Ted Winslow wrote:
>> Sabri Oncu asked:
What does _objective_ political economy mean?
The premises from which we begin are not arbitrary ones, not dogmas, but real premises from which abstraction can only be made in the imagination. They are the real individuals, their activity and the material conditions under which they live, both those which they find already existing and those produced by their activity. These premises can thus be verified in a purely empirical way. <http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ ch01a.htm#a2>
Well, if this is what Marx really believed, it appears that he did believe in objective political economy. Note that he does not say that we start from the "perspective" of individuals, but from the actual facts involving these individuals. (I assume "premises" that are "verified empirically" are facts, but the passage is rather unclear, since, for example, "individuals" are not premises).
As I understand him, Marx did believe that many views people had were conditioned by the social circusmtances, so that they were prevented from seeing the real truth of the matter. This is a beginning understanding of what objectivity is, by saying what it is not. That is still probably the best characterization we have of objectivity as a methodology: attempting to step back and see the causal but non-normative influences upon one's own and others' beliefs, and attmpting to give an explanation of that in such a way as to expose the way in which such influences lead one away from the truth.
For example, in this group was written a while ago the following:
> Despite that I am more of an anarchist at heart who > despises rules and hierarchies of any kind, I > recognize that, whether market or not, in any society > in which we will live in the near future, there will > be a legal system and a set of rules for contracts.
Although its author (who happens to be Sabri Onco) may demur, it seems to me clear that this is a strong albeit tacit endorsement of objectivity, in the form of a realization that one's ideological biases have to be carefully watched when doing genuine and fair-minded inquiry (as opposed to what Susan Haack calls "sham inquiry").
