Greed

["David B. Shemano" <dshemano@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Regarding greed and capitalism, a couple of questions based upon the quotations from Mr. Winslow:

Is Marx making an empirical point?  Based upon observation, capitalists are motivated by greed?  Or is it a definitional point -- under capitalism, capitalists by definition are motivated by "greed."  For instance, let's hypothesize a man who decides in his youth that there is a Rembrandt that he loves and wants to own.  So he decides to become rich enough to buy the Rembrandt and then spends a lifetiime engaging in capitalist acts until he is sufficiently wealthy to buy the Rembrandt, at which time he sells his business and buys the Rembrandt.  Now, while we can criticize this man for being possessive, exclusionary, etc., I would suggest he is not motivated by greed in the colloquial sense or even in the sense that Marx seems to be using the term.   So he is not a capitalist?

David Shemano


--- Original Message---
 To: PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
 From: Ted Winslow <egwinslow@xxxxxxxxxx>
 Sent:  7/21/2004  4:28PM
 Subject: Re: [PEN-L] absolute general law of capitalist accumulation

>> Ralph Johansen wrote:
>>
>> > Where do you find in Marx any reference to innate "greed" as the
>> > motivation for accumulation under capital? Greed, sloth, etc., are
>> > among the
>> > seven deadly sins of western mythology and religious doctrine, the
>> > basis of
>> > Judaeo-Christian "guilt", not the basis for accumulation under capital
>> > according to Marx. To ascribe an immanent human propensity to
>> > accumulate, or
>> > "greed"', as the basis and motivation for capital accretion is another
>> > expression of Adam Smith's innate propensity to truck, barter and
>> > exchange,
>> > which Marx explicitly repudiates.
>>
>> Marx, in the passage from the Grundrisse I previously quoted,
>> explicitly repudiates the classical political economy's conception of
>> "greed" as innate (this is an expression of its failure to take account
>> of the fact that social relations are internal relations) , but
>> explicitly endorses the conception as an accurate description of the
>> subjectivity dominant in capitalism (the idea of irrational "passions"
>> of this kind playing a positive role in human historical development
>> was already present in Kant - see his "Idea for a Universal History
>> with a Cosmopolitan Purpose" - and Hegel, both of whom were influenced
>> in their conception of this by Adam Smith).
>>
>> > How the multiplication of needs and of the means [of their
>> > satisfaction] breeds the absence of needs and of means is demonstrated
>> > by the political economist (and by the capitalist: in general it is
>> > always empirical businessmen we are talking about when we refer to
>> > political economists, [who represent] their scientific creed and form
>> > of existence) as follows:
>> >               (1) By reducing the worker's need to the barest and most miserable
>> > level of physical subsistence, and by reducing his activity to the
>> > most abstract mechanical movement; thus he says: Man has no other need
>> > either of activity or of enjoyment.  For he declares that this life,
>> > too, is human life and existence.
>> >               (2) By counting the most meagre form of life (existence) as the
>> > standard, indeed, as the general standard - general because it is
>> > applicable to the mass of men.  He turns the worker into an insensible
>> > being lacking all needs, just as he changes his activity into a pure
>> > abstraction from all activity.  To him, therefore, every luxury of the
>> > worker seems to be reprehensible, and everything that goes beyond the
>> > most abstract need - be it in the realm of passive enjoyment, or a
>> > manifestation of activity - seems to him a luxury.  Political economy,
>> > this science of wealth, is therefore simultaneously the science of
>> > renunciation, of want, of saving - and it actually reaches the point
>> > where it spares man the need of either fresh air or physical exercise.
>> >  This science of marvellous industry is simultaneously the science of
>> > asceticism, and its true ideal is the ascetic but extortionate miser
>> > and the ascetic but productive slave. . . . Thus political economy -
>> > despite its worldly and voluptuous appearance - is a true moral
>> > science, the most moral of all the sciences.  Self renunciation, the
>> > renunciation of life and of all human needs, is its principal thesis.
>> > The less you eat, drink and buy books; the less you go to the theatre,
>> > the dance hall, the public house; the less you think, love, theorize,
>> > sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you save - the greater becomes your
>> > treasure which neither moths nor rust will devour - your capital.  The
>> > less you are, the less you express your own life, the more you have,
>> > i.e., the greater is your alienated life, the greater is the store of
>> > your estranged being.  Everything which the political economist takes
>> > from you in life and humanity, he replaces for you in money and
>> > wealth; and all the things which you cannot do, your money can do.  It
>> > can eat and drink, go to the dance hall and the theatre; it can
>> > travel, it can appropriate art, learning, the treasures of the past,
>> > political power - all this it can appropriate for you - it can buy all
>> > this: it is true endowment.  Yet being all this, it wants to do
>> > nothing but create itself, buy itself; for everything else is after
>> > all its servant, and when I have the master I have the servant and do
>> > not need his servant.  All passions and all activity must therefore be
>> > submerged in avarice.  (Marx, in Engels and Marx, 1975B, pp. 308 309)
>> > of either fresh air or physical exercise.  This science of marvellous
>> > industry is simultaneously the science of asceticism, and its true
>> > ideal is the ascetic but extortionate miser and the ascetic but
>> > productive slave. . . . Thus political economy - despite its worldly
>> > and voluptuous appearance - is a true moral science, the most moral of
>> > all the sciences.  Self renunciation, the renunciation of life and of
>> > all human needs, is its principal thesis.  The less you eat, drink and
>> > buy books; the less you go to the theatre, the dance hall, the public
>> > house; the less you think, love, theorize, sing, paint, fence, etc.,
>> > the more you save - the greater becomes your treasure which neither
>> > moths nor rust will devour - your capital.  The less you are, the less
>> > you express your own life, the more you have, i.e., the greater is
>> > your alienated life, the greater is the store of your estranged being.
>> >  Everything which the political economist takes from you in life and
>> > humanity, he replaces for you in money and wealth; and all the things
>> > which you cannot do, your money can do.  It can eat and drink, go to
>> > the dance hall and the theatre; it can travel, it can appropriate art,
>> > learning, the treasures of the past, political power - all this it can
>> > appropriate for you - it can buy all this: it is true endowment.  Yet
>> > being all this, it wants to do nothing but create itself, buy itself;
>> > for everything else is after all its servant, and when I have the
>> > master I have the servant and do not need his servant.  All passions
>> > and all activity must therefore be submerged in avarice.
>> > http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/needs.htm
>>
>> > The only wheels which political economy sets in motion are greed, and
>> > the war of the avaricious ? Competition.
>> > http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/labour.htm
>>
>> > "Accumulate, accumulate!  That is Moses and the prophets! 'Industry
>> > furnishes the material which saving accumulates.' Therefore save,
>> > save, i.e. reconvert the greatest possible portion of surplus-value or
>> > surplus product into capital!  Accumulation for the sake of
>> > accumulation, production for the sake of production: this was the
>> > formula in which classical economics expressed the historical mission
>> > of the bourgeoisie in the period of its domination.  Not for one
>> > instant did it deceive itself over the nature of wealth's birth-pangs.
>> >  But what use is it to lament a historical necessity? If, in the eyes
>> > of classical economics, the proletarian is merely a machine for the
>> > production of surplus-value, the capitalist too is merely a machine
>> > for the transformation of this surplus-value into surplus capital."
>> > (Marx, Capital, vol. 1, p. 742)
>>
>> > "As the conscious bearer of this movement, the possessor of money
>> > becomes a capitalist.  His person, or rather his pocket, is the point
>> > from which the money starts, and to which it returns.  The objective
>> > content of the circulation we have been discussing - the valorization
>> > of value - is his subjective purpose, and it is only in so far as the
>> > appropriation of ever more wealth in the abstract is the sole driving
>> > force behind his operations that he functions as a capitalist, i.e. as
>> > capital personified and endowed with consciousness and a will.
>> > Use-values must therefore never be treated as the immediate aim of the
>> > capitalist; nor must the profit on any single transaction.  His aim is
>> > rather the unceasing movement of profit-making."  (p. 254)
>>
>> In a footnote to this passage Marx quotes MacCulloch making the same
>> claim.
>>
>> > "The inextinguishable passion for gain, the auri sacra fames, will
>> > always lead capitalists." (p. 254)
>>
>> He then goes on to say that when MacCulloch and others get themselves
>> into theoretical difficulties, as, for example, in their treatment of
>> over-production, they forget this insight into the true nature of
>> capitalist motivation and transform the capitalist "into a good
>> citizen, whose sole concern is for use-value, and who even develops an
>> insatiable hunger for boots, hats, eggs, calico and other extremely
>> common kinds of use-value." (p. 254)
>>
>> > "In so far as he is capital personified, his [the capitalist's]
>> > motivating force is not the acquisition and enjoyment of use-values
>> > but the acquisition and augmentation of exchange-value." ( p. 739)
>>
>> > "Money is not just an object of the passion for enrichment, it is the
>> > object of it.  This urge is essentially auri sacra fames."
>> > (Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy, p. 132)
>>
>> Ted
>>
>>