Saturday, August 25, 2018

Socialism, Property, Work

Possession can be defined in terms of Use, i. e. = 'available to use'.  Likewise, Private Property can be defined 'available for exclusive use', and Communal Property the same, minus the exclusivity qualification, e. g. the books in a public library.  Now, abuse is a variety of the User-Used relation, and, in the case of the abuse of a human, can be defined as Kant does--the treatment of another as merely a Means.  Furthermore, Exploitation is a type of Abuse.  Thus, Exploitation can occur, and, hence, can be corrected, independently of Property relations, i. e. can occur after the abolition of Private Property, and, is not corrected by the institution of Socialism.  Thus, Dewey's concept of Class distinction in terms of Leisure vs. Working, defined in terms of User vs. Producer, corrects a shortcoming in the Marxist diagnosis of Exploitation, thereby shifting the locus of Socialism from Property to Work, i. e. in which everybody is both Producer and User.  Marx' Ability-Need formula seems to concur with that shift.

No comments:

Post a Comment