[Xmca-l] Re: If economics is immune from ethics, why should exploitation be a topic of discussion in economics?

[Greg Thompson]

Thanks Andy, that's very interesting/informative. Would you say that this
is true for his 1844 economic and philosophical manuscripts as well? I'm
thinking of the notion of "species being" as an ethical concept.

This is all well over my head, but I thought I'd try the question.
-greg

On Wed, Jul 18, 2018 at 5:17 AM, Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org> wrote:

> Harshad,
>
> According to Marx, "exploitation," as he uses the concept in *Capital*,
> is not an ethical concept at all; it simply means making a gain by
> utilising an affordance, as in "exploiting natural resources." Many
> "Marxist economists" today adhere to this view. However, I am one of those
> that hold a different view. And the legacy of Stalinism is evidence of some
> deficit in the legacy of Marx's writing - it was so easy for Stalin to
> dismiss ethics as just so much nonsense and claim the mantel of Marxism!
>
> Much as I admire Marx, he was wrong on Ethics. He was a creature of his
> times in this respect, or rather in endeavouring to *not* be a creature
> of his times, he made an opposite error. He held all ethics in contempt as
> if religion had a monopoly on this topic, and it were nothing more than
> some kind of confidence trick to fool the masses. (Many today share this
> view.) In fact, contrary to his own self-consciousness, *Capital* is a
> seminal work of ethics.
>
> The problem stems from Hegel and from Marx's efforts to make a positive
> critique of Hegel. As fine a work of Ethics as Hegel's *Philosophy of
> Right* is, it had certain problems which Marx had to overcome. These
> included Hegel's insistence that the state alone could determine right and
> wrong (the state could of course make errors, but in the long run there is
> no extramundane source of Right beyond the state). This was something
> impossible for Marx to accept. And yet Hegel's idea of Ethics as something
> objective, contained in the evolving forms of life (rather than Pure Reason
> inherent in every individual as Kant held, or from God via His agents on
> Earth, the priesthood), Marx wished to embrace and continue.
>
> So the situation is very complex. The foremost work on Ethics was authored
> by a person who did not believe they wrote about Ethics at all.
>
> Here is a page with lots of resources on this question:
> https://www.marxists.org/subject/ethics/index.htm
>
> Andy
> ------------------------------
> Andy Blunden
> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
> On 18/07/2018 2:54 PM, Harshad Dave wrote:
>
> Why do we discuss on exploitation?
> As per Marx's views, ethics has no influence on economic processes. Does
> exploitation have no link with ethical feelings? The sense of exploitation
> is absolutely linked with our ethical feelings. If economics is immune from
> influence of ethics and sense of *exploitation* is founded on our ethical
> evaluation, then discussion on *exploitation* should not find place in
> the topics of economics/political economics.
> Harshad Dave
> <https://www.researchgate.net/deref/mailto%3Ahhdave15%40gmail.com>
> hhdave15@gmail.com
>
>
>
> Harshad Dave
> ​ <hhdave15@gmail.com>hhdave15@gmail.com​
>
>
>


-- 
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu
http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
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