Re: Doug Henwood/Mark Jones exchange (from LBO-Talk)

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Mark Jones wrote:

> PS I think Carrol overreacted a little to Henry's shorthand, in which
> 'greed' obviously stands in locum tenens for 'history' (a category which you
> have to write reams and reams about to say anything at all, whereas *greed*,
> well, we all know what that is, no?)

Probably -- but it is a very dangerous shorthand. In the first place it is
a cross-class term. In fact it tends to dissolve class. As a result one
will frequently hear it applied to (for example) union workers. Their
demands will be attacked as "greedy." I will venture to say that in
40 years of reading papers by college students I *never* saw the
words "greed" or "greedy" used except in respect to working
people. Single mothers are greedy. The disabled are greedy. Unions
are greedy. Undoubtedly in Columbus, Ohio right now the striiking
university staff members are being attacked as greedy by students
writing to the university paper.

(Incidentally, I object to it not as a psychological term but as
a metaphysical term -- and like all metaphysical terms it tends
to carry the ruling ideas of the age, that is, the ideas of the
ruling class.)

As applied to capitalists it is potentially even more destructive
than when applied to workers. If the ills of capitalism come from
the greed of capitalists, the solution is obvious. By moral pressure
we must make the capitalists be moral persons. No need to
change a system if its evils come from the evil behavior of
individuals. In fact if its evils come from the evil behavior of
individuals, it won't be possible to change it anyhow, for any
other system will also be characterized by the evil behavior
of individuals.

Or to put it another way. It is unwise to use as shorthand for history
a term that in fact denies history. Extracting surplus value is what
it *means* to be a capitalist -- and the assertion that capitalists
are greedy is about as informative as the proposition that all
black cats are cats.

If you stay on the lbo-list long enough, you may come to understand
how much attacks, open and covert, on marxism revolve around
moralistic terms such as "greed."

Carrol