In response to Michael W's 2188: Maybe Marx's saying that the
*basis of value* is a particular way of thinking doesn't bother you,
and it doesn't bother me, but there have traditionally been and still
are those who have misrepresented Marx's Marxism as such an ontological
(metaphysical) materialism that I'm sure they are extremely uncomfortable
with the idea that thinking is the *basis* of any aspect of reality.
Part of the damage--a small part--that this way of thinking has done is
to make it seem that thinks have value by virtue of some characteristic
of physical reality, instead of by virtue of a peculiar abstract way
of thinking about other people (unequal in reality, equal in the
abstract). It makes it seem that much harder to throw off existing
reality. And that's the key political problem we face today--alternatives
seem impossible.
Andrew Kliman