Is the Extraction of Surplus Value Immoral?
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Lbird your epistemic relativism is nothing new and is self contradicting at base, if you don't work this out you will continue to be away with the faries. I've spent to much time on this but I suggest you read this:http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/relativism/#5.9"If the epistemic relativist argues that all justification or rationality is framework relative, he lays himself open to the reply that his very claim is at best justified relative to his framework, only rational by his own standards, only defensible by his own guidelines, just as much a social construction as he insists everything else is.""[…] either the claim that truth is relative is true absolutely (i.e., true in a non-relative sense) or else it is only true relative to some framework. If it is true absolutely, all across the board, then at least one truth is not merely true relative to a framework, so this version of the claim is inconsistent. Furthermore, if we make an exception for the relativist's thesis, it is difficult to find a principled way to rule out other exceptions; what justifies stopping here? "It's turtles all the way down.But it's never to late to turn back…
ALB wrote:The extraction of surplus value happens too and is not a figment of the imagination, as I'm sure you agree.But… ONLY because I'm a Communist!It is 'a figment of the imagination' for most on this planet. That's our problem.The current social truth is that 'angels' are real, and 'value' isn't.The belief that somehow 'value' will come to penetrate the 'imagination' of the masses, is mistaken, IMO.Unless we Communists find a way of explaining 'value' in easy-to-understand terms, rather than telling people to read the first three chapters of Capital (or fuckin' Hegel), we're lost.I've tried this before, on other sites, and it's always met with intense disapproval. We must make 'value' as easy to understand as 'angels'. That's not least of the reasons I've ended up on this site, in the belief that your stress on democracy fits easier with my attempts to do this.We're losing the propaganda war, comrades. There are less Communists now than in the past.
DJP wrote:Lbird your epistemic relativism is nothing new and is self contradicting at base, if you don't work this out you will continue to be away with the faries.Yeah, I'm beginning to think that joining the 'fairies' is the more socially-progressive option!I've tried to deal with your objections to relativism… just read what you've quoted, comrade.It says 'he' – not only individual, but male!The only answer is a 'social' answer. Here's the bad news, comrade: 'societies' differ, and so knowledge is relative to the society which produces it.This is a million miles away from post-modernist shite, which your references tackle, but from a bourgeois perspective.Oh, sorry, you think 'science' is 'objective', and not 'bourgeois'. Oh well, back to the 19th century…If anyone's telling 'fairy stories', it's the bourgeois accounts of 'science', comrade.
DJP wrote:Lbird your epistemic relativism is nothing new and is self contradicting at base, if you don't work this out you will continue to be away with the faries. I've spent to much time on this but I suggest you read this:http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/relativism/#5.9"If the epistemic relativist argues that all justification or rationality is framework relative, he lays himself open to the reply that his very claim is at best justified relative to his framework, only rational by his own standards, only defensible by his own guidelines, just as much a social construction as he insists everything else is.""[…] either the claim that truth is relative is true absolutely (i.e., true in a non-relative sense) or else it is only true relative to some framework. If it is true absolutely, all across the board, then at least one truth is not merely true relative to a framework, so this version of the claim is inconsistent. Furthermore, if we make an exception for the relativist's thesis, it is difficult to find a principled way to rule out other exceptions; what justifies stopping here? "It's turtles all the way down.But it's never to late to turn back…The only answer is voting. That's the only way forward. Why go back to discredited theories? It's like early 19th century workers wanting to return to the soil. There is no way back, comrades.
LBird wrote:The only answer is a 'social' answer. Here's the bad news, comrade: 'societies' differ, and so knowledge is relative to the society which produces it.Oh, sorry, you think 'science' is 'objective', and not 'bourgeois'. Oh well, back to the 19th century…You've failed to answer the objection.Is the truth or falsity of the Holocaust or the attempted genocide of the Armenians in 1915 relative to socety?Your mistake seems to be to think that the only options are 'niave realism' or all out epistemic relativism.Last chance saloon.
I don't think that a majority of workers need to understand value theory before they can establish socialism/communism.It will be enough that they know that capitalism can never be reformed to work in their interest and that the only way forward is to make the means of wealth production the common heritage of all so they can be used, under democratic control, to turn out goods and services to satisfy people's needs to which people can have access in accordance with the principle "from each their ability, to each their needs".Having said that, I don't think the concept of surplus value is all that difficult to understand or get across. Most people can easily realise that the only way that useful things can be produced is by people working and that a non-work income such as profit can only be derived from what those who work produce. This will reflect itself as "profit" becoming a dirty word for most people.Understanding value as a social relationship is a bit more difficult but everybody knows about money (which today is another expression of the same relationship). So an easy way to get across that socialism will get rid of value is to say that it will get rid of money. I know we get stick and get mocked for it, but saying that socialism will get rid of money is easier for people to understand even if they don't agree with it. We might get less stick from leftwing intellectuals if we said we were for the abolition of value but wouldn't be so readily understood. We are painfully aware that even the good old socialist slogan of "Abolition of the Wages System" isn't immediately understood these days.Let's not put the bar for majority socialist/communist understanding too high. It's only because today we are a tiny minority faced with having to wage an ideological struggle against entrenched ruling class ideas that we socialist/communists need to be clued up on these things. As socialist ideas spread this will become less necessary. and people can talk about the practicalities of organising socialism rather than analysing in great detail how capitalism works and why.
ALB wrote:I don't think that a majority of workers need to understand value theory before they can establish socialism/communism.It will be enough that they know…. Let's not put the bar for majority socialist/communist understanding too high…. people can talk about the practicalities of organising socialism rather than analysing in great detail how capitalism works and why.In my opinion, ALB, if 'a majority of workers' can't develop an understanding about 'value', and also 'how' and 'why' capitalism works, then I don't think that Communism is possible.By 'Communism', I mean the democratic control of society by its members. If the majority remain only concerned about 'practical issues', they'll remain in thrall to philosophers, scientists, priests and the new boss (same as the old boss). Communists should be trying to explain, not merely repeat outdated dogma.My failure to get us beyond 19th century positivism (see DJP's post about questions of the Holocaust and Armenocide, etc.), doesn't give me much hope.I'm only too aware of the tensions with other posters that I'm causing by continually asking these questions, and perhaps it's time to leave it alone. I know some posters have supported some of the things that I've argued, and I've had some supportive PMs from others, but the lack of any real development in these questions openly on the threads is wearing me out.Whilst Communists refuse to answer philosophical questions (or, indeed, to recognise that there are questions to be answered), we'll remain an isolated, small, and shrinking, intellectual force in society. It gives me no pleasure at all to come to this recognition.I think I'll go and deal with the entirely practical question of where my next beer is going to come from.
LBird wrote:My failure to get us beyond 19th century positivism (see DJP's post about questions of the Holocaust and Armenocide, etc.), doesn't give me much hope.Like I said Your mistake seems to be to think that the only options are 'niave realism' or all out epistemic relativism.But we're way off topic here it would seem…
I never said that socialists/communists should refuse to discuss theoretical issues at this stage of the development of the socialist movement (if I did, I'd be a hypocrite). I merely said that, when the socialist movement takes off, there'll be less need for such deeper theoretical understanding amongst socialist in general. Frankly, I don't see why, when socialism becomes a mass movement, every worker should have to have a theoretical understanding of the Marxian theory of value. Today, as I said, when the tiny minority of us who are socialists are engaged in a battle of ideas with the dominant ruling class ideologists we do need to have a deeper theoretical understanding in order to combat their ideas more effectively. But once they're on the run we can be more relaxed about such issues. Anyway, that's my view.
To return to the original question. ISTM that the whole point is that the wage relationship is entirely moral. The two participants confront one another as equals, one as the owner of commodity money, the other of commodity labour power. They meet, arrange the contract and exchange goods at as near to the fair and correct price(/ratio) as they can. It is not the fault of the owner of commodity money that the owner of commodity labour power has no other access to the means of living, and from their perspective, it is no different to buying and using a spanner or a screwdriver to perform some work. No one says that a spanner has a right to the value of the goods it produces, do they?That this involves an inequality of real power relations, alienation and objectification of human ability to work is not a moral but, to my mind an existential and aesthetic matter. The worker strives to be more than an object (and feels themself to be so). That is the heart of class struggle.
I don't think the two participants are equals; at least one of them is forced by economic necessity to sell his/her commodityBut I agree with your general argument YMS, A fair days wages for a fair days work will still result in surplus value, but I am not sure if 'moral' is the word I would use. A worker does not have to receive less than the value of labour power in order to produce surplus value.
DJP wrote:LBird wrote:The only answer is a 'social' answer. Here's the bad news, comrade: 'societies' differ, and so knowledge is relative to the society which produces it.Oh, sorry, you think 'science' is 'objective', and not 'bourgeois'. Oh well, back to the 19th century…You've failed to answer the objection.Is the truth or falsity of the Holocaust or the attempted genocide of the Armenians in 1915 relative to socety?Your mistake seems to be to think that the only options are 'niave realism' or all out epistemic relativism.Last chance saloon.
No sign of Marx in the 'Last chance saloon'!
Marx, The German Ideology, Collected Works 5, p. 39, wrote:In reality and for the practical materialist, i.e. the communist, it is a question of revolutionising the existing world, of practically attacking and changing existing things. When occasionally we find such views with Feuerbach, they are never more than isolated surmises and have much too little influence on his general outlook to be considered here as anything else than embryos capable of development. Feuerbach’s conception of the sensuous world is confined on the one hand to mere contemplation of it, and on the other to mere feeling; he says “Man” instead of “real historical man.” “Man” is really “the German.” In the first case, the contemplation of the sensuous world, he necessarily lights on things which contradict his consciousness and feeling, which disturb the harmony he presupposes, the harmony of all parts of the sensuous world and especially of man and nature. To remove this disturbance, he must take refuge in a double perception, a profane one which only perceives the “flatly obvious” and a higher, philosophical, one which perceives the “true essence” of things. He does not see how the sensuous world around him is, not a thing given direct from all eternity, remaining ever the same, but the product of industry and of the state of society; and, indeed, in the sense that it is an historical product, the result of the activity of a whole succession of generations, each standing on the shoulders of the preceding one, developing its industry and its intercourse, modifying its social system according to the changed needs. Even the objects of the simplest “sensuous certainty” are only given him through social development, industry and commercial intercourse. The cherry-tree, like almost all fruit-trees, was, as is well known, only a few centuries ago transplanted by commerce into our zone, and therefore only by this action of a definite society in a definite age it has become “sensuous certainty” for Feuerbach.[my bold]http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01b.htmThe knowledge of even a 'rock' before your very eyes is a social product, never mind knowledge of events as complex as what we now dub the Holocaust or Armenocide.
That's all well and good but it's not an argument for an adoption of epistemic relativism. Anyhow, you should be able to support your claim without making (failed) appeals to authority.Yes what we refer to as 'knowledge' is a social product but (apart from the world mental) the truth of the matter does not lie in peoples heads. Either the holocaust or armenocide happened or they did not, this true / false fact is not altered by what later generations or states claim or think happened.
DJP wrote:That's all well and good but it's not an argument for an adoption of epistemic relativism.No, you’re right in one sense: it’s not an argument for ‘epistemic relativism’; but ‘what it is’, is an argument for ‘Marx’s method’.You are unable to identify this, because for you there are only two approaches: ‘epistemic relativism’ (which is post-modernist, individualist, anything goes, a ‘make it up as you go along’ method) and ‘positivism’ (for which ‘knowledge’ is a reflection of ‘what exists’ or ‘what happened’). For the former, ‘truth’ is what the individual subject says it is; for the latter ‘truth’ is what ‘reality tells us’. For the former, the ‘object’ does not exist, just the ‘individual subject’ together with their own self-created version of ‘knowledge’; for the latter, ‘knowledge’ does not exist, just a reflection or copy of the ‘object’ together with the passive ‘subject’.You are a positivist, DJP.On the contrary, I’m a Marxist, who regards ‘knowledge’ as the creation of the ‘social subject’ using social theory, which proves the ‘truth’ of that ‘knowledge’ by sensuous activity by the active subject. If the sensuous activity does not match the expectation of the social theory, it is rejected. This is also the proper ‘scientific method’, and applies equally to nature and society. This is called ‘Historical Materialism’, which takes activity from idealism and reality from materialism, and combines them in human practice. This is outlined in Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach.
DJP wrote:Anyhow, you should be able to support your claim without making (failed) appeals to authority.I tried ‘supporting my claims’ both by referring to Marx, Pannekoek and Schaff, and by giving my own explanations (as again, above). You’ve not tried either to expose your sources or explain in your own words. You’ve not read any philosophy of science (either 19th century Marx or 20th century Popper, Kuhn, Feyerabend, Lakatos, Archer or Bhaskar). You position is based on individual ‘common sense’ type arguments that you’ve passively picked up in society, or “the bleedin’ obvious”, so you don’t have to read about, understand or explain yourself. It just ‘is’. For you ‘science produces the Truth’, a one-off, eternal ‘knowledge’ which is the same as what it explains, rather than a social construction which is a separate entity from the object. Pannekoek warns us about ‘discovery science’.
DJP wrote:Yes what we refer to as 'knowledge' is a social product but (apart from the world mental) the truth of the matter does not lie in peoples heads.Once again, you identify ‘truth’ with the ‘object’. This is positivism. And if the ‘social product knowledge’ then isn’t ‘the truth’, what is your “’knowledge’ as a social product”? Your statement that knowledge is a social product but not the truth (that is the object itself, you say) makes your statement meaningless. In effect, you’ve heard some arguments about ‘social knowledge’ which you don’t understand, but just include the phrase as a kind of ‘self-blessing’ to protect yourself, like a garlic clove to ward off vampires.
DJP wrote:Either the holocaust or armenocide happened or they did not, this true / false fact is not altered by what later generations or states claim or think happened.Here, again, you’re conflating the events which happened (object) with our understanding of them (knowledge). For you, since knowledge is the same as, and a reflection/copy of, the events, there is no room for the active, creative, human, social subject that creates knowledge by practical, sensuous activity by testing theories against the events. And the ‘events’ don’t simply present themselves to us, but have to be actively sought using selection parameters, as Carr shows with his fisher/fishing/fish analogy (which once again I’d hazard that either you haven’t read, or haven’t understood: you’re the comrade that posted a brilliant video which makes these points extremely well, but apparently you don’t even understand the meaning of what you’re posting: as Einstein argued, we ‘observe’ what we’re ‘told to observe’ by our prior theory).So to return to your point about the Armenocide and Holocaust.Did the people who lived through these events, when taking their last breath before they were killed, say to each other ‘this is the Armenocide/Holocaust’? Was it obvious to all at the time what it meant? Or are the labels ‘Armenocide/Holocaust’ later inventions by historians who, by using theory and examining sources, actively create our ‘knowledge’ of those ‘events’? Won’t the social theories that the historians employ shape the ‘knowledge’ (not the ‘events’)?Why dub them ‘Armenocide/Holocaust’, which focus on national or religious factors (Armenia or Jewishness, both themselves human creations)? Wouldn’t historians using class analysis give the ‘events’ different names, perhaps ‘Workercide 1’ and ‘Workercide 2’, which would refer to the same ‘events’, but place them in a very different framework of understanding? That is, bosses in Ottoman Turkey and Hitlerian Germany killed workers who lived in the geographic location of Armenia or followed the Jewish faith, in an attempt to fool their own workers, that their nationality was more important than their class, and blame foreign workers. And after the ‘events’ in which millions of workers were murdered, later nationalist historians (Armenian and Jewish) then, for their own nationalist purposes, dubbed the ‘events’ as ‘Armenocide’ and ‘Holocaust’, precisely to take away from the FACT that millions of WORKERS died, and bamboozle later workers about those ‘events’. Nationalism is embedded in the very terms.So, let’s look again at DJP’s claim:
DJP wrote:Either the holocaust or armenocide happened or they did not, this true / false fact is not altered by what later generations or states claim or think happened.So, we can’t reconstruct our ‘knowledge’ of those ‘events’ from a Communist perspective, according to DJP. They are ‘the holocaust or armenocide’, and this “not altered by what later generations claim happened”.‘Knowledge’ equals ‘object’; Positivist Truth; Discovery Science; Eternal Facts; the denial of creativity to the future proletariat. Such are the fruits of DJP’s ‘method’.No. Knowledge is an entity created by social humans, based upon their theoretical frameworks and active attempts to create understanding. Knowledge is not a passively-imbibed copy of reality.
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