Re: the True and the Good

> Elson-
>
> I believe you are conflating the Good and the True in your
version of
> marxism.  I believe Hume was correct in saying that the Ought
cannot be
> derived from the Is.  (I also believe, based on the evidence,
that it is a
> strong human propensity to attempt to do so, regardless.)
>
> Marxist analysis focuses on history as the history of class
struggle, on
> relations of domination and exploitation.  If accurate, this is
analysis
> of what IS, what is TRUE.  It is another level of analysis, a
moral level,
> to say exploitation should be eliminated.  I know many think
Marx did not
> employ morality in his analysis, but I disagree.  Norman Geras
made the
> case very well in New Left Review some time ago that Marx DID
employ
> universal moral judgements throughout his work, despite the
fact that he
> said otherwise.
>
> So Marx studied the IS of capitalism, and had a powerful view
of the OUGHT
> of a world without capitalism.

[elson] Now you are repeating MY argument with regard to Marx,
and soundly backing off your position that rationality is the
crude theory of "utility maximization."

I did not post my message to WSN to spare people the tedium of
our discussion.  But since you've posted your response without
including my message, I'll add it here to demonstrate that you
are indeed repeating my argument:

"Perhaps I can point out that if you are a guardian of one or
anther Marxism, as I am, then we might ask if Marx accepted
[equated]
rationally as [with] utility maximization, or if he impliclty
rejected
it as part of his utter rejection of classical political economy
(utility maximization was developed later as part of
neo-classical economic theory, a far cruder version of political
economy).

I would go further and suggest that any defender of a Marxism
would have to reject utility maximization.  Habermas's work for
example convincingly, and essentially, demonstrates that
instrumental rationality (close to the concept of utility
maximization) is quite irrational because it leads to domination
within the context of capitalist society [the life world].
Domination is
irrational he argues."

Of course, my point isn't quite the same as Habermas's (nor
remotely comparable in scholarly depth).  Nonetheless, I've
argued that behavior can be said to be rational when opposed to
oppression because the oppression has been demonstrated
scientifically, regardless of whether or not the means of
collective mobilization to opression involve idea systems which
are not themselves scientific, e.g. religion, nationalism, etc.

Further, it was I who argued against your earlier post (when you
were stressing utility maximiation) that judgements of morality,
of whether oppression is right or wrong, should be distinguished
from scientific analysis of oppression, though rational action
may also be based on moral judgement (but that's a different
issue).

I wrote:
"Deciding who is more moral is an entirely different issue.  The
judgement that surplus value extraction is exploitation, that is,
is WRONG, is a value judgement not based on scientific analysis,
but rather, moral conviction.  Scientic rationality and moral
judgements are different."

> Back to the assessment of Christian and Islamic
"Fundamentalism,"  I think
> it is important to dispassionately analyze these movements (as
several
> recent posts have done) without dismissing them in a flip and
superficial
> manner:  focus on the Is before moving to the Ought.
>
> For instance, echoing a recent post, if we dismiss populism,
whether
> religious or secular, as nothing but irrational fanaticism, we
will have
> no capacity to understand or challenge movements such as Le
Pen's in
> France, which has a strong base of workers formerly associated
with the
> CP, or the Christian Right in the U.S., which also has a base
with a lower
> than average SES and many who are conservative on social
issues, but on
> the left on economic issues.

[elson] First, I for one NEVER dismissed any movement, and I
reject the idea of "dispassionate analysis" or any implication
that passionate analysis is not scientific.  For example, I'd
hardly call the Communist Manifesto a dispassionate work.

Second, I NEVER mentioned populism, and I would add, by the way,
that the MM movement was never populist.