GV4G7 - week 3

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These are my notes from January 23 for GV4G7 at the London School of Economics for the 2017-2018 school year. I took this module as part of the one-year Inequalities and Social Science MSc program.

The usual disclaimer: all notes are my personal impressions and do not necessarily reflect the view of the lecturer.

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Marxism and justice

Readings

Why Read Marx Today? by Jonathan Wolff (chapter 2)

Notes in Bookmarker.

Karl Marx: selected writings, edited by David McLellan

Sections:

• The Communist Manifesto (Bookmarker)
• Wage-Labour and Capital (Bookmarker)
• Address to the Central Committee of the Communist League (Bookmarker)
• Critique of the Gotha Programme (Bookmarker)

Lecture

• start with marx’s critique of capitalism and whether it’s based on a theory of justice or not
• in order to have a theory of justice, you need both a critique and a positive proposal
• so marx’s critique is that capitalism is built on social antagonisms etc
• positive propsal is ofc communism
• workers sell labour for “wages” ie cost of creating/maintaining/reproducing labour
  • if there’s enough competition for jobs, some workers will be willing to accept slightly lower wages than the avg cost of reproduction (which might mean they either die or have to rely on the state or possibly they themselves can live on less. remember this “minimum” is socially constructed anyway)
  • for capitalists to drive down cost labour (and increase profit) they tend to introduce more machines, more division of labour
  • obvs the worker creates more value than he consumes -> surplus value
• capital resupposes wage-labour and vice versa, symbiotic, they reciprocate each other etc
• on the ambiguity of socialism mentioned in his works, sometimes he omits sometimes he doesnt
  • theory on why he didnt really describe what socialism or commuism would look like: cus he knew forces of prod would have to change quite a bit to get there thus he couldnt really predict (and both base and superstructure would have to depend heavily on forces)
• on communism: from each acc to abilities to each acc to needs etc etc
  • proposition that communism would mean max devleopment of productive forces (me: idk if i believe this is necessarily true but in any case i dont think it matters)
• our Q now: is marx’s conception of communism “just” we should consider wage relation from two sides in the sphere of circulation, no cheating, accurate by fiat (almost as an assumption, he holds it axiomatically true) but in the sphere of production is where the exploitation occurs
• those who say that marx didnt have a theory of justice surplus value is not unjust (it’s just “good luck” for the buyer lmao) and in fact any idea of justice here is incompatible with historical materialism justice is a distributive value, thus the natural implication is for affirmative not transformative (eg raising wages rather than overcoming the wage relation) communism doesnt operate in conditions of scarcity so issues of distribution dont really apply marx is committed to other values that are not relative and thus not rooted in justice (eg freedom, self-determination, well-being)
• those who say he did what appears as “good luck” is really rooted in injustice as a form of structural injustice there are normative concerns implicit in marx through the language he uses (robbery, theft, etc)
• conclusion: inconsistencies/ambiguities, open question as to whether there’s a theory of justice behind his theories

Seminar

• did marx have a theory of justice? did he need it? where does normativity come from
• he sees capitalism as a transitional stage which is necessary to get to communism therefore his normative view isnt necessarily a condemnation
• on how his critique goes beyond distribution in terms of abolishing private property etc
• another potential source of normativity: dev of production forces is inefficient, but in “higher phases” of commumist society not only are productive forces developed the most but people can pursuing their needs and develop their own abilities, lets people fulfill their potential for both self-interest and for more optimal production
• on needs:
  • there’s this conception of needs as more than just commodities, but also for self-fulfilment and flourishing (basically they’re not all being met by current economic system)
  • labour being life’s prime want
• the question of whether marx’s critique is based on distributive justice is ambiguous cus what we think of as distribution (as income etc) doesnt usually include other possible meanings of distribution

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