Marxism based on subjective moralism?

[Jacob Cliff]

"1. Although Marx denies objective moral truths, his account is an account of the elimination of alienation, oppression and exploitation. Marx claims to be able to explain them purely descriptively. But in this he fails. His account seems to make use of universal ethical categories."

This is from a website, but this is something that has been on my mind lately. How would you combat this?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Those are technical terms, and Marx certainly never opposed the phenomena designated by these terms in the abstract, regardless of historical development of human society. Alienation and exploitation were once progressive. (Exploitation in particular doesn't have to mean anything negative; one "exploits" a resource. Likewise the bourgeoisie exploits the labour-power of workers to produce surplus value.)

[Jacob Cliff]

Those are technical terms, and Marx certainly never opposed the phenomena designated by these terms in the abstract, regardless of historical development of human society. Alienation and exploitation were once progressive. (Exploitation in particular doesn't have to mean anything negative; one "exploits" a resource. Likewise the bourgeoisie exploits the labour-power of workers to produce surplus value.)
But this is still reducible to a moral argument, no? That the exploitation of labor is bad, and socialism would fix this? And the same with alienation?

On an unrelated note (to knock out two birds with one stone): why is exploitation "bad" per se? If workers are, due to competition, paid at or well above the value of their labor/are paid a wage sufficient for their living, where lies the problem?

[Emmett Till]

But this is still reducible to a moral argument, no? That the exploitation of labor is bad, and socialism would fix this? And the same with alienation?

On an unrelated note (to knock out two birds with one stone): why is exploitation "bad" per se? If workers are, due to competition, paid at or well above the value of their labor/are paid a wage sufficient for their living, where lies the problem?

Marxists are not "opposed" to morality, quite the contrary. Morality like all other vital elements of human culture evolves progressively as society progresses. Proletarian morality is higher and better than feudal morality, the morality of feudalism was better than the morality of slave owning societies, which in turn was better than cannibalism.

Best statement on this is by Trotsky, in "Their Morals and Ours."

https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/morals/morals.htm

Putting it another way, Marxists do not believe in subjective morality. They believe in objective morality. Otherwise, why would we oppose exploitation, or slavery, or murder, or torture, or rape, or cannibalism?

None of which, with the possible exception of cannibalism, did genuine amoralists like Nietzche have any real problems with. (He might have objected to cannibalism on aesthetic grounds).

[The Intransigent Faction]

It's fairly simple, actually: Critiquing capitalism and its profit motive as inefficient and unstable in its use of resources compared to production for use does not preclude also opposing it on moral grounds for how it allows the exploitation of people.

[Jacob Cliff]

Marxists are not "opposed" to morality, quite the contrary. Morality like all other vital elements of human culture evolves progressively as society progresses. Proletarian morality is higher and better than feudal morality, the morality of feudalism was better than the morality of slave owning societies, which in turn was better than cannibalism.

Best statement on this is by Trotsky, in "Their Morals and Ours."

https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/morals/morals.htm

Putting it another way, Marxists do not believe in subjective morality. They believe in objective morality. Otherwise, why would we oppose exploitation, or slavery, or murder, or torture, or rape, or cannibalism?

None of which, with the possible exception of cannibalism, did genuine amoralists like Nietzche have any real problems with. (He might have objected to cannibalism on aesthetic grounds).
Objective morality? Surely we don't believe in objective morality. If morality were objective, it would be unchanging, and imposed externally (or: some metaphysical law that exists outside our whims). If you mean the mainstream nature of various trends in moral opinion and judgement change with every class society, I'd agree, but I don't think this cancels out its subjectivity. Obviously, a tribe in the Amazon would have quite a different moral framework than "civilization's" mainstream morality.

[Comrade #138672]

Marxism is not based on moralism at all. Bourgeois intellectuals often think that, but they are merely projecting their own ideology on a framework they can't fully comprehend.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Putting it another way, Marxists do not believe in subjective morality. They believe in objective morality. Otherwise, why would we oppose exploitation, or slavery, or murder, or torture, or rape, or cannibalism?


I think Marxism does away with the distinction between "objective" and "subjective" morality. People take subjective moral stances based on distinct objective conditions.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

But this is still reducible to a moral argument, no? That the exploitation of labor is bad, and socialism would fix this? And the same with alienation?

On an unrelated note (to knock out two birds with one stone): why is exploitation "bad" per se? If workers are, due to competition, paid at or well above the value of their labor/are paid a wage sufficient for their living, where lies the problem?

Well, that's the point. It isn't bad per se. In the 17th century, it was better for the worker than serfdom. Only, now it is no longer necessary, the productive forces have developed to the extent that we don't need the bourgeoisie, and that pie that the bourgeoisie have mostly been taking for themselves can now be shared among us. Meaning we all get more pie. And it would be a bigger pie as well.

What makes socialism superior to capitalism, by the way, is not that is avoids exploitation (indeed you could make an analogy to capitalism, and in that case socialism would be super-exploitation), but that it avoids periodic crises and allows for genuine social planning.

[Alet]

In Marxist terms, morality is neither objective nor "subjective" - the latter is irrelevant, at least. There is a third sphere which is much more important, that is class morality. On an ideological level, we will solely side with proletarian morality. Not because we arbitrarily picked and chose our preferences, or because it is "objectively superior" or "natural" as opposed to bourgeois morals, but because on the material basis the proletarian class is the only one to bring an end to capitalism. As Marxists we acknowledge the dialectic nature of progression and reaction insofar as it has practical relevance for us, today, to be communists. Marxism is scientific but, to paraphrase Lenin, in class societies science cannot be impartial. As communists we oppose (capitalist) alienation, oppression and exploitation on every possible level.

[RedMaterialist]

On an unrelated note (to knock out two birds with one stone): why is exploitation "bad" per se? If workers are, due to competition, paid at or well above the value of their labor/are paid a wage sufficient for their living, where lies the problem?

Workers compete for jobs in a system that enforces artificially high unemployment. The employer/capitalist thus uses a resource which is always higher in supply than demand, its price is always lower than its real value. Engels called this a reserve army of the unemployed.

When Janet Yellen of the US Federal Reserve recently raised the benchmark fed interest rate she said that the 4% unemployment rate was getting too low and might cause wages and inflation to rise. She was admitting that too many people were working and that it is necessary to throw some of those people out of work. That seems immoral enough, deliberately increasing the misery of unemployment.

But beyond that, the worker is paid a wage to produce a product which contains surplus-value or profit, for which he or she is paid no compensation. Workers produce profit which is appropriated by the capitalist.

Morally speaking, the capitalist gets something for nothing at the expense of the worker. While that may be immoral it is a different issue from the economic one which argues for the worker to take control of the means of production so that the worker becomes owner of his or her own property, surplus-value, profit.

And later the workers make a more fundamental economic decision whether to produce things only for use rather than for profit.

[Comrade #138672]

Well, that's the point. It isn't bad per se. In the 17th century, it was better for the worker than serfdom. Only, now it is no longer necessary, the productive forces have developed to the extent that we don't need the bourgeoisie, and that pie that the bourgeoisie have mostly been taking for themselves can now be shared among us. Meaning we all get more pie. And it would be a bigger pie as well.

What makes socialism superior to capitalism, by the way, is not that is avoids exploitation (indeed you could make an analogy to capitalism, and in that case socialism would be super-exploitation), but that it avoids periodic crises and allows for genuine social planning.How is socialism "super-exploitation"? :confused:

[Comrade #138672]

Why is exploitation bad? Simple, because it runs against our own interests (as workers). Invoking morality only obscures this reality.

This is why liberals/libertarians refuse to talk about exploitation at all. They try to frame it as a "good deal", but that is from the perspective of the exploiting class.


If workers are, due to competition, paid at or well above the value of their labor/are paid a wage sufficient for their living, where lies the problem?The problem with this is that it is nothing more than a capitalist fantasy.

Competition does not increase wages. It decreases wages. Capitalists must maximize their profits. High wages on average hinders this objective, which is why we don't see it.

[Tim Cornelis]

If you consider exploitation bad, it is a moral judgement. If you say it is bad because it is against your interests, you've adopted ethical egoism. And 'material self-interest' is really a vulgar outlook. This attempt to be amoral, then bring morality in through the back door via this vulgar 'amoral' ethical egoism is just silly, to be it lightly.

[Comrade #138672]

If you consider exploitation bad, it is a moral judgement. If you say it is bad because it is against your interests, you've adopted ethical egoism. And 'material self-interest' is really a vulgar outlook. This attempt to be amoral, then bring morality in through the back door via this vulgar 'amoral' ethical egoism is just silly, to be it lightly.I think material self-interest is a valid way to see this. Don't forget that it is not merely an individual self-interest, but also a collective self-interest of the working class.

What do you think is wrong with this view? How do you think morality is re-introduced through the backdoor?

[Jacob Cliff]

Why is exploitation bad? Simple, because it runs against our own interests (as workers). Invoking morality only obscures this reality.

This is why liberals/libertarians refuse to talk about exploitation at all. They try to frame it as a "good deal", but that is from the perspective of the exploiting class.

The problem with this is that it is nothing more than a capitalist fantasy.

Competition does not increase wages. It decreases wages. Capitalists must maximize their profits. High wages on average hinders this objective, which is why we don't see it.

Competition does not increase wages. It decreases wages.

Ok, I can see you eye to eye on the other things, but here I don't think you're correct. I mean, isn't it as simple as "Two companies that try to hire a laborer will offer better paying jobs to get him to join"? Competition for labor-power does increase wages; I'd think they decrease when there is less competition/more centralization of capital & monopolization.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

How is socialism "super-exploitation"?

Well, if you start from the moral notion that each worker "should" receive the value they produce (which I don't think is "objective" or "subjective", just incoherent, a factual statement that no one can interpret as a bona fide factual statement), then we run into problems because there is no value in socialism. If we're allowed some leeway so that we're talking about the goods produced, well, then society takes everything any particular group of workers produces, and places it at the disposal of everyone in social warehouses and distribution centres etc.

[Jacob Cliff]

If you consider exploitation bad, it is a moral judgement. If you say it is bad because it is against your interests, you've adopted ethical egoism. And 'material self-interest' is really a vulgar outlook. This attempt to be amoral, then bring morality in through the back door via this vulgar 'amoral' ethical egoism is just silly, to be it lightly.
So "ethical egoism" is the reason why Communists ought to concern themselves with exploitation?

[Hit The North]

Ok, I can see you eye to eye on the other things, but here I don't think you're correct. I mean, isn't it as simple as "Two companies that try to hire a laborer will offer better paying jobs to get him to join"? Competition for labor-power does increase wages; I'd think they decrease when there is less competition/more centralization of capital & monopolization.

But because there are always far more workers than there are capitalist firms, the Reality is that it is the capitalist who chooses between many workers and it is workers who are in competition with each other. This means that capitalists determine the wage not the workers. So unless you have a rare skill as a worker, you will have little-to-no bargaining power and may even be forced to undercut the competition.

[Rafiq]

"1. Although Marx denies objective moral truths, his account is an account of the elimination of alienation, oppression and exploitation. Marx claims to be able to explain them purely descriptively. But in this he fails. His account seems to make use of universal ethical categories.

The quote in question is a falsity for the simple reason that Marx NEVER claims to be able to "explain them purely descriptively" without the presupposition of several ideological, moral, and political groundings (which are both presuppositions and subsequent inevitabilities at the same time).

Marx's "description" of the elimination of 'alienation, oppression and exploitation' (and which description might that be?) is already a false notion because Marx's significance was never giving us some panacea of a description - of "how to do" things as such. In fact what Marx does is make us question our very understanding of alienation, oppression and exploitation.

But most of all, what is pure nonsense about this straw man is the fact that it conceives oppression, alienation and exploitation as 'objective' moral realities. How does one go about explaining how to rid the world of evils, without already 'using universal ethical categories'. But let's put this garbage relativism into perspective here. Is Marx really making use of 'universal' ethical categories, in the sense of making pretenses to the societies found in - for example - the amazon? No, he is making use of 'universal' ethical categories insofar as they pertain to life in the prevailing epoch of his day - you know - the one that which he belonged. He had every right to make pretenses to other societies AT THIS level, considering the fact that the society that which he belonged had already attained world-historical hegemony.

I am really sick of these fuckers always talking about what "Marx sais". They don't even read Marx, it's so pathetic. They make inferences based off of what a bearded man in the 19th century might have said in their mind. Like when did Marx say he had the ability to give a "purely descriptive" account of ANYTHING? It is not possible to give a "purely descriptive" account of anything in general, not even natural processes in some contexts. During antiquity, when the Greeks made use of mathematics, against the backdrop of old myths, were they giving "purely descriptive" new means of measurement, and so on? No, it was a controversial phenomena which had ethical, moral, ideological and political consequences that were far from simply "descriptive". for something to be solely descriptive would mean that everyone shares the same space of observation as identical subjects. This is not possible when we're talking about Communism - EVERY AND ALL opposition to Communism is grounded in an insistence to superstition. This insistence (of the bourgeois ideologues) cannot be overcome by any magical 'description'.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I think material self-interest is a valid way to see this. Don't forget that it is not merely an individual self-interest, but also a collective self-interest of the working class.

What do you think is wrong with this view? How do you think morality is re-introduced through the backdoor?

The point is that after declaring yourself an amoralist, you're making a normative claim about what people should do, which has an implicit morality to it. This is true whether you do so individually (as in Ayn Rand), or in terms of class.


So "ethical egoism" is the reason why Communists ought to concern themselves with exploitation?That's not the point he's making, at all. He's saying ethical egoism is an inconsistent position for a supposed "amoralist", as well as a poor basis for communism.


Well, if you start from the moral notion that each worker "should" receive the value they produce (which I don't think is "objective" or "subjective", just incoherent, a factual statement that no one can interpret as a bona fide factual statement), then we run into problems because there is no value in socialism. If we're allowed some leeway so that we're talking about the goods produced, well, then society takes everything any particular group of workers produces, and places it at the disposal of everyone in social warehouses and distribution centres etc.

In socialism there is no compulsion. Exploitation is a coercive activity. Nobody suggests that the lady volunteering in the soup kitchen of being exploited. Exploitation is also alienating. In a socialist society, you are working to make all (including yourself) wealthier, whereas if you are being exploited you are making another richer.

[RedMaterialist]

"1. Although Marx denies objective moral truths, his account is an account of the elimination of alienation, oppression and exploitation. Marx claims to be able to explain them purely descriptively. But in this he fails. His account seems to make use of universal ethical categories."

This is from a website, but this is something that has been on my mind lately. How would you combat this?

The morality of any society is the morality of its ruling class. Marx and Engels consistently argued that in a class society morality is always class morality. Once class antagonisms are eliminated, the only morality will be a "real" human morality.

[Emmett Till]

Marxism is not based on moralism at all. Bourgeois intellectuals often think that, but they are merely projecting their own ideology on a framework they can't fully comprehend.

That's actually backwards. Indeed Marxism is not based on morality. Rather, proletarian morality, though not "based" on Marxism, is congruent with it.

[Emmett Till]

I think Marxism does away with the distinction between "objective" and "subjective" morality. People take subjective moral stances based on distinct objective conditions.

Ah. That's actually a better way of putting it. The relationship is "dialectical," always a good word to drop in to confuse an issue, but nonetheless correct.

[Emmett Till]

I think material self-interest is a valid way to see this. Don't forget that it is not merely an individual self-interest, but also a collective self-interest of the working class.

What do you think is wrong with this view? How do you think morality is re-introduced through the backdoor?

But that assumes that the individual ought to be more concerned with the collective interests of the working class than his or her personal interests.

A purely and totally moral judgment, bringing morality in by the back door.

[Comrade #138672]

The point is that after declaring yourself an amoralist,Not sure whether I consider myself an "amoralist". I just think of morality as an appearance, that has a material basis. I don't know why that is necessarily vulgar.


you're making a normative claim about what people should do, which has an implicit morality to it. This is true whether you do so individually (as in Ayn Rand), or in terms of class.Did I? I don't think anyone should do stuff in their self-interest; it is just something that people tend to do. Here self-interest must be seen as something infinitely greater than Ayn Rand's naive view of self-interest (which revolves entirely around the individual in a social vacuum).


But that assumes that the individual ought to be more concerned with the collective interests of the working class than his or her personal interests.

A purely and totally moral judgment, bringing morality in by the back door.I didn't mean to say that at all. Perhaps I didn't formulate it well enough. The reality is, of course, quite complex, but the individual self-interests of workers (which vary a lot) are heavily influenced by their class interests. It is also when workers become aware of the fact that there is a common class interest that it is in their interest to work together and rise above the system that is oppressing them collectively.

Where is the backdoor?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Did I? I don't think anyone should do stuff in their self-interest; it is just something that people tend to do.

This is an important point because, in my experience, people who are committed to a moral standpoint simply assume everyone else is as well. Now if what we're saying is a moral claim, if socialism is a matter of morality, then it would follow that we need to convince others of the truth of this moral hocus-pocus and then their behaviour will change. Tall order!

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

A failure of Marxism has been the failure to inspire Marxists to combine the belief in 'self-interest' with a moral outlook.

Many Marxists proclaim Marxism to be a scientific ideology; of course, if this was true then the working class would have realised and acted in its material self-interest by now. The very notion that some people come to Marxism is predicated on their moral outlook. This has often been used as a disparaging argument against bourgeois liberals who seek to 'do good' in the world. But, actually, if we as socialists want a world not just based on material self-interest (even if it is true that the spark for a revolution does come from ending the exploitation of one's self) but on social justice, humanity, peace etc., then arguably we are presenting a moral vision of society. We should embrace that and combine it with the idea of self-interest. Frankly it is just ridiculous to hear people still proclaim that Marxism is some sort of 'science'. It's not, and it hasn't proved to be, and it hasn't helped advance socialism through this faux-scientific outlook.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

[I]f we as socialists want a world not just based on material self-interest but on social justice, humanity, peace etc.,

But we don't. It's not even wrong to say we want a world "based on social justice...", it just doesn't mean anything, it's so vague it can accomodate anything from primitivism to communism and everything inbetween (including capitalism of whatever flavour).

[Hit The North]

A failure of Marxism has been the failure to inspire Marxists to combine the belief in 'self-interest' with a moral outlook.

Many Marxists proclaim Marxism to be a scientific ideology; of course, if this was true then the working class would have realised and acted in its material self-interest by now. The very notion that some people come to Marxism is predicated on their moral outlook. This has often been used as a disparaging argument against bourgeois liberals who seek to 'do good' in the world. But, actually, if we as socialists want a world not just based on material self-interest (even if it is true that the spark for a revolution does come from ending the exploitation of one's self) but on social justice, humanity, peace etc., then arguably we are presenting a moral vision of society. We should embrace that and combine it with the idea of self-interest. Frankly it is just ridiculous to hear people still proclaim that Marxism is some sort of 'science'. It's not, and it hasn't proved to be, and it hasn't helped advance socialism through this faux-scientific outlook.

Self-interest doesn't work because it has a low horizon and can be formulated into right-wing positions quite easily. Arguably, it is in the self-interest of all individuals to empower themselves in relation to others who they are in competition with for resources. So it is self-interest to go to university and maximise one's qualifications and enhance one's professional networks. It is in the immediate self-interest for poor white workers to demand the end of the immigration of poor workers from abroad, in order to shield themselves from competition; or for them to exercise social-stigmas and practice exclusionary tactics (racism, in other words) to, again, maximise their hold over scarce resources. It is self-interest to try to live a good life under capitalism by playing by its rules.

The problem is that self-interest is nearly always immediate self-interest. In order to further our goals we need to go beyond self-interest and appeal to class-interest. And for that, we need a rational/scientific analysis that shows how capitalism works and how workers constitute a class within it and are caught-up in its webs of determination and how they can break those webs.

I don't know of any communist who is not disgusted by the inhumanity and destruction of global capitalism, but it is the rational appeal of communism that we need to get over.

[RedMaterialist]

Frankly it is just ridiculous to hear people still proclaim that Marxism is some sort of 'science'. It's not, and it hasn't proved to be, and it hasn't helped advance socialism through this faux-scientific outlook.

Marxism not scientific? Marx predicted that the capitalist rate of profit would decline over time. That decline has now been proved by dozens of studies (one led by a former revleft poster, Paul Cockshott.) Of course, those studies are never presented as economic science in any major US university.

Marx demonstrated that capitalist profit is derived from value created by labor during the process of production. All modern economic "science" (at least in the US) claims that profit is created post production in the process of market distribution and consumption.

He showed how capital was first "accumulated," in part, through the process of the forcible clearing of feudal land of its peasant occupants. Do you really believe that this clearing did not happen or that it did not lead to the formation of industrial capital?

The rape, slavery and murder of the Americas which brought obscene amounts of capital to Europe in the form of gold, silver and the Atlantic slave trade. This never happened?

And history as the process of the development of class antagonism. You don't see any class antagonism either now or historically?

[Comrade #138672]

Self-interest doesn't work because it has a low horizon and can be formulated into right-wing positions quite easily.Is that an argument against self-interest explanations? Because morality can easily be formulated into right-wing positions as well.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Is that an argument against self-interest explanations? Because morality can easily be formulated into right-wing positions as well.

Well, if you're positing self-interest as some sort of universal standard that all rational beings must follow, then that is a kind of morality as well. Only we don't do that - certainly there are god's fools who want to die so the bourgeoisie can continue to have everything that is denied to workers. But most workers don't, and that is the real basis of the attraction socialism can exercise over workers.

But I would go further than you - I would say morality can only be used to back up (mostly explain ex post) right-wing positions and actions. Where is this nice "left-wing" morality? It's nowhere to be found.

[Rafiq]

Now, Innit, I sound harsh in this post, but do not take it personally. Perhaps I may even say you are a step ahead of many Marxists who make pretenses to "material class interest" to justify their beliefs. But if I do not attack you for your shortcomings, I insult you way more than I can in this post.


A failure of Marxism has been the failure to inspire Marxists to combine the belief in 'self-interest' with a moral outlook.

Many Marxists proclaim Marxism to be a scientific ideology; of course, if this was true then the working class would have realised and acted in its material self-interest by now.

Marxism has nothing to do with "self-interest' as some kind of substitute for moral outlook. You literally have no notion of Marxism if you think that the proletariat is some kind of positive social force which has its own particular 'egoistic' interests amidst all others to be realized. ON THE CONTRARY, the proletariat is only significant insofar as it represents the universality of society, i.e. the negation of the bourgeoisie is the proletariat, and the negation of the proletariat is the end of class society. Proletariat stands for universality.

What it is not is some class with 'self-interests'. I mean, have you literally not even grasped the most elementary tenets of Marxism? THE POINT is that the proletariat IS UNLIKE any other class in history, it DOES NOT have egoistic interests that which it wishes to conform society to - more more specifically, the egoistic interests of the proletariat, is the self-negation of the proletariat itself.

And of course, the notion of 'science' you have is thoroughly positivist and reactionary in this context. Saying Marxism is scientific (and there is no such thing as a "scientific ideology", Marxism is thoroughly JUXTAPOSED with ideological designations of the social), has NOTHING TO DO with making 'scientific' predictions as some external observer about what the 'proletariat' is or isn't going to do. If this was true, why did Marx and Engels, and later Marxists even bother engaging in politics? Why bother, when according to you, and other philistines who have no notion of Marxism, is it even logical that Marxists who purportedly believe in the PASSIVE inevitability of Communism actively engaged in the political class struggle, fully dependent on will, skill and organization?

I wish this was simply a tacitly known axiom for Marxists at this point. It is a shame I keep having to repeat what is basically a truism for anyone who BOTHERS to even READ Marx. The scienticity of Marxism ENTAILS an ENTIRELY different "philosophy of science" than that which predominates in bourgeois society. Positivism and anglo-saxon philistinism exists to reconcile the necessity of natural science with the necessary ideological, superstitious designation of social processes. Positivism thus tells us that anything that is not reducible to empirical observation in its most naked form, is not scientific. And yet, what it fails to take into account is the thoroughly "biased" and PARTISAN nature of empirical observation if it is juxtaposed to pre-modern, pre-scientific superstition - it thus leads them to the paradox: HOW DOES ONE JUSTIFY with this SAME 'philosophy of science' the notion that 'truth is derived from scientific practice'? And they cannot solve it.

But so corrupt is our society today that not even this positivism is withstanding the onslaught of anti-modernism. Now the sciences are spoiled with all sorts of mysticism and superstition, in coincidence with the 'cognitive revolution' and the every increasing proximity natural sciences have gotten towards psychological and social processes. Please, such notions of 'science' you are just tacitly presupposing leave a bad taste in the mouth of any decent person. This is what justifies the modern revival of 'scientific' racism, eugenics, and 'sexual dimorphism' as reaction against feminism.

I mean it is laughably stupid to think that saying Marxism is scientific entails that there is some natural, external process which is 'predictable' by a neutral observer called the political Communist class struggle. In reality, Marxists recognize that far from being 'neutral spectators', THEY THEMSELVES must be actively engaged in this struggle, which is a presupposition for their own commitment to the ideas of Communism and Marxism. Woe to anyone who speaks of "material self-interest" to justify their 'loyalty' to the ideas of Communism. This is nothing more than a big other, it is just as stupid, vulgar and crude as to speak of "natural", "biological" interests and needs as a means to ass-cover what is undoubtedly something of a SPIRITUAL (i.e. social/historic) nature. The same philistines who rail against Marxism on the SAME LINES as you justify their POLITICAL and PARTISAN beliefs in the name of "biological", "natural" and "innate" things. Chomsky himself claims that there is a "human instinct for freedom". Fuck!

Kill me now, please. Sorry, it's almost like the straw-men leveled against Marxism by bourgeois liberals in the past 3 decades toppled with Stalinist formalism have degraded your outlook so that you are actually influenced by it in your characterization of Marxism.


But, actually, if we as socialists want a world not just based on material self-interest (even if it is true that the spark for a revolution does come from ending the exploitation of one's self) but on social justice, humanity, peace etc., then arguably we are presenting a moral vision of society.

"Social justice, humanity, peace" are ABSTRACTIONS, they are meaningless, they are beautiful sounding words which don't mean shit. Why are the "sober empiricists" of the Anglo-Saxon sort the most susceptible to the silliest of superstitions? Social justice, humanity and peace you say? This forms the foundation of our engagement in Communism? Tell me why social justice humanity and peace are unambiguous terms. Islamists seek the same thing. Frankly every fucking idiot seeks the same thing. Tell me what is wrong with "racial harmony, balance, and societal health", or for libertarians, "Liberty, self-responsibility and a healthy economy" - NOTHING! If we are simply grounding beliefs in abstractions, then anything goes. Communism, as you conceive it has absolutely no moral, ideological authority over anything - nay - it is even worse, it is ideologically INDISTINGUISHABLE from any other stupid bourgeois thought-idiosyncrasy. If Communism is not synonymous with a critique of ideology, it is worthless and we should all kill ourselves.

Neither some external thing called "material class interest" nor pretenses to beautiful words justify one's Communism. It is NOT based on some passively adopted moral outlook that one becomes a Communist. Rather, Communism, like any other form of thought, is CIRCULAR, one becomes subsumed into the circular process which is both congruent and circular with itself at the same time, insofar as one conceives morality, political struggle, ideology and is able to sustain a SCIENTIFIC understanding of historical processes.

What does this mean? It means that one becomes a Communist NOT by making pretenses to abstractions, but from some kind of opposition to the existing order. This opposition is very ambiguous: It can mutate into reaction, it can mutate into a number of things. But this opposition must be there. This opposition is demographically proletarian (and petty bourgeois) in nature, because it is this demographic who bare the worst of capitalism's blunts. The proletariat, with NO AFFIRMATIVE means of fulfilling self-interest ON ITS OWN, will inevitably tag along with the petty bourgeoisie in its opposition to the existing order.

Communism is the dissemination of scientific knowledge among the broad proletarian masses and it is the EQUIPPING of them with a scientific understanding of social processes - what is commonly known as class consciousness. It thus allows them to fulfill and fight for demands PRODUCED by their proximity with capital, and take these to the highest conclusion of their own self-negation and subsequently the negation of all classes.

The justification for one's own commitment to Communism is the result of the relationship between freedom and (knowledge of) necessity. What does it mean? It means one does not have a choice in the matter. How one justifies being a Communist, rather than not a Communist, is the result of scientific criticism. But it is circular, and why? Because one cannot engage in this scientific criticism without having already presupposed Communism. And how one gets to the latter is totally arbitrary, for intellectuals - sometimes they are the result of theological crisis's, sometimes they result from the failure of liberalism, the accentuation of some other train of thought, and so on. One eventually makes an epistemological break that which there is no going back. Communism is justified through faith, but NOT in the superstitious sense - but in the same kind of faith that allowed the first scientists to risk eternal damnation by engaging in scientific practice. That is to say, our faith in Communism is nothing more than a disavowal of superstition, and THIS TAKES FAITH because this superstition is sustained by relationships of power, legitimized by them. We don't have to convince ANYONE the viability of Communism.

You simply have it all wrong - NO PERSON (with nothing to lose, that is, the working classes) in practical terms would be opposed to a Communist society. The reasons why they would oppose it are simple:

1. The superstitious belief that it is impossible, for some unkonwable reason (nature, divine will, and so on)

2. A subsequent anxiety derived from this impossibility that makes one aversed towards it - through the displacement of their 'opium'. Communism, for example, which seeks to destroy religion, might be conceived by working people as seeking to - rather than replace - destroy their only source of comfort and hope (ditto with the family). So this second reason is inevitably related to the first one - it results from a lack of faith in oneself, and in one's collective political and social strength.

People oppose Communism out of pseudo-cynical reasons, not because they perceive a purported Communist society to be so horrible. Only the propertied can ACTIVELY perpetuate aversion to Communism on these lines, i.e. the "erosion of individual freedoms, collective tyranny" and so on. So the message of Communism to the working people is that of a positive master-signifier: THAT THEY CAN DO IT, that WE CAN make a better world, that WE CAN remake the world as we wish it and be in control of our conditions of life. This doesn't only apply to instilling them with the confidence in fighting for a new imaginary society, but for accentuating present social antagonisms: Fighting for higher wages, social security rights, MINIMAL programs that working people have NO FAITH in. Communism as a horizon of possibility tells the working people THEY HAVE NO REASON not to fight for what they wish. You can then argue that "what they wish" is a matter of controversy, but this is wrong. Working people might only 'wish' for reactionary ends because of a perceived faithlessness and lack of hope in their ability to realize their interests directly.

When Kant tells us that duty justifies ethical engagement, HE DOES NOT MEAN blind uncritical duty, but that one must be RESPONSIBLE for what they choose to be their duty - that means one simply cannot 'choose' to be a Communist arbitrarily. It is more comparable to a person falling off a cliff accidentally than a person 'choosing' this or that - insofar as we illustrate how one becomes a Communist. It is to take a leap of faith that which there is no going back from. I mean this is quite simply impossible to explain without an understanding of the dialectic: To become a Communist, one must have a reason, ANY REASON, that is, to oppose the existing order. Should this opposition be taken to the conclusion of historic and social consciousness, as it was for Marx, a disciple of Hegel and previoulsy a Young Hegelian himself, that is communism. The absence of this consciounsss is best encapsulated by religion - thus for Marx, AT THE ONSET of atheism does Communism arise. And I mean real atheism - the disavowal of any external force of guarantee, be that 'the proletariat' as a force you can passively observe externally, or nature. Communism means nothing more than the seizure of that which is already constitutive of your life.

So one does not make Communists out of intellectuals by making them neutrally observers of "science". On the contrary, what one does is attack their superstitions, at as a force of negation, defile all that is sacred and engage in the utmost ruthless criticism. ONLY THEN can we recruit more intellectuals, ONLY AFTER we beat the shit out of all of their gods and all that they hold dear in their minds until their is nothing left. Or those intellectuals who perceive all the suffering and misery in our world - they are forced, as Paul Robeson said, to elect a choice - justifying this suffering, or recognizing IT DOES NOT HAVE to exist. Communists are born out of taking the latter option to its highest conclusion.


Frankly it is just ridiculous to hear people still proclaim that Marxism is some sort of 'science'

It is ridiculous when they try and reconcile positivist 'science' with Marxism, but "science" as Marxists have understood it in our historical tradition has NOTHING to do with "science" as understood by bourgeois ideology. Marxism, as althusser rightfully points out, opens up a NEW island of scientific inquiry. We cannot empirically justify or prove scientifically approaching the social domain, insofar as one cannot empirically justify approaching the natural domain - or for the ancient Greeks (his example), the mathematic vs the mythological.

All science, and all truth, is nothing more than that which concerns practical truths. Every pretense to 'truth' outside of real practice. Those who see no practical reason for seizing historic destiny and consciously determining one own's mode of life (i.e. scientific planning of society, etc.).

EVERY SINGLE "science" was born out of political, moral and social controversy. Do you think that the first scientists were merely neutral observers in their context? They weren't. A plethora of presuppositions were for them necessary to sustain and justify their scientific practices - what scientist would there have been without the IDEOLOGY of humanism, undoubtedly a partisan position which has no empirically justifiable basis (in believing it)? PARTISANSHIP, rather than obfuscating empirical observation, OPENS UP the space for critically assessing superstitiously designated processes into things which can be knowable systemically in thought. So Marxism doesn't even bring forth new empirical truths necessarily - it merely tells us - the social domain CAN be assessed scientifically rather than leaving it as a mystery - either by cognitivists who search for genes and neurological entities that don't exist and that they will never find (which is why at an ever increasing rate, you find many cognitivists who are flirting with mysticism and eastern spiritualism), or by religious people who speak of the "sacred" human space. They are the same. We reject that this "sacred space" is a necessary mystery.

So Marxism IS indeed scientific insofar as we have the PRACTICAL prerogative to scientifically approach and change social processes. Justifying this can't be based on "scientific observation" alone, but from taking a side in what are real social processes. One doesn't have to fully understand these social processes to take a side in them, or have a foot in them. We only speak of such processes AFTER having taken the partisan, biased position that we oppose the existing order and criticize it. So people who say this is circular reasoning are both right and wrong - think about it like this. Did the processes we understand from quantum physics exist before people decided to scientifically engage them? They did. We only recognize this (their existence) AFTER they are engaged.

[Thirsty Crow]

But this is still reducible to a moral argument, no? That the exploitation of labor is bad, and socialism would fix this? And the same with alienation?

On an unrelated note (to knock out two birds with one stone): why is exploitation "bad" per se? If workers are, due to competition, paid at or well above the value of their labor/are paid a wage sufficient for their living, where lies the problem?
So what if it is "reducible" to some kind of an ethical argument?

Although it is far from clear that this is so. Take for instance a judgement like this, that capitalism leads to undesirable and destructive outcomes. Exploitation therefore isn't denounced from the perspective of some set of abstract moral principles, but rather from the perspective of people as working class, of people who get the experience all of the lovely effects of this best possible of worlds. In this sense, Marxism and communism are fiercely subjective insofar as they are based on quite a particular kind of subject position, that of a worker.

Is this an ethical argument? I'm not sure, but who cares how arguments are labelled anyway? Political arguments, persuasions to act in a certain way and to organize in a certain way are not really ethical arguments, but matters of practical rationality. Marxists usually claim there's empirical judgements of fact behind the politics, as a sort of an infrastructure - the knowledge that capitalism is such-and-such, that the state of affairs is so-and-so.

And this should answer your second question. It isn't that exploitation is "bad per se"; I for one don't hold to any set of morals which would rule out such social interaction as forbidden and/or immoral. The thing is exploitation sucks fucking hard for us on the receiving end; yeah wages might be okay in one period, but c'mon and take a look, how likely is for the mass of working class folk to reasonably expect stability, continuous employment, and so on? Not very likely unfortunately. It's also not the case that workers are paid above the value they produce as that wouldn't be viable for continued and enlarged capital accumulation.

So yeah, the best reason why communists ought to concern themselves with exploitation is 'cause we're also affected by it (dunno about you but yeah, I'm coming from that angle strictly).


Self-interest doesn't work because it has a low horizon and can be formulated into right-wing positions quite easily. Arguably, it is in the self-interest of all individuals to empower themselves in relation to others who they are in competition with for resources.I'd say self-interest "works" most of the time.

But the thing is, there's no "inherent content" to this self-interest, unlike what the rhetoric of the historic mission of the proletariat and working class interest* might suggest (that's to put it mildly; I do in fact thing all of that is defective beyond repair, especially the notion of a vanguard uncovering the one true interest of the class to the same class). What we call self-interest here can and does act in all sorts of different ways, the point being that a particular kind of such self-interest, that of taking hold of productive powers of society to escape the hell of capital, is assumed to be favorable for kinds of social action we as communists advocate for.

* As in "It is not in the interest of the class to X".


It is self-interest to try to live a good life under capitalism by playing by its rules.
It most certainly is. But that's not the problem; the problem is we can reasonably expect failure of this hoped for outcomes. The rules are fucked.

[Full Metal Bolshevik]

Workers compete for jobs in a system that enforces artificially high unemployment. The employer/capitalist thus uses a resource which is always higher in supply than demand, its price is always lower than its real value. Engels called this a reserve army of the unemployed.

When Janet Yellen of the US Federal Reserve recently raised the benchmark fed interest rate she said that the 4% unemployment rate was getting too low and might cause wages and inflation to rise. She was admitting that too many people were working and that it is necessary to throw some of those people out of work. That seems immoral enough, deliberately increasing the misery of unemployment.

But beyond that, the worker is paid a wage to produce a product which contains surplus-value or profit, for which he or she is paid no compensation. Workers produce profit which is appropriated by the capitalist.

Morally speaking, the capitalist gets something for nothing at the expense of the worker. While that may be immoral it is a different issue from the economic one which argues for the worker to take control of the means of production so that the worker becomes owner of his or her own property, surplus-value, profit.

And later the workers make a more fundamental economic decision whether to produce things only for use rather than for profit.
But the favorite argument they have is that the capitalist has the right to the profit because he took as risk while the worker did not, he doesn't even has the guarantee of profit, and many companies fail during their first year.

Morally how can one argue that?

[Thirsty Crow]

But the favorite argument they have is that the capitalist has the right to the profit because he took as risk while the worker did not, he doesn't even has the guarantee of profit, and many companies fail during their first year.

Morally how can one argue that?
Argue against what? That someone's has a right because they were willing to take a risk?

But where would that person willing to take a risk even be if there was no labor pool available? In other words, for that courageous act to even take place there must be dispossessed people waiting for someone to hand them a job.

But what does that have to do with anything important, anyway? There are many highly destructive effects of this way of organizing social production. How does a spurious "right" then compare against that (with the ever present fact that there must be working class people for our investors' acting as investors and profiteers in the first place)? It's bollocks really.

Why should we accept this curious idea that personal willingness to take risks implies there's a "right" that we would supposedly trample and commit grave injustice?

[RedMaterialist]

But the favorite argument they have is that the capitalist has the right to the profit because he took as risk while the worker did not, he doesn't even has the guarantee of profit, and many companies fail during their first year.

Morally how can one argue that?

Well, first, gambling is supposed to be immoral; getting something for nothing used to be a sin and the wages of sin is, or used to be, death.

The capitalist says that he advanced (risked) his money specifically for the purpose and with the intention of making more money. (From Capital, Ch. Seven.) Marx says that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions and that the capitalist could have intended to make money without even starting a company. He could have risked his money by playing poker, playing the horses, betting on the lottery, speculating in the stock market; why bother with hiring employees, renting a factory? Because he wants to do good for society and create jobs for the working class? Then he is a Christian social worker and not a capitalist.

The question is not whether the capitalist took a risk, because without the prospect of a profit he would never take the risk in the first place. The question is where did the profit come from. The capitalist risked $100 to make $110, to obtain a profit of $10. If the capitalist is only concerned with his risk then it doesn't matter to him where the extra $10 comes from. The risk argument is only a justification used by bourgeois economists to escape from facing the problem that Adam Smith and David Ricardo first raised: that all value, and therefore, profit, comes from labor. During the production process the worker adds value to the raw material, depreciation of machines and his or her own wages; that value added is profit.

It is true that other companies might fail but the capitalist class as a whole never fails. The individual capitalist expects and hopes for the other companies to fail.

Workers don't take risks? Companies go broke all the time and leave their employees and families with unpaid wages; companies routinely steal wages; companies go bankrupt and steal their employees' pensions and health care benefits. In fact, stealing pensions has become an honored profession on Wall St. Unemployment insurance? Get real, that's just money paid to moochers.

Workers are also the only people who are forced to sell the only commodity they own (labor power) in a market always flooded with an oversupply of that commodity, i.e. permanent unemployment. The capitalists even pay their university economists to preach that 6% unemployment (as measured by them) is full employment.

Workers get injured for life and die on the job. Does the capitalist pay when this happens? Absolutely not. Society pays through workers' compensation and even that the capitalists are trying to eliminate.

It's true the individual capitalist does not have the guarantee of a profit, but the capitalist class does, because it doesn't pay for the value which the working class produces over and above the value of wages, raw materials, machinery, etc. It is a very good scam, one hopes coming to an end soon.

[Emmett Till]

...

I didn't mean to say that at all. Perhaps I didn't formulate it well enough. The reality is, of course, quite complex, but the individual self-interests of workers (which vary a lot) are heavily influenced by their class interests. It is also when workers become aware of the fact that there is a common class interest that it is in their interest to work together and rise above the system that is oppressing them collectively.

Where is the backdoor?

Except that workers who are willing to side with the capitalists against their fellow workers very often get privileges therefrom. So from a purely self-interested position, following the common class interest can sometimes be beneficial, but in an immediate sense betraying their fellow workers and stabbing them in the back is likely more often immediately beneficial.

As in the famous parody of the Red Flag,

"The working class can kiss my ass,
I've got the foreman's job at last.

And of course what self-interested worker would ever be willing to participate in a revolution? You can get killed that way, you know.

[RedMaterialist]

And of course what self-interested worker would ever be willing to participate in a revolution? You can get killed that way, you know.

Except they do participate in revolutions - England 17th century, France 1789, Paris 1871, Russia 1917, Germany 1918, China 1945, Vietnam 1952 (?), Iran, Cuba, Indonesia, South Africa, Central America, Chile, Venezuela.

Some successful, all bloody and violent. Self interest surely doesn't explain that much carnage.

Besides, hasn't self-interest become only a psuedo-morality of the bourgeois class? That might explain why the proletariat would have itself have adopted self-interest as its morality.

So, now, what replaces morality, what is beyond good and evil, you might say.

[Hit The North]

Is that an argument against self-interest explanations? Because morality can easily be formulated into right-wing positions as well.

Of course! I agree with you. I wanted to stress the importance of the rational appeal of our ideas over our moral outrage which only makes us good people. It's not our moral indignation that is important but our analysis and solutions for overcoming the social conditions that produce the indignation.




I'd say self-interest "works" most of the time.



Well, I guess there is some area of agreement between us in the scare quotes you place around the word self-interest. I suppose my argument to Vlad is that in the present circumstances, any appeal to self-interest is inherently individualistic. There's always someone more in the shit that yourself, so hanging on to your foothold in the dung-heap is advantageous. We need to be promoting collective interests.



But the thing is, there's no "inherent content" to this self-interest, unlike what the rhetoric of the historic mission of the proletariat and working class interest* might suggest (that's to put it mildly; I do in fact thing all of that is defective beyond repair, especially the notion of a vanguard uncovering the one true interest of the class to the same class). What we call self-interest here can and does act in all sorts of different ways, the point being that a particular kind of such self-interest, that of taking hold of productive powers of society to escape the hell of capital, is assumed to be favorable for kinds of social action we as communists advocate for.

* As in "It is not in the interest of the class to X".

It most certainly is. But that's not the problem; the problem is we can reasonably expect failure of this hoped for outcomes. The rules are fucked.If I follow your argument, I disagree. The reason class-interest supersedes self-interest is because to get anywhere the class needs to impose discipline on itself which may require individuals forgoing immediate self-interest. Without this principle is hard to see how workers under capitalism can organise themselves into trade unions and political parties.

But, yeah, if the rules are fucked then fuck the rules.

[Comrade #138672]

Except that workers who are willing to side with the capitalists against their fellow workers very often get privileges therefrom. So from a purely self-interested position, following the common class interest can sometimes be beneficial, but in an immediate sense betraying their fellow workers and stabbing them in the back is likely more often immediately beneficial.

As in the famous parody of the Red Flag,

"The working class can kiss my ass,
I've got the foreman's job at last.

And of course what self-interested worker would ever be willing to participate in a revolution? You can get killed that way, you know.Sure. A few of them can get privileges by siding with the class enemy. These people are often called the bosses' snitch. However, there is a reason that they are almost universally despised.

[Luís Henrique]

But this is still reducible to a moral argument, no?

I think this critique is one of the endless rhetoric traps the bourgeois ideologues like to throw against Marxism and Marxists.

If Marxism really is based on "purely objective" science, then it is a cold ideology devoid of any real sympathy for the workers: Marx and the Marxists only want an abstract "progress of history" (at any price, including the lives and happiness of mankind at large and workers in particular) which is a complete, metaphysical hypostasy.

If on the other hand it isn't based on "purely objective science" then it must, by force of logic, be based on some hidden, or not so hidden, moral essentialism.

Marx however didn't agree with that dichotomy between "purely objective science" and moral essentialism. That's why he talked about a historical materialism, not to be confused with the metaphysic "materialism" of the Enlightenment or the positivists.


That the exploitation of labor is bad, and socialism would fix this? And the same with alienation?

"Bad" for whom?


On an unrelated note (to knock out two birds with one stone): why is exploitation "bad" per se? If workers are, due to competition, paid at or well above the value of their labor/are paid a wage sufficient for their living, where lies the problem?

Exploitation isn't "bad" per se. It is very good for the exploiters, at least on the short term. It is bad for the exploited, because you are at the taking end of an unequal relationship. You give more than you are given.

In a capitalist society, workers cannot be paid at (and even less above) the value of their labour. A part of this value has to go to the capitalists, both for their own private consumption and for the tautological process of the reproduction of capital.

What is a "living"? Food and shelter? Why would we be happy with food and shelter when others have (finer) food, (safer) shelter, and also education, knowledge, culture, pleasure, free time to contemplate the universe or do whatever they want? Why would we be happy to be mere cogs in the absurd machine that transforms money into... more money, for the sake of it?

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Competition for labor-power does increase wages; I'd think they decrease when there is less competition/more centralization of capital & monopolization.

Competition among capitalists for labour power does increase wages, of course. Competition among workers for jobs on the other hand decreases wages. However, the capitalists compete for the improvement of their business; we compete for our own lives. Capitalists are 1% or less of the population; workers are the vast majority. So, the net effect of these two kinds of competition is decreased wages - at the very least, a relative decline as a share of global social wealth, in the good times; and an absolute decline in bad times.

Monopolisation, concentration and centralisation are the logical consequence of competition among capitalists. And the mechanisms that promote de-centralisation and de-concentration in a capitalist economy, though they exist, are much weaker than inter-capital competition.

So competition is this monstruosity that positivists of all kinds cannot stand or understand: an entity whose existence implies the destruction of the conditions of its own existence.

Luís Henrique

[Comrade #138672]

Just because Marxism is not a truly objective science (although I would call it a science or at least a scientific methodology), doesn't mean that there is a need for moral essentialism.

At least that is how I see it.

[RedMaterialist]

If there is a slaveowners' morality and a feudal landowners' morality, and a bourgeois morality, then there should also be a proletariat morality once the proletariat becomes the dominant class; and after the dissolution of the state, morality will no longer exist in the current sense.

The slaveowner says the slave is nothing more than a personal piece of property; the feudal landlord says the serf belongs to the land; the bourgeois says that capitalism is freedom and therefore there is no exploitation. The bourgeois is, of course, a hypocrite.

What will the worker say to the capitalist? "Get your hands off the means of production?"

[Emmett Till]

Sure. A few of them can get privileges by siding with the class enemy. These people are often called the bosses' snitch. However, there is a reason that they are almost universally despised.

Outright snitching, yes. But that's what you get the most privileges from, and many workers try to separate their work life from their life outside, and moreover workers tend to be, well, broke. So from a pure self-interest point of view, having your workmates hate you can be worth it.

Moreover, in workplaces where the class consciousness is low, i.e. in most workplaces in America these days, just sucking up to the boss a bit and proving that you are company loyal will not, unfortunately, make everyone else hate you, and can be highly beneficial for you and your family financially and in other ways.

No getting around it, working class consciousness does not and cannot exist without a moral component.

[Comrade #138672]

Outright snitching, yes. But that's what you get the most privileges from, and many workers try to separate their work life from their life outside, and moreover workers tend to be, well, broke. So from a pure self-interest point of view, having your workmates hate you can be worth it.

Moreover, in workplaces where the class consciousness is low, i.e. in most workplaces in America these days, just sucking up to the boss a bit and proving that you are company loyal will not, unfortunately, make everyone else hate you, and can be highly beneficial for you and your family financially and in other ways.

No getting around it, working class consciousness does not and cannot exist without a moral component.Not everyone can be a highly paid snitch. Indeed, that would not be profitable for the bosses at all (and privileges cease to be privileges if everyone has them). Besides, being hated by your co-workers is a high price to pay, especially since being a snitch does not necessarily lead to higher pay, so the reward is not even guaranteed.