Re: The pursuit of happiness

[HANLY@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Recently Chris said:
Chris:

I think it is arguable that the concept of needs, which Marx certainly
went along with, is highly compatible with a society dominated by
commodity exchange. By contrast I would suggest we should be talking
about social interaction which occurs spontaneously, and reasserts itself
repeatedly even under conditions of the most intense commodity exchange.

E.G last weekend the new lottery introduced in Britain was said to have
sold tickets to 90% of the population! People are sharing a collective
phenomenon and topic of conversation, as much as individually
buying a coupon of entitlement to the possibility of a 40 million pound
prize.

Comment: I gather that you are serious. Marx specifically notes that in a
society of commodity exchange the one NEED is money. (See the section
in the Economic and PHilosophical Manuscripts on the power of money in
capitalist society.) For example, if there is a medical market and you have a
need for medical treatment but no money to pay for treatment how can a society
dominated by commodity exchange help you? Indeed in a commodity system
real needs
are only those that one can satisfy in the market, or as the economic
catechism has it effective demand. is the only demand that counts.
If there are starving people with no money there wont be a market created
to satisfy that demand. Real abilities are only those that
can fetch a good return in the market, that are marketable. So if one is
a quite good philosophy teacher but philosophy departments are being downsized
then your ability cannot be actualized. You must go drive taxi or flip
hamburgers as those capacities are ones the market demands.
   The collective phenomenon that one notes in buying lottery tickets just
shows the power of the dream of the individual getting rich without effort
and being able to realize the American, Brit, individualist fantasy
 of being able
to purchase happiness in the consumer cornucopia of modern capitalism.
It is perfectly OK to be rich just by happenstance. The modern state
feeds on this dream and creates a system of "voluntary" taxation that often
attracts funds from those least able to afford the expenditure , as well
as creating addicts. Of course
I suppose that even God and tradition sanctions this sort of thing in the
Catholic and now universal bingo mania, but surely this is much more benign
and at least there is the fun of the game and the social get together.
  Cheers, Ken Hanly




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