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

["Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Carrol Cox wrote:

> 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

Some people write long tedious desertations on statements others never made.

This is my original statement:
It is a fundamental truth that GREED, the driving force behind
capitalism, is self destructive. It is the nature of greed to escalate risk
toward suicidal ends. The very defintion of risk is built on danger.

This is my reponse to Nester's post:
Thank you Nestor, for pointing out that my use of the term "greed" in my
past two posts was framed in an objective societal context rather than
as a subjective individual emotion.  Those who read my posts carefully
will see that I never said that Marx said or wrote that greed was the
reason behind capitalism. I said that capitalists said that greed was
the positive driving force behind capitalism. And I pointed out that
even by that standard, greed was not a positive force.  I was merely
using the capitalist's own definition against itself.  Nowhere in my
posts suggested that capitalism was the result of the deranged mind of 
individual
captains of finance, any more than Fascism is the result of the
ego-mania of its Feurer.  I often quote the Bible against Christianity.
It does not make me a supporter of religion or Christianity.

As I said, what a waste of time.

Henry C.K. Liu