would sit against the work of Smith {or even later, Picketty perhaps}).
But could you indulge me with a brief summary of "the real dangers inherent in Marxism", if they are other than that they lead inexorably and invariably to the horrors of Stalinism or Maoism? (Why this would be would be a question that I'm sure would require a book in itself to answer.) Should they concern me as a social democrat (or probably closer, a democratic socialist)? Brute monsters we can see: the snakes in the grass (if they are there), more difficult.
All we are saying, is "Give Peace a Chance." Jaw-jaw is better than war-war.
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
-
Wosbald
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What are you reading in general?
+JMJ+
In general terms, the prime danger of Marxism is that it's an unreal utopianism, which means that it proposes an alternative just as unworkable and contradiction-ridden as the ideologized Capitalism it opposes. An equal-and-opposite error — jumping into the maw of Charybdis to escape Scylla.
"Sanitized" in the sense of someone who's not a threat to Bourgeois Capitalism — someone who's happy to accommodate the system rather than someone willing to mercilessly expose its internal contradictions and hypocrisies.
In general terms, the prime danger of Marxism is that it's an unreal utopianism, which means that it proposes an alternative just as unworkable and contradiction-ridden as the ideologized Capitalism it opposes. An equal-and-opposite error — jumping into the maw of Charybdis to escape Scylla.
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peter
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What are you reading in general?
Amen to that Wos. That dilemma, even I can grasp. Look at the news in Europe today.
(Ps. Like the new avatar. Reminds me of the (rap) lyric "And if the truth be known, we all need mercy when our cover gets blown.")
(Ps. Like the new avatar. Reminds me of the (rap) lyric "And if the truth be known, we all need mercy when our cover gets blown.")
All we are saying, is "Give Peace a Chance." Jaw-jaw is better than war-war.
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
-
Wosbald
- A Brainwashed Religious Flunkie
- Posts: 6469
- Joined: Sat Feb 07, 2015 1:35 am
- Been thanked: 3 times
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Wosbald
- A Brainwashed Religious Flunkie
- Posts: 6469
- Joined: Sat Feb 07, 2015 1:35 am
- Been thanked: 3 times
What are you reading in general?
+JMJ+
Capital as Organic Unity: The Role of Hegel’s 'Science of Logic' in Marx’s 'Grundrisse' by Mark E. Meaney
Capital as Organic Unity: The Role of Hegel’s 'Science of Logic' in Marx’s 'Grundrisse' by Mark E. Meaney