From: "Colin Wight" <Colin.Wight-AT-aber.ac.uk> Subject: BHA: RE: (real?) definitions Date: Mon, 1 May 2000 11:02:46 +0100 Hi Ruth, I'm sorry if I disappoint you, but I know absolutely nothing about markets as such, and your account goes at lot deeper than I was attempting to suggest. But yes, broadly put that seems to be the point of contention, although I would perhaps tinker with your use of "non-class" a little. However, it seems to me that it is not the case that we all agree that "we can have "markets," in the sense of exchanges of use-value...in non-capitalist class societies. Howard might disagree with this, certainly if you take your "b" to be the real point of contention. Because, as you put it, "Howard SEEMS to be saying that even if they were merely a means for the distribution of use-values markets in fact presuppose a-social, or individualized, > production relations -- which Howard sees as antithetical to a fully > socialized society". If we accept the seemingly unexceptional "a", Howard seems to be saying that "real" socialism is not possible, for where there is market there is something which is antithetical to a fully socialised society. In which case the unexceptional becomes a pretty exceptional limit to utopian theorising. Although I could have totally misunderstood Howard's point. On Marx, well far be it for me to criticise the "old gent", but this might be a point of departure between CR and Marx. The fact that private property and the control of the means of production are both embedded within a set of particular social relations does not mean that private property (your right to your bike) and control of the means of production (the right to manufacture and sell bikes) are one and the same. I can't remember off the top of my head what exactly Marx did say about the "property is theft argument", but I seem to remember he was pretty scathing about it. I don't want to go too far down the road of discussing Lock, but suffice to say Locke did not think you had a right to own as many bikes as you wanted, he said you had the right to have as many as you had laboured for, and moreover, that the amount you were entitled to keep stood in a complex relation to the amount left in common. In classic liberal fashion Locke's account of property is based on the distinction (and relation) between what is private (labour) and public (the commons). What complicates this cosy little relationship, and makes Government necessary, is money because this facilitates Locke's account of "increase" and gets round the problem of "spoiling"; money helps increase the commons and does not spoil so it's ok to hoard it. But hey, I don't want to be put in the position of defending Locke against Marx. Cheers, =================================Dr. Colin Wight Department of International Politics University of Wales, Aberystwyth Tel: 01970 621769 http://www.aber.ac.uk/~cow ================================== > --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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