Comments on: I’m Not a Marxist, But http://www.vitia.org/wordpress/2003/10/03/im-not-a-marxist-but/ faults | sins | abuses Fri, 21 Nov 2008 11:39:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.1 By: Curtiss Leung http://www.vitia.org/wordpress/2003/10/03/im-not-a-marxist-but/#comment-247 Curtiss Leung Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000 http://www.vitia.org/wordpress/archives/2003/10/03/im-not-a-marxist-but/#comment-247 It's a good point. As someone who self-identifies as "Marxian," I think Marx's critique of the capitalist mode of production doesn't encompass all critiques of capitalism. I remember from your posts about Wolff and Resnick (were those their names?) that they held that Marx's position stemmed from a different epistemology than neo-classical capitalism. While that may be so, the neo-classical position is not what Marx was taking on: it didn't even exist then. Marx was working with the terms and notions of the <b>classical economists.</b> They didn't have the notions of marginal utility or efficient markets—in the case of the latter, at least not in the sense that's meant today. The upshot of this is that the Marxian critique is, to my mind, <b>an immanent critique of classical economics.</b> Capitalist accumulation is both possible because of and limited by commodity fetishism; commodity fetishism also enables the exploitation of surplus labor from workers. But can all the harms of <b>contemporary</b> capitalism be reduced to/explained by commodity fetishism and exploitation/alienation? I have to confess I'm partial to thinkers who've tried, i.e., the Western Marxists, but they can't be the only game in town. Even the most, uh, marginal of these thinkers (and while I'm thinking of the Situationist International here, I don't mean to disparage them by this; quite the contrary, I think they deserve much, much more attention than they receive) are still working with terms and concepts that are based in a certain type of materialist ontology. Urgh...sorry to be so prolix. Anyway, what about Rawls and the recent analytic philosophers? I haven't read him myself—I just have the standard third-hand account of the original position/veil of ignorance thought experiment. But at least the equation of justice with a kind of egalitarianism (apologies to the Rawlsians out there if this is wrong!) gives you the ability to criticize the injuries of capitalism <b>without</b> decending into the "economic shit." Also, such an approach removes the burden of making a cost/benefit analysis from the critique: if a state of affairs x is unjust, then its injustice is not trumped by its economic efficacy. Considerations of justice must be paramount. Oh, this terrible gibberish. When will it end? It’s a good point. As someone who self-identifies as "Marxian," I think Marx’s critique of the capitalist mode of production doesn’t encompass all critiques of capitalism. I remember from your posts about Wolff and Resnick (were those their names?) that they held that Marx’s position stemmed from a different epistemology than neo-classical capitalism. While that may be so, the neo-classical position is not what Marx was taking on: it didn’t even exist then. Marx was working with the terms and notions of the classical economists. They didn’t have the notions of marginal utility or efficient markets—in the case of the latter, at least not in the sense that’s meant today. The upshot of this is that the Marxian critique is, to my mind, an immanent critique of classical economics. Capitalist accumulation is both possible because of and limited by commodity fetishism; commodity fetishism also enables the exploitation of surplus labor from workers.

But can all the harms of contemporary capitalism be reduced to/explained by commodity fetishism and exploitation/alienation? I have to confess I’m partial to thinkers who’ve tried, i.e., the Western Marxists, but they can’t be the only game in town. Even the most, uh, marginal of these thinkers (and while I’m thinking of the Situationist International here, I don’t mean to disparage them by this; quite the contrary, I think they deserve much, much more attention than they receive) are still working with terms and concepts that are based in a certain type of materialist ontology.

Urgh…sorry to be so prolix. Anyway, what about Rawls and the recent analytic philosophers? I haven’t read him myself—I just have the standard third-hand account of the original position/veil of ignorance thought experiment. But at least the equation of justice with a kind of egalitarianism (apologies to the Rawlsians out there if this is wrong!) gives you the ability to criticize the injuries of capitalism without decending into the "economic shit." Also, such an approach removes the burden of making a cost/benefit analysis from the critique: if a state of affairs x is unjust, then its injustice is not trumped by its economic efficacy. Considerations of justice must be paramount.

Oh, this terrible gibberish. When will it end?

]]>