On 4/18/2013 6:40 PM, Jim Devine wrote: > It's useful to remember that not everyone agrees with you. A lot of > people in the US see keeping promises (including paying debts) as a > moral good. That's an important force that legitimates the system. Of > course, the 1% exploits this legitimacy to feather its own nests, e.g., > by imposing austerity on others. > Of course, there's often a big difference between morality in theory > (e.g., Kant or the golden rule) and morality in practice (e.g., under > capitalism). In abstract Kantian morality, paying debts is something one > wants others to do (if they owe you money) so one should do it too. But > in practice, as the Kuttner article explains, it's _only_ the > politically-powerful (mostly capitalists, though it depends on the era > and the country) who are protected by bankruptcy laws (getting to enjoy > a pragmatic interpretation of the abstract morality). The hard-core > morality is imposed on the "out" groups. > (I don't understand the reference to "an anarchist" or the "liberal art > of separation." who and what are you talking about?)
================= I fully expect people to disagree with me about moral theory in the same way they would disagree with me and each other about theology. Yet, there's not a shred of evidence that making promises are capable of being ensnared in the moral/immoral binary, especially for those who hold that moral discourse is founded upon mistakes. Are people who think moral discourse rests on mistakes immoral for thinking so? Where's the evidence? Legitimacy is a political concept. Are theocracies legitimate? Plutocracies? Just what makes any aspects of contemporary political systems legitimate at all? I would assert we ought to be damned careful and acerbically skeptical when economists, economists I tell you!, start throwing the term morality about because it's not too long before we're in the realm of theology. Talk about disciplinary imperialism. To cite one recent example; does Paul K. have any evidence that fiscal policy is a moral issue? Does he cite any famous moral theorists anywhere to back up this claim? And then he turns around in a different column and denounces his political opponents for turning the public debt/austerity issue into a morality play. Where's the decision procedure for achieving consistency for heaven's sake? And why no giving room, in what passes for policy debate these days, to people who actually study moral theory as deeply as he studies international trade and macroeconomics to discuss the depth of problems have emerged in moral theory since, oh let's be arbitrary, Nietzsche or G.E. Moore? You think there's no consensus in macroeconomics, try moral theory, epistemology and the philosophy of science :-) Dave Graeber considers himself an anarchist. Ellen Wood, amongst others savaged the liberal art of separation: http://newleftreview.org/I/127/ellen-meiksins-wood-the-separation-of-the-economic-and-the-political-in-capitalism New Left Review I/127, May-June 1981 Ellen Meiksins Wood The Separation of the Economic and the Political in Capitalism The intention of Marxism is to provide a theoretical foundation for interpreting the world in order to change it. This is not an empty slogan. It has—or ought to have—a very precise meaning. It means that Marxism seeks a particular kind of knowledge, one which is uniquely capable of illuminating the principles of historical movement and, at least implicitly, the points at which political action can most effectively intervene. This is not to say that the object of Marxist theory is to discover a ‘scientific’ programme or technique of political action. Rather, the purpose is to provide a mode of analysis especially well equipped to explore the terrain on which political action must take place. It can, however, be argued that Marxism since Marx has often lost sight of his theoretical project and its quintessentially political character. In particular, this is so to the extent that Marxists have, in various forms, perpetuated the rigid conceptual separation of the ‘economic’ and the ‘political’ which has served bourgeois ideology so well ever since the classical economists discovered the ‘economy’ in the abstract and began emptying capitalism of its social and political content. [*] "There's nothing worse than a philosopher who knows a little economics." [James Tobin] "Except an economist who knows nothing of philosophy!" [Robert Nozick] Sleep tight, E _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
