Marxism and the Social Contract

[ForgedConscience]

I've noticed that on Revleft the term 'moralist' tends to be thrown around as a pejorative. This to me implies that those who do so are contractarians or at least some form of egoist. I'd like to ask why a philosophical moral theory other than this is incompatible with Marxism, if indeed you guys do think so.

Side note: Didn't Marx himself at one point express his dissatisfaction with the 'bourgeois egoism' of Locke?

Forgive any misconceptions I may have, I feel kind of brain-dead after my exam this morning.

[Tukhachevsky]

It saddens me that people only see socialism through Marx terms.
It's like he is a bible and we should follow him blindly; he, a 19th century writer, in a time when mechanized agriculture was barely known... Imagine now the relevance of Marx theories in a world where repetitive work is more and more mechanical and robotic?

[Regicollis]

I don't think socialists have anything against morality or that they are more immoral than other people. Indeed one of the many reasons most of us are socialists is the immorality of capitalism and the idea that socialism provides a more fair society.

There is a distinction between morality and moralism though. Moralism is a pejorative term used when you think somebody goes too far in forcing other people to follow their own morals. We are all "moralists" to some degree - for instance we all want to force would-be murderers and rapist to follow our morality instead of their own.

So the term "moralist" is used whenever there is a disagreement on what should be collective or public morality to be followed by all and what should be personal morality.

[ForgedConscience]

It saddens me that people only see socialism through Marx terms.
It's like he is a bible and we should follow him blindly; he, a 19th century writer, in a time when mechanized agriculture was barely known... Imagine now the relevance of Marx theories in a world where repetitive work is more and more mechanical and robotic?

Just to be clear, I wasn't really citing Marx as a kind of end all be all, what I wanted was someone to tell me what he had to say on the subject in more detail. Looking at the way I worded it I can understand why you thought I was being dogmatic. Also if you were referring to the title, again I didn't literally mean 'does this conflict with what Marx said', I meant it in a general way as 'does this conflict with marxist analysis and the philosophy behind it'.

EDIT: Ah ok Regicollis, I misunderstood the term in that case.

[wunks]

"moralist" is a vague perojative because of much of the lefts tendency to posture as nihilistic. in reality, it refers to people who believe in "traditional" morals and are morally conservative rather than people who are actually "moralists".

[Rafiq]

Moralists are Idealists (i.e. Morals can change material conditions).

That's why.

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[Yuppie Grinder]

Moralists are Idealists (i.e. Morals can change material conditions).

That's why.

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You often talk like you think any sort of morality is incompatible with materialism. Do you not understand the necessity of collectives to establish moral code? What makes you think this isn't true for socialist society?
What makes you think that being principled and being Marxist are mutually exclusive positions?
Why are you opposed to imperialist war, enslavement, poverty, exploitation, disease, hunger, and ignorance if not for moral reasons?

[cb9's_unity]

I don't necessarily believe Marxism is totally incompatible with moralism. It's probably harder to imagine Marxism being compatible with any strict deontological morality, but I don't see why some sort of consequentialist system couldn't be held by a Marxist theorist.

Saying that, I don't consider myself a moralist (I prefer existentialist views on ethics). The whole problem with morality is that it excuses the hard decisions people make by justifying those decisions with highly abstract theories. These theories usually can't hold up to the complexities and subtleties of the real situations moral decisions are made in. Morality is a massively useful tool in the hands of the bourgeoisie. Basically every decision made in capitalism is done so in a highly complex context. Local and national economies can be supported or devastated by chaotic market forces regardless of decisions (and "moral" decisions) the private and public leaders of those communities take. Capitalists can then twist and bend morality to justify the decisions they are really making only because of their own class interests. Starting a business and making profit become moral goods regardless of the real reasons they were started or the real consequences of their existence.

It may not be impossible, but advocating class struggle becomes more difficult when framed within traditional morality. Class struggle is a selfish act, the working class takes from bourgeoisie without giving anything in return. Where Marxists can be honest in their advocacy of class struggle, the bourgeoisie can't. Capitalist politicians will always say they are trying to do the morally right thing for everyone, even when they are obviously crushing the working class.

So the problem really is running the danger of debating on bourgeois moral terms instead of the terms of class struggle. You could try to prop up a socialist moral system, but this would also run the risk of giving the debate an unnecessarily theoretical nature. Our goal as socialists is to promote theory only insofar as it can be immediately applicable to practice and modern analysis. There is enough to critique in capitalism that people can see with their own eyes and can be supported with empirical analysis. Basically, at the very least, we don't need any timeless moral systems in this critical historical moment.

[cb9's_unity]

Does anyone else notice that 4 of the 'similar threads' are from 1970? I'm pretty sure that tanks my whole argument. Because, honestly, if revleft preceded disco I don't know what the fuck to think anymore.

[Rafiq]

You often talk like you think any sort of morality is incompatible with materialism.

Objective Morality, and morality developed exteranl from a real existing movmeent of which it is supposed to represent is indeed antithetical to Materialism.


Do you not understand the necessity of collectives to establish moral code? What makes you think this isn't true for socialist society?

There isn't a necessity. Simply because morals themselves are inevitable responses to changes in the mode of production. There need be no "moral code". There wasn't for the capitalist mode of production.



What makes you think that being principled and being Marxist are mutually exclusive positions?


Again, I mentioned Moralism. And to think that an Ideas (Moral structure) will precede material conditions, and forces, that's Idealism and antithetical to Marxism.


Why are you opposed to imperialist war, enslavement, poverty, exploitation, disease, hunger, and ignorance if not for moral reasons?


It's about force, and class interest. The proletariat's interest is antithetical to the capitalist mode of production. That is what it comes down to. Furthermore, the capitalist mode of production is inevitably going to destroy itself, so any sensible person whom isn't a member of the Bourgeois class would oppose it, out of self interest, or some other interest.

[Jimmie Higgins]

The thing about morals is that they are not universal, they are class-based. Every ruling class presents their morals as the universal morality, but it's really a function of class ideology and creating class hegemony.

"Don't kill" is pretty universal right? But then you can say, there are common-sense exceptions such as killing accidentially or in self-defense. But what about in war? Then it's ok to kill. From a ruling class perspective this killing is moral and justified because for them it is a question of the survival as a class in power. If they can't control trade then they won't be able to dominate economically and they will weaken. Many people are confused by war and imperialism because they have been convinced that the nation-state is not a tool of the ruling class but is a neutral organization representing everyone. Since in their (working class or petty-bourgeois or other non-ruling group) eyes, imperialist wars seem unnecessary - once the propaganda and false populist reasons for the war have been exposed anyway.

So for working class revolutionaries there is a standard to judge what is "good" and "bad" and that standard is based on what's helpful or harmful for working class power. That means our basis of why state-executions are bad is that it gives more power to our oppressors and lets them scapegoat specific induviduals for social problems created by the system. Imperialist war is bad because it kills workers in battles for ruling class power; imperial victories and strength mean that domestic working classes have a much tougher foe to face and for workers in colonized areas it means a double-oppression of both the local elites and the imperial elites. War to end oppression, war to stop exploitation, these are "good" to us because it ends this oppression and allows the working class the chance to rule which brings about greater democracy and freedom and ultimately the end of classes.

At that point, with out classes, it would be more possible to speak of a universal agreement about "good and bad".

Trotsky called this "proletarian morality" but personally I don't think "morality" is appropriate as a term. "Morality" is always that specific ruling class morality made to seem universal; a complicated argument and conception of property rights is boiled down to "stealing is wrong" - supposedly we can all agree because as workers we don't like people taking our stuff, but all of capitalism is about taking wealth both from workers through exploitation and from other capitalists through competition. So morality seems like a mask to me - a constructed sense of agreement. Under worker's rule there would be no need to hide class "morality" as some universal morality - workers don't need to exploit, so they can be frank: "this is good because it is the democratic will" "this is good because it prevents exploitation" etc. With the majority class in charge then things could be transparent - and I think it would be necessary for a healthy proletarian democracy.

[ckaihatsu]

You often talk like you think any sort of morality is incompatible with materialism. Do you not understand the necessity of collectives to establish moral code? What makes you think this isn't true for socialist society?
What makes you think that being principled and being Marxist are mutually exclusive positions?
Why are you opposed to imperialist war, enslavement, poverty, exploitation, disease, hunger, and ignorance if not for moral reasons?


Morality/moralism *is* incompatible with materialism as soon as it uses a *single* argument that's based on idealism, such as "It wouldn't be *right* to do that."

Materialism would look to including as many real factors that went into causation of the act, as possible -- note that this kind of research or investigation would be limited by material conditions as well. (Also, since much is interconnected, it's often difficult to "draw the line" as to where the extent of influences ends.)

It should suffice that anyone can dispense with morality/moralism-based arguments and use *material* ones -- value judgments -- in their place.

In politics, for example, we're against imperialist war, enslavement, poverty, exploitation, disease, hunger, and ignorance because of their destructive force on the working class. It's in our best class interests to have a strong class basis for the class struggle, and weaknesses within -- as from those caused by ruling class practices -- only harm our interests in common.

[Anarpest]

I think that 'moralism' usually refers to a focus on individual morality and 'free will' over social issues and social determination? So, for example, when Republicans rant about how the unemployed and poor are 'lazy,' people receiving unemployment benefits are 'immoral leeches,' people in protests and riots are 'poorly disciplined,' etc.


In politics, for example, we're against imperialist war, enslavement, poverty, exploitation, disease, hunger, and ignorance because of their destructive force on the working class. It's in our best class interests to have a strong class basis for the class struggle, and weaknesses within -- as from those caused by ruling class practices -- only harm our interests in common.

Engels, for example, wasn't working class, so how would this apply to him?


It saddens me that people only see socialism through Marx terms.
It's like he is a bible and we should follow him blindly; he, a 19th century writer, in a time when mechanized agriculture was barely known... Imagine now the relevance of Marx theories in a world where repetitive work is more and more mechanical and robotic?Maybe we'll stop being interested in Marx as one of the foremost analysts of capitalism and capitalist ideology if you go and abolish capitalism. That would pretty much invalidate Capital totally as a description of society.

Good luck.

[ckaihatsu]

Engels, for example, wasn't working class, so how would this apply to him?


Some people decide to break with the class / socio-economic backgrounds they're born into, and to consciously side with the working class.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Engels, for example, wasn't working class, so how would this apply to him?Well my point was about morality as a social phenomena, not how individuals make up their minds about things.

Engles was a class-traitor and sided with the workers. Is that so strange to concieve of - most workers I know in some way side with the ideas of capital and some even become class-traitors and work as scabs or support anti-working class policies.

Making a wage doesn't make you think the same as everyone else nor does being a capitalist make you think specific ideas. People can think whatever they want - it just might not be in their class interests.

[Rafiq]

Engel's wasn't a communist for moral reasons. He was for scientific reasons, understanding the contradictions within capitalism and the fact that the working class is the only class capable of abolishing the capitalist mode of production. That's why.

[Mass Grave Aesthetics]

The social contract is bourgeois mythology if there ever was one!