Date: Thu, 14 Aug 1997 23:22:07 +1000
From: Rob Schaap <rws-AT-comserver.canberra.edu.au>
Subject: M-TH: Morality, Freedom, Capitalism and Technology


G'day Thaxists,

I mailed this to the Technology list, but thought some here might like a go
at it in light of our info revolution thread.

Let's sart with the sort of morality Marx does *not* entertain.  In *The
German Ideology*, he writes 'Morality, religion, metaphysics, all the rest
of ideology and their corresponding forms of consciousness, thus no longer
retain the semblance of independence ... Life is not determined by
consciousness, but consciousness by life.'

So what was Marx's moral stance - this claim that somehow could sustain
itself outside its historical domicile.  Well, a philosopher would shout
triumphantly 'he has logically obviated any such claim!'

Marx's philosophical writings equate morality with freedom.  Kamenka (one
of Australia's truly great dead white males, in my book) summarises all
Marx's early writings on this as follows:  'Man is potentially the only
subject in a world of objects, and anything that turns him into an object,
subordinates him to powers outside himself, is inhuman'.

And he's right!  Everywhere you look in the early Marx, you see human
self-determination as the ultimate good.  An ill-defined Kantian 'man', if
you like.  If Marx presumed an end-point to the dialectical process of
history (and 'communism' would have to be it if he does propose such a
moment - it remains moot for me) it is because whatever 'man' is like then
is how 'he' was meant to be/really was all along: 'That which is the Best
has no need of action but is itself the end' (Marx quoting Aristotle in his
PhD).  Marx never described communism in detail because he was never as
silly/simplistic as Engels could sometimes be (he certainly wasn't always
silly).

Marx was a committed humanist who dared not arrogate the capacity to
describe the 'human' in 'humanism' (Habermas is similarly cautious - and
similarly Kantian at bottom, I think) - only history would 'discover' this
absolute (well, Marx did say he was but a critical follower of Hegel ... ).
In *Economic-Philosophical Manuscripts*, Marx keeps pointing out that it is
'man' who is central to political economy, *not* labour, capital or land
(the trinity of *Capital 3*).  Economics is interesting only in so far as
it is not under the control of 'man' while capitalism persists (Popper's
reading too)!

And when Ellul (a self-confessed Marxian) wrote 'The Technological
Society', what was he saying?  That technology is interesting only in so
far as it is not under the control of 'man' while technocracy persists
(well, that's my reading anyway).  Maybe he should have called his book
*Das Technologie*, eh?

Thoughts?

G'night,
Rob.




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