RadioRaheem84
29th July 2010, 23:04
From the wiki articles I have read it's supposed to be "no-bullshit Marxism". It's also supposed to be a simplified form of Marxism written so liberal and the bourgeoisie can understand?
Some things I found interesting:
Significantly, as a purely technical category, [according to John Roemer] exploitation did not always imply a moral wrong
Like Roemer, he [Jon Elster] also rejected the labour theory of value and, going further, virtually all of Marx's economics. The "dialectical" method is savaged as a form of Hegelian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.W.F._Hegel) obscurantism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obscurantism).This coming from a guy who wrote; Making Sense of Marx?
Through the 1980s, most of them began to believe that Marxism as a theory capable of explaining revolution in terms of the economic dynamics of capitalism and the class interests of the proletariat had been seriously compromised
Some commentators remained hostile to the idea of a Marxist theory of justice, arguing that Marx saw "justice" as little more than a bourgeois ideological construct designed to justify exploitation by reference to reciprocity in the wage contract. The analytical Marxists, however, largely rejected this point of view. Led by G. A. Cohen (a moral philosopher by training), they argued that a Marxist theory of justice had to focus on egalitarianism. For Cohen, this meant an engagement with moral and political philosophy in order to demonstrate the injustice of market exchange, and the construction of an appropriate egalitarian metric.
Cohen departs from some previous Marxists by arguing that capitalism is a system characterised by unjust exploitation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploitation) not because the labour of workers is "stolen" by employers, but because it is a system wherein "autonomy (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/autonomy)" is infringed and which results in a distribution of benefits and burdens that is unfair. In the traditional marxist account, exploitation and injustice occur because non-workers appropriate the value produced by the labour of workers, something that would be overcome in a socialist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist) society wherein no class would own the means of production (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Means_of_production) and be in a position to appropriate the value produced by labourers. Cohen argues that underpinning this account is the assumption that workers have "rights of self-ownership (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-ownership)" over themselves and thus, should "own" what is produced by their labour. Because the worker is paid a wage less than the value he or she creates through work, the capitalist is said to extract a surplus-value (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surplus-value) from the worker's labour, and thus to steal part of what the worker produces, the time of the worker and the worker's powers.
Cohen argues that the concept of self-ownership is favourable to Rawls's difference principle as it ensures "each person's rights over his being and powers"[5] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_Marxism#endnote_Cohen2) - i.e. that one is treated as an end always and never as a means - but also highlights that its centrality provides for an area of common ground between the Marxist account of justice and the right-wing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing)libertarianism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism) of Robert Nozick (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Nozick). However, much as Cohen criticises Rawls for treating people's personal powers as just another external resource for which no individual can claim desert, so does he charge Nozick with moving beyond the concept of self-ownership to his own right-wing "thesis" of self-ownership. In Cohen's view, Nozick's mistake is to endow people's claims to legitimately acquire external resources with the same moral quality that belongs to people's ownership of themselves. In other words, libertarianism allows inequalities to arise from differences in talent and differences in external resources, but it does so because it assumes that the world is "up for grabs"[6] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_Marxism#endnote_Cohen3), i.e. can be justly appropriated as private property, with virtually no restriction(s).
I meant to post this in theory, sorry. Could a mod please move this? THanks
Some things I found interesting:
Significantly, as a purely technical category, [according to John Roemer] exploitation did not always imply a moral wrong
Like Roemer, he [Jon Elster] also rejected the labour theory of value and, going further, virtually all of Marx's economics. The "dialectical" method is savaged as a form of Hegelian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.W.F._Hegel) obscurantism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obscurantism).This coming from a guy who wrote; Making Sense of Marx?
Through the 1980s, most of them began to believe that Marxism as a theory capable of explaining revolution in terms of the economic dynamics of capitalism and the class interests of the proletariat had been seriously compromised
Some commentators remained hostile to the idea of a Marxist theory of justice, arguing that Marx saw "justice" as little more than a bourgeois ideological construct designed to justify exploitation by reference to reciprocity in the wage contract. The analytical Marxists, however, largely rejected this point of view. Led by G. A. Cohen (a moral philosopher by training), they argued that a Marxist theory of justice had to focus on egalitarianism. For Cohen, this meant an engagement with moral and political philosophy in order to demonstrate the injustice of market exchange, and the construction of an appropriate egalitarian metric.
Cohen departs from some previous Marxists by arguing that capitalism is a system characterised by unjust exploitation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploitation) not because the labour of workers is "stolen" by employers, but because it is a system wherein "autonomy (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/autonomy)" is infringed and which results in a distribution of benefits and burdens that is unfair. In the traditional marxist account, exploitation and injustice occur because non-workers appropriate the value produced by the labour of workers, something that would be overcome in a socialist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist) society wherein no class would own the means of production (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Means_of_production) and be in a position to appropriate the value produced by labourers. Cohen argues that underpinning this account is the assumption that workers have "rights of self-ownership (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-ownership)" over themselves and thus, should "own" what is produced by their labour. Because the worker is paid a wage less than the value he or she creates through work, the capitalist is said to extract a surplus-value (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surplus-value) from the worker's labour, and thus to steal part of what the worker produces, the time of the worker and the worker's powers.
Cohen argues that the concept of self-ownership is favourable to Rawls's difference principle as it ensures "each person's rights over his being and powers"[5] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_Marxism#endnote_Cohen2) - i.e. that one is treated as an end always and never as a means - but also highlights that its centrality provides for an area of common ground between the Marxist account of justice and the right-wing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing)libertarianism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism) of Robert Nozick (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Nozick). However, much as Cohen criticises Rawls for treating people's personal powers as just another external resource for which no individual can claim desert, so does he charge Nozick with moving beyond the concept of self-ownership to his own right-wing "thesis" of self-ownership. In Cohen's view, Nozick's mistake is to endow people's claims to legitimately acquire external resources with the same moral quality that belongs to people's ownership of themselves. In other words, libertarianism allows inequalities to arise from differences in talent and differences in external resources, but it does so because it assumes that the world is "up for grabs"[6] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_Marxism#endnote_Cohen3), i.e. can be justly appropriated as private property, with virtually no restriction(s).
I meant to post this in theory, sorry. Could a mod please move this? THanks