From: Paul Cockshott (wpc@DCS.GLA.AC.UK)
Date: Fri Feb 17 2006 - 05:48:45 EST
The abstract below looks like a fairly banal piece of appologetics for capitalism. Why is our attention being brought to it? Is it particularly influential or otherwise worthy of somebody writing a critique of it. Michael Eldred wrote: > >Abstract: >What is to be learned by reconsidering exchange relations, money, value >and justice at three major stations in the history of political >philosophy: Aristotle, Adam Smith, Karl Marx? First of all, that money >is not merely a self-evident thing whose being does not pose subtle >philosophical problems that demand well-thought ontological concepts of >human association through exchange. Second, that the value of useful >things which are used in the usages of everyday life comes about through >a process of reciprocal social recognition in exchange and cannot be >attributed to any intrinsic (causal) measure such as the labour-time >embodied in those useful things. Third, given that such a thing as >‘value creation’ cannot be attributed to spent labour power measure by >time, there is no injustice per se involved in workers hiring their >labour power to an employer who directs the exercise of their labour >power. Fourth, on the score that hired labour-power is directed by an >other, namely the employer, and therefore ‘alienated’ in a literal >sense, there also is no inherent injustice. Fifth, and finally, that >association through the interplay of money-mediated exchange goes >essentially hand in hand with the socio-ontological possibility of >existence of the free individual who is the hallmark of Western liberal >society. > > -- Paul Cockshott Dept Computing Science University of Glasgow 0141 330 3125
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