Re: Marx and morality

[glevy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

On Wed, 7 Jun 1995, Michael Hesemann wrote:

> In this system capitalist exploitation is good as far as it serves the
> overall economical development and rises productivity. But for ME is
> questionable, whether the capitalist class makes the right
> investment-decisions. ME argue,
> that besides the breakdown of capitalist dynamics, capitalists unwillingly
> make the wrong investment-decisions and are not able to plan for all
> mankind. Due to the wrong decisions severe problems (e.g. mass-poorness)
> will arise,
> which produce a new revolutionary class, who will overthrow capitalism.
>
> Now you have a scientific reasoning based on humanistic moral.
>
> PS.: I`m a fan of simplificiation (without being false) and summaries.
>
Jerry:

Where does this idea that capitalists make the "wrong decisions" related
to investment decisions come from in Marx?  Although you claim this as
scientific, it sounds more like an accidental, subjective theory of
crisis to me.  Obviously, capitalists can't know before the fact that
their investment decisions will be "right", but I would argue that even
where their plans turn out to be "correct", their decisions are mandated
by the force of competition and the logic of capital accumulation.
"mass-poorness" (where it arises) is not the accidental result of poor
decision-making by capitalists but the logical consequence of the
accumulation process.

As for humanism and optimism, Marx was certainly a humanist in his
early writings.  To what extent he was a humanist in his more mature
writings is a subject of debate (as is the question of whether Marxist
ethics should be humanist).  As for optimism, I believe that Marxism is
neither pessimistic, cynical or optimistic.  Marxists should ground their
principles more in revolutionary realism than revolutionary optimism
(although this is a hard task for today's times).

Jerry>


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