On Mon, Jan 11, 2021 at 10:55 AM, Andrew Stewart <[email protected]> wrote:
> I think that it bears mentioning that “Marxism” is a nebulous and somewhat > ambiguous term that describes a plethora of political programs, some much > more radical than others. There were plenty of aspiring Marxists in the > Israeli Labor Party that used Marxist vocabulary as a sort of justification > for the ethnic cleansing of historic Palestine. The remainders of the old > Socialist Party of America in 1968 considered themselves Marxists and aligned > with a racist teachers union during the 1968 NY teacher strike. > > As the good Dr. Meeropol indicated earlier, Marxism is a science, meaning not > a moral or ethical argument. Yes, this word choice did not escape me in Dr. Meeropol’s message. In my reply, I said I’m seeking just such a “philosophy,” but I did feel a bit strange changing it from science to philosophy. They are not the same. I have read elsewhere that Marxism is not a moral framework and I am aware of how rigorously scientific Marx’s research was. Of course, in the latter half of the 19th century, science and determinism were all the rage, so maybe it’s natural he went in that direction. Science does not hold the same grip on the cultural imagination these days. I suppose I said philosophy because, although learning about the inner workings of capitalism and its contradictions has been eye opening, I would not have questioned capitalism in the first place if it weren’t for a moral reaction to what I see in the world. Based on the little I know about Marx (please correct me if I’m wrong), I believe he held a similar moral repugnance for capitalism, which is what led him to investigate it and scientifically critique it in the first place. This duality is fascinating. Marxism may be a science, but it seems to me (granted, I’m a total newcomer) that it is deeply, inextricably intertwined with moral issues; who on earth would study it besides economics professors (apologies to the econ professors on the list) if it were otherwise? Is this like separating politics and economics rather than studying political economy? > One of the first things that Marx said after he engaged with the early > economic writings of Engels was eject the plea to the morality of the reader > and said that instead his project was about the strict observation of a set > of natural occurrences in the capitalist system that would lead to breakdown > and thus revolution. There are moral observations that one can derive > obviously but that is a project autonomous from the simple observation. I am curious why Marx took this approach. Because he thought it would be more effective than moralizing? Certainly, what he did in analyzing capitalism was immensely powerful on its own, without a plea to morality. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#5480): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/5480 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/79587279/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
