Saturday, June 30, 2018

Use-Value and Utility

Utilitarian Utility is modeled on Economic Use-Value--an application of a theory of the value of a commodity to that of behavior.  Accordingly, Mill's insistence on Consequentialism, i. e. that the value of an action is independent of the factors in its production, e. g. the intention guiding it, corresponds to a denial of the relevance to Use-Value of Labor Value.  Now, implicit in those insistences is the independence of production and consequence.  But, while that independence is easy to conceive when producer and beneficiary are distinct people, the severence is less clear-cut when they are one and the same person.  So, Mill has no way of specifying the enjoyment of a meal that one has oneself prepared, and that includes vegetables that one has oneself grown.  Likewise, even though Hegel accords cardinal psychological status to the recognition of one's own labor, Marx has no way of distinguishing the enjoyment of a product of one's labor from that of anyone else.  The incapacity in both cases is entailed in the Atomist separation of the evaluations of production and product-use.

Friday, June 29, 2018

Hedonist Utilitarianism and Vitalist Utilitarianism

The concept of Utility does not entail a specific End for which something is used.  Thus, accurately reflected in the 'Hedon' as the fundamental unit of the calculus of some contemporary versions, Benthamist-Millist Utilitarianism is, more precisely, Hedonist Utilitarianism.  In contrast, as has been previously discussed, in what can be called Vitalist Utilitarianism, Health, not Pleasure or Happiness, is the End, towards which something can be Healthful or Harmful, with the former subdivided into Essential and Inessential, and with Inconsequential a third main possibility.  Now, Pleasure is an Atomist concept in Hedonist Utilitarianism, while Health is Organicist, a contrast that is reflected in the determinations of Utility in the two doctrines.  In the Hedonist variety, the Utility of something is independent of that of other things, whereas in the Vitalist variety, it is not.  For example, according to HU, a meal is Pleasurable in itself, but according to VU, factors potentially affecting the enjoyment of it include whether or not one exercises later on, whether or not one has company while eating, and whether or not there are high levels of hunger in the society.  These are not far-fetched scenarios, so they indicate that VU has greater fidelity to actuality than does HU, or, in other words, has greater Utility.

Thursday, June 28, 2018

Health and Utilitarianism

Health can be defined as the harmonious functioning of all the parts of an Organism.  Accordingly, anything that promotes Health can be called Healthful.  Now, two types of Healthfulness are essential and non-essential--one a necessary condition of continuing to live, the other not, but still conducing to well-being.  For example, food can be essentially Healthful, whereas an artfully prepared meal can be Healthful, but is not a necessary condition of continuing to live.  Other things may be harmful or simply inconsequential.  So, a Utilitarianism could be formulated in terms of these distinctions, i. e. with essentially Healthful the highest value, etc.  But any further quantitative nuance would difficult to gauge, unlike that of the traditional calculus.  A more significant contrast with traditional Utilitarianism is that Pleasure is not taken at face value as irreducibly positive.  For, a localized Pleasure, e. g. of the taste buds, can stimulate un-Healthful behavior, e. g. eating tasty junk food.  Underlying that contrast is a more general one--Health as an Organicist concept vs. Pleasure as a Atomist one--a contrast that traditional Utilitarianism cannot recognize because as Atomist, it is inadequate to Holist concepts.  Likewise, traditional Utilitarianism lacks the capacity to conceive a collective as an Organism, and, hence, to posit general Health, rather than the greatest Happiness of the greatest number, as a collective goal.

Wednesday, June 27, 2018

Utilitarianism, Capitalism, Organization

By opposing 'higher' and 'lower' Pleasures, Mill preempts the possibility of a Pleasure derived from a coordination of the two.  Similarly, writ large, his method preempts the possibilty of recognizing that social harmonization can be a source of total Happiness that does not reduce to the Happiness of its constituents separately considered.  Now, Smith does not methodologically preempt the possibility that organization of Wealth can increase total Wealth.  To the contrary, it is evident to him in his study of Barter, which succeeds not because of the aggregation of goods involved, but because they are complementary.  However, the evidence is obscured to him by his Atomist and Egoist commitments, resulting in his gleaning from the scenario only a Division of Labor.  The subsequent history of Capitalist social disorganization is only reinforced by Atomist Utilitarianism, even, as Mill does, when it overrides Egoist motivation.

Tuesday, June 26, 2018

Utilitarianism, Pleasure, Health

Whether or not his distinction between 'higher' and 'lower' Pleasure is adequate, that he attempts to draw it indicates that Mill is uneasy with the Hedonist principle that Pleasure is irreducibly Good.  Now, an alternative approach to a qualitative differentiation is suggested, though not fully developed, by Spinoza--holistic, active, Pleasure, i. e. enjoyment of Health, vs. localized, passive, Pleasure, i. e.  stimulation of a part of the body, e. g.  genital organs, taste buds, etc.  Whether or not this contrast corresponds to what Mill envisions, it is applicable to Economic behavior.  For, it offers a criterion for distinguishing between vital need and non-vital want, and, hence, between two categories of Demand.  On that basis, the promotion of Health could be accorded priority in an Economic system, though not via a standard Utilitarian calculus.

Monday, June 25, 2018

Capitalism, Utilitarianism, Morality

Nietzsche's explicit dispute with Utilitarianism is one with Hedonism in general, i. e. with the thesis that Pleasure and Pain are intrinsically Good and Bad, respectively.  For, he observes that Pain can be a means to Good, e. g. Growth, and, hence, can be extrinsically Good, which is impossible according Hedonism, and disruptive of the Utilitarian calculus, which takes Pleasure and Pain at face value. However, he misses that the same applies to Pleasure, which becomes clearer when Satiation is distinguished from another kind of Pleasure--Excitation, which also is usually a Means to a further End, and, so, derives its Value from the latter, thereby exceeding the Utilitarian terminus.  Correspondingly, the accumulation of Wealth, ratified by Utilitarianism as 'Happiness', is subject to the challenge that its Value is contingent on the use to which it is put.  A familiar example of the soundness of that challenge is wealth used for militaristic purposes when vital needs are not being addressed.  Utilitarianism thus insulates Capitalism from any Moral challenge from rival Moral doctrines.

Sunday, June 24, 2018

Utilitarianism and Capitalism

The correspondence of Utilitarianism and Capitalism is based on those of Pleasure and Gain, and Pain and Loss.  So, one problem for both systems is that the Atomism of each is undermined by any payment entailing both a Gain and a Loss, i. e. by the payee and the payer, respectively.  A further challenge is posed by Nietzsche's thesis that Will to Power is the seeking to discharge strength.  For, as has been previously discussed, as applied to Purchase Power, it entails that payment is pleasurable, i. e. that a Loss is a Pleasure.  Common to the two problems is an inadequacy of Capitalism to the concept of Loss.  In the first, it cannot recognize the complentarity of Gain and Loss, and, in the second, it cannot recognize the possibility of Loss being beneficial.  Utilitarianism exposes these inadequacies because it represents Loss as Pain, and Pain is an essential ingredient in its calculus.  But, it, too, is inadequate in each case, due, in both, to its Atomism.  Because it can represent two events only as mutually extrinsic, it cannot represent the complementarity that obtains between the Pleasure of one person's Gain, and the Pain of another's Loss in the transaction.  Likewise, it must separate an Action, e. g. spending money, from the Pleasure taken in it, and, to re-connect them, reconstruct the latter as a consequence of the former.

Saturday, June 23, 2018

Utilitarianism, Atomism, Egoism

Insofar as Bentham's Utilitarianism represents Smith's system, Mill's variations potentially entail a divergence from Capitalism.  To begin with, a goal for any action of the greatest happiness for the greatest number implies an overriding of Egoism, though it is unclear if Mill is presenting it as a descriptive, or a normative, principle.  Furthermore, that the formula incorporates a distribution of benefits seems to obviate any role for an Invisible Hand in that regard.  However, Mill's Utilitarianism remains Atomistic--the 'numbers' are an aggregate of independent people, 'happiness' is an aggregate of independent Pleasures and Pains, and the actions that it evaluates are independent performances.  So, behaviors remain uncoordinated, as does the potential set of beneficiaries in each case, thereby still requiring resort to an omniscient distributor of benefits to ensure maximum total Happiness.  Furthermore, Mill's arguably ineffective higher-lower distinction does not address the difference between vital need and non-vital want, which leaves his calculus inadequate to the respective Pleasures in their satisfactions.  So, his formula validates the neglect of the vital needs of a minority in the mass marketing of inessential commodities. In other words, despite its abandoment of Egoism, because of its adherence to Atomism, Mill's Utilitarianism remains implicitly supportive of some Capitalist systems, e. g. the current one of the U. S.

Friday, June 22, 2018

Capitalism, Egoism, Utilitarianism

Smith himself conceives his system as entailing a subscription to Moral Egoism.  But Bentham combines that with Smith's thesis that such conduct promotes total wealth, into 'Utilitarianism'.  However, the reference to 'utility' is misleading--what his system measures is Pleasure, in terms of which 'Utility' is defined, so, that doctrine is actually a variety of Hedonism.  Mill's attempt to distance his variation of Utilitarianism from simple Hedonism arguably fails, and is more distinguished by its emphases on Consequentialism and General Happiness.  Now, recently, Bentham's original model becomes even more strained.  On one hand, the measure of Generality, GNP, is indifferent to its Individual components.  On the other hand, what for Smith and Bentham is normative Egoism, is usually conceived in current Capitalism as Hobbesian, i. e. descriptive, Egoism.  As a result, a concept of Generality is typically no longer an ingredient in the everyday Economic behavior of Individual participants, i. e. they no longer conceive their self-interested pursuits as, at the same, promoting national wealth, as if concern for the latter has been outsourced to the Invisible Hand.  So, some who consider themselves hardline Capitalists are actually Morally incoherent.

Thursday, June 21, 2018

GNP and Capitalism

The term 'Gross National Product' is a misnomer--what it signifies is a total of not products, but of the total market value of all products.  So, it is not impossible that one item, produced instantaneously, could occasion a higher GNP than might a vast multitude products and services, requiring much exertion.  Now, among the 'leading indicators' of an Economy, the GNP is the one that is essentially Capitalist.  For, it uniquely measures the wealth of a nation, as Smith characterizes his system.  Likewise, therefore, as far-fetched as it might be, that one scenario illustrates the essential irrelevance of Labor to his system, and, thus, why the exploitation of Labor in it of no interest to its advocates.

Wednesday, June 20, 2018

Division of Labor and Money

Division of Labor is implicit in any Barter, as each party produces a good that both need.  So, when Money becomes a factor in an Exchange, Division of Labor becomes suspended, if not eliminated.  For, the source of Money being used for a purchase is irrelevant to the transaction, if each does acquire a set of needed goods, it is only mediately.  Likewise, more generally, Division of Labor is no factor in indices of the well-being of an Economy that are in monetary terms.  For example, the amount of GNP entails no particular division of types of goods produced, so an Economy can be pronounced healthy whether or not it meets vital needs.  Thus, the condition of an Economy is contingent of what its priorities are.

Tuesday, June 19, 2018

Will to Power, Bestowing Virtue, Capitalism

A classification of Will to Power as a 'Capitalist' doctrine, e. g. by some Randians, likely fails to take into account the section of Thus Spoke Zarathustra called Of The Bestowing Virtue.  There, the Bestowing Virtue, or, equivalently, the Empowering Virtue, which better expresses that it is a mode of Will to Power, is recognized as the "highest" virtue.  Nietzsche characterizes it as promoting the transition from "species to super-species", contrasting it with petty selfishness.  So, as applied to Purchase Power, expenditure that promotes the General Good is superior to acquisition that benefits the spender alone.  Accordingly, Nietzsche might approve of charitable giving or investment, as much as funding an overthrow of a regime that adheres to a doctrine that conceives the Human species as fixed.  That does not necessarily make Will to Power a Socialist doctrine, but it is clearly not reducible to a Capitalist one.

Monday, June 18, 2018

Purchase Power and Plutocracy

As the phrase 'purchase power' signifies, a purchase is a kind of conquest.  In the case when the purchased is inanimate, it is not recognized as such, but when human labor is involved, Economic power becomes Political power.  Likewise, a Democracy in which the wealthy have disproportionate influence over the political system becomes a Plutocracy when the accumulation of wealth becomes the telos of the system.  One indication that a polis is, in fact, a Plutocracy is a foreign policy with Economic goals, e. g. a war against an alternative Economic system, military action at the service of securing and protecting markets, etc.  The difference between the power relations in a Plutocracy and the purchaser-purchased relation is one of degree, not of kind.

Sunday, June 17, 2018

Value and Expending

In most of contemporary Economics, the three types of Value attributed to a commodity are Labor, Exchange, and Use, with Marginal Utility a modification of the latter.  Now, a fourth, derived, as has been previously discussed, from Will to Power, is Expending, i. e. the Value of a commodity insofar as it serves as an outlet for spending.  In many cases, e. g. when the commodity would fulfill a vital need, Expending Value is a minimal factor in the exchange.  But, it becomes prominent on occasions when money is characterized as 'burning a hole in one's pocket', and, more temperately, during recreational shopping.  Thus, Expending Value explains the attraction of a commodity when there are disposable assets available.  Accordingly, it presents a challenge to the generally accepted thesis that the value of wealth consists in the potential enjoyment of affordable luxury commodities.  For, it implies that there is an enjoyment in the act itself of purchasing such items, i. e. a feeling of power.  On that basis, Wealth is objectified Purchase Power, and the display of it aims to express such Power, not the possessions in which it is expressed.

Saturday, June 16, 2018

Capital and Will to Power

A contemporary Economy is generally conceived to be a concatenation of exchanges.  An exchange consists in two expendings and two acquisitions. The constituents of an exchange include money, commodities, and labor, a common special case of which is an exchange in which one constituent is money.  Capital can be defined as anything expended in an exchange.  Anything expended in an exchange has purchase power.  Thus, Capital can be defined as anything with purchase power.  Now, it is generally posited that the aim of each party in an exchange is to maximize gain, i. e. to expend as little as possible and to acquire as much as possible, with the actual exchange the arriving at an equilibrium between the two, usually conflicting, aims.  And, theories of Value attempt to impute predictable regularity to the arrival at an equilibrium in an exchange.  However, these theories have rarely taken into account that purchase power has been best explained by Nietzsche's Will to Power, i. e. the seeking to discharge strength.  They thus fail to take into account that a fundamental Value of Capital consists simply in its functioning as Capital, i. e. as being expended, a Value that, at minimum, modifies their calculations, e. g. is a factor in the purchase of something with Use-Value to the purchaser, and, perhaps, uniquely explains some exchanges, e. g. those of recreational shopping.  The failure is due to their focus on exchanges involving money, the other constituent of which is the bearer of Value, i. e. their theories of Value are of that of objects that are bought/sold.  Accordingly, the value of the act of expending is irrelevant to their theories.  So, there is a systematic relation between Capital and Will to Power, independent of objects of purchase, that has rarely been examined.

Friday, June 15, 2018

Economics and Physics

Influenced by Newton, and perhaps by Spinoza, contemporary Economics often consists in a Physics of behavior.  Usually, the fundamental law of this system is the maximization of Profit, which is analyzed as the combination of the maximization of acquisition and the minimization of expense.  Accordingly, one derived thesis is that one spends as little money as is necessary, or, perhaps, as they perceive to be necessary.  However, that thesis is implicitly contested by Nietzsche, who proposes that the fundamental principle of behavior is Will to Power, defined as seeking to discharge strength.  Now, spending exemplifies the discharging of strength, from which it follows that expenditure is independent of Profit-seeking.  Tending to support this interpretation is the common phenomenon of recreational shopping, in which people spend money just for the sake of spending, i. e. in violation of the thesis that they seek to minimize it.  If the interpretation is correct, the phenomenon is as disruptive to the system as would be the discovery in Newtonian Physics of an action that is independent of any equal and opposite reaction.  Nevertheless, between the entrenchment of Profit as the highest good of these systems, and the marginal, at best, influence of Nietzsche on them, the Physics of behavior to which they subscribe is unlikely to change any time soon.

Thursday, June 14, 2018

Economics, Absolute, Relative

As has been previously discussed, Use-Value is relative to the user, e. g. the value of a piece of bread to someone who is hungry vs. to someone well-fed.  But the same holds true of some money, and what it can purchase e. g. $10, and a $10 item, to a poor person vs. to someone well-off.  Hence, Exchange-Value is also relative to a spender.  And, indeed, Labor-Value is relative to the laborer, e. g. a weaker person exerts themselves more chopping wood than a stronger one.  Thus, a theory of Economics that fails to take into account Relative-Value is vulnerable to the same criticism as the Absolutist Physics that might have inspired it. Furthermore, since these Relative-Values are also personal, Absolutist Economics can be accused of de-personalization.

Wednesday, June 13, 2018

Quantity, Quality, Use-Value

Locke's distinction between Primary Quality and Secondary Quality is actually a distinction of Quantity and Quality.  Thus, the Utilitarian quantification of Pleasure and Pain violates that distinction, which Mill implicitly recognizes in his recourse to a 'higher' vs. 'lower' distinction.  But, that correction abstracts Quality from subjective conditions, and, in particular, from subjective pre-conditions.  For, what the example of lukewarm water feeling 'hot' to a cold hand shows is that Quality is relative to pre-conditions.  Likewise, Use-Value is a function of the pre-condition of the user, e. g. a piece of bread has much greater Use-Value to a hungry person than to one who is well-fed.  In other words, Use-Value is a Quality, and irreducible to a Quantity.  It is thus inadequately represented in a Quantified Economics, e. g. as a factor in Profit.

Tuesday, June 12, 2018

Economy, Economics, Economical

In the common use of the term 'economical', 'economy' is conceived as synonymous with 'thrift' and 'frugality', both normative terms.  Each of these signifies a minimizing of waste.  Accordingly, 'Economics' in this sense aims at the least wasteful use of resources, including money, non-human goods, and human abilities.  The relevant sections of both the Republic and the Politics can thus be classified as 'Economics' in this sense, as can be the promotion of Division of Labor in Wealth of Nations, and Marx's 'From each according to one's abilities' formulation.  In contrast, hardly anything under the contemporary rubric of 'Economics', which is typically a mathematized description of the status quo, so qualifies.  Crystallizing the sharp distinction between the two concepts of Economics is the contrasting statuses in them of a recycling operation.  In one, recycling epitomizes the reduction of waste, while in the other, it is just another business enterprise in the service sector, represented in terms of payments and expenditures, with no inherent connection to any other enterprise.  This low priority in them of waste-reduction, whether of human resources, of raw materials, of manufactured goods, or of money, only underscores that neither the American Economy nor the Economics that represents it is economical.

Monday, June 11, 2018

Property and Right

The concept of Distributed Property is a synthesis of the concepts of Private Property and Collective Property.  But, even if the former of the two is preserved in the synthesis, any modification of the status of Private Property might be objected to on the grounds that it violates some inalienable Right.  Such an objection is raised recently by Nozick, but the concept of Right that is its basis originates in the earliest Modern Political Philosophy.  However, at no stage of this history is the concept of Right itself examined.  Thus suppressed is that a Right is a claim of protection against interference, and hence, is an a posteriori and inherently social concept.  Furthermore, any such protection derives its force from a collectively sanctioned threat of retribution.  So, without that sanction, there is no Right to Private Property, though a Right that is attached to Distributed Property is easy to conceive.

Sunday, June 10, 2018

Private Property, Revolution, Distributed Property

Dialectical Atomism, e. g. Marxism, is less radical with respect to traditional Atomism, e. g. Capitalism, than is Holism.  Thus, Rousseauean Holism is more Revolutionary than Communism.  Now, the former does not abolish Private Property; rather, it transforms it into Distributed Property.  But, Distributed Property is not antithetical to Marxism, in which it is implicit, i. e. as is expressed in Marx's 'to each according to one's needs' formulation.  What it is antithetical to is the unfettered appropriation of land that has established most property claims throughout human history.  Distributed Property is thus a potentially more effective factor in the cultivation of a Holistic political consciousness among the members of a post-revolutionary society than that projected by Marx-Engels in the German Ideology, e. g. their descriptions of post-Division of Labor personal enjoyments.

Saturday, June 9, 2018

Private Property, Atomism, Holism

Any Dialecticism, Hegelian or Marxist, is, more precisely, Dialectical Atomism.  For, its fundamental givens are isolated elements, as Marx shows in his Dissertation, even if they eventually combine.  Accordingly, the Marxist concept of Private Property is likewise Atomistic, even if eventually abolished by Dialectical Sublation.  In contrast, Rousseau's concept of Private Property is Holistic--the product of a differention of a prior given Whole.  Now, this concept of a property-less 'state of nature' is often dismissed as fictional.  However, since it is unarguable that the Earth pre-dates the arrival of humans, a property-less state of nature must likewise pre-date their arrival and the first privatization of a portion of the Earth.  Accordingly, Property can only historically be the product of an initial sub-dividing, an event that is as inconceivable to Dialectical Atomism as is the Holist origin of any Division of Labor.

Friday, June 8, 2018

Private Property, Human Property, Non-Human Property

One argument in the German Ideology for the abolition of Private Property begins with the observation that the fundamental case of Private Property is the ownership of wife and children by a husband, i. e.: 1. Wife and children are slaves of the husband; 2. Such Private Property should be abolished; 3.  Therefore, all Private Property should be abolished.  But, the significant flaw in the apparent generalization is that it does not distinguish human property from non-human property.  For sure, the specific target--the ownership of the Means of Production, is that of non-human property.  But, that ownership mediates ownership of human property, i. e. of the Laborers who operate it, thereby adding the surplus-value that is the source of the idling owner's profit.  Otherwise, it does not follow that Private Property per se is exploitative.  So, the more precise analyses of exploitation that Marx presents later, in Capital, implicitly modify the scope of the Socialism called for in the earlier works, i. e. do not apply to non-exploitative Private Property.  In such a modification, the focus remains on the fundamental ill of Capitalism--exploitation.

Thursday, June 7, 2018

Slavery and Economics

In recent centuries, Slavery has become synonymous with racial bigotry, treated by Hegel and Nietzsche as a Psychological category, and implicated in sexual role-playing.  These developments have tended to obscure the long history in which it is fundamentally an Economic condition.  Now, the involuntariness of Slavery is not unique to it--any conditioned behavior, e. g. the target of advertising, is involuntary.  Rather, the essence of Slavery is that it is ownership of one person's Labor by another, for whom it is the cheapest form of Labor.  In other words, the Slave is a means to the Owner's profit.  Slavery is thus the prototype of Exploitation involving Private Property.  Thus, as not only not precluded by, but perhaps even promoted by, Capitalism, it is a more direct target for the Socialist criticism of the latter than the one presented in the German Ideology, which unnecessarily implicates Division of Labor. Accordingly, the non-Economic connotations of Slavery that have emerged in recent centuries can be diagnosed as distractions from such a criticism.

Wednesday, June 6, 2018

Division of Labor, Co-Operation, Co-Authorship

Marx does not have far to look for examples of Division of Labor.  There are some right in front of him, the German Ideology, for example.  Plainly, he and Engels constitute a work-force, the organization of which they determine in the process. While some of their Co-Operation may be excitingly creative, other tasks, e. g. editing, collating, etc., may be drudgery.  Furthermore, it is not unreasonable to assume that the fulfillment of biological needs in the courses of their projects are a means to optimum production, or, conversely that they are not exerting themselves as a means to passively enjoyed rewards.  So, the German Ideology itself offers a counter-example to passages within that repudiate Division of Labor per se and promote leisure.  Its co-authors thus gloss over the more specific source of exploitation--the appropriation of the product of Division of Labor by ownership of the Means of Production that is not among its Co-Operators--which can obtain in the case of a work-force of one.

Tuesday, June 5, 2018

Division of Labor and Co-Operativism

The Division of Labor that Smith proposes is no mere association of artisans. It presupposes a concept of organization that transcends each of them and their aggregation, and, as conducing to a national good, cannot be reduced to a mere conjunction of private enterprises.  It's ancestor is, thus, Plato's open Division of Labor of the Republic, rather than Aristotle's closed household of the Politics.  Accordingly, 'Political Economy' is a more appropriate classification for it than either 'Micro-Economics', which unequivocally signifies private enterprise, or 'Macro-Economics', which does so equivocally.  Now, because a Division of Labor is constituted by working together, it can be characterized as 'Co-Operative', the literal meaning of which tends to get obscured in common parlance, especially with the eliminarion of the hyphen, e. g. "Cooperating with the police investigation" hardly signifies becoming one of the investigators. Also commonly obscured, e. g. in the familiar phrase "owned and operated", is that 'operate' entails ownership of its object, the resulting disjunction of which, of course, being the breeding ground of exploitation of the 'operators' by the Capitalist 'owners'. Conversely, the combination of a repudiation of Division of Labor and the abolition of Private Property reduces Co-Operativism to Communism.  The result, as has been previously discussed, is a Socialism the aim of which is the universalization of leisure, rather than of creative activity.

Monday, June 4, 2018

Vital Need and Action

One of Marx's important insights is that the fulfilling of vital need can be not an end in itself, but a mere means to the toil of the next day.  Now, he seems to judge such a condition as sub-Human, on the grounds that one subjected to it cannot even enjoy simple satisfactions.  However, another reason for that deprivation derives not from a Utilitarian calculation, but from a different consequence, i. e. that to which the condition is a means--exploited toil.  For, equally spartan conditions can be deliberately adopted in a constructive context, e. g. by an athlete observing a strict regimen, in order to enhance performance.  Thus, the determining factor of the sub-Humanness of the condition that concerns Marx is that to which it is a means.  So, by shifting his attention to the deprivation of what the more privileged can enjoy, he misses a concept of behavior that Aristotle and Nietzsche better appreciate--that the fulfilling of need is a means to action, rather than the more commonly accepted converse.

Sunday, June 3, 2018

Distributed Property and Division of Labor

As has been previously discussed, Private Property is not to be confused with Distributive Property.  Now, Distributive Property corresponds to Division of Labor--each presupposes a Whole that has been differentiated.  Thus, in the German Ideology, Marx erroneously equates Private Property and Division of Labor--one an Atomist concept, the other, Holist.  The error is rooted in the fundamental Atomism of Marxism, which, even if Dialectical, has Atoms as its foundation, as his Dissertation expresses.  That orientation becomes clear when contrasted with Evolutionism, for example, according to which a Species either precedes or is contemporaneous with its members.  Dialectical Materialism may end with social cohesion, but implicit in both its methodology and its concept of History, at the outset, Humans are as isolated from one another as in most non-Socialist doctrines.

Saturday, June 2, 2018

Private, Personal, Property

'Private' and 'personal' are often treated as synonymous.  On that basis, Private Property is essential to the cultivation of Personhood.  But, as the root of 'person' in 'persona' signifies, the specialization involved is public, not private, i. e. overt, not internal.  In other words, Private and Personal are distinguished as are the inside of a house and its outside.  Private Property is thus not to be confused with Distributed Property, i. e. a Part of a Whole.  The two concepts of Property are that of Micro- or Macro-Economics, on the one hand, vs. that of Political Economy, on the other, i. e. an Atomist concept of Property vs. a Holist one.

Friday, June 1, 2018

Economics and Critique

Though they are rarely associated with the topic, Plato and Aristotle offer three bases of a critique of contemporary 'Economics'.  First, the difference between Micro-Economics and Political Economy is one of kind, not of degree.  Second, Economics is not to be confused with Chresmatics.  Third, vital need is a foundation of a healthy Economic system.  The first, gleaned from the contrast of household management in the Politics and the organizing of a just Polis in the Republic, is the basis of the Private-Public distinction, i. e. that a Polis is qualitatively more than a collection of businesses, and, thus, not subject to the same principles that govern them.  The second, clearly articulated by Aristotle, separates the "natural" status of Money as a means from that as an end.  The third implies that a concept of Demand that does not distinguish vital need from non-vital wish weakens the system in which it is a factor.  Now, to 'critique' literally means to 'separate', so a Critique of Contemporary Economics can separate out Micro-Economic elements, Chresmatic operations, and non-vital wishes, in preparation for a concept of Political Economy that hardly resembles many contemporary ones.