Re: Marx's birthday (fwd)

[boddhisatva <foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

                In response to Mr. Keen's letter and Mr. Burford's
submission,



        In that I've come to mature Marxism through my experiences as an
exploited worker, it may surprise some on the list that I find absolutely no
relevance in the analysis of value through labor content.  It seems to me
patently contradictory to say that a good's value has any important
relationship to the work that went into it, in the modern age.  I feel that
Marx used this end of the theory largely as a political "justification" for
Marxism.  My "justification" relies simply on something very like
citizenship.  To the extent that a person participates in a social unit that
creates value, he should derive benefit as a matter of rights, just as an
owner does.  An owner may or may not "work" for the economic organization
that he has a stake in, but he derives benefit on the basis of his ownership
as well as whatever "market determined", "job" compensation he receives.


        That is why I ask Marxists how we may expand, or create an equivalent
concept to, ownership as now defined in the liberal state.




        peace




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