05.24.09
Kantian ethical socialism vs ethical marxism
Continuing with our perspective from the Ultra Far Left, we can skewer an interesting book on ‘ethical marxism’, which however is probably worth reading.
Redforteight.com has a review of a new book on Ethical Marxism.
Despite the interest of the subject, this approach (without having read the book, to be sure) seems to have failed to understand the classic version of this, as described in Van Linden’s Kantian Ethics and Socialism.
You can’t mix Kant’s categorical imperative very easily with Leninism, and the classic ethical socialism was very alienated from the left emerging with Lenin, so what’s going on with this book is unclear. The name of the game was to ditch Kant and keep people so confused with Hegel that issues of ethics might not arise to disturb the projects of ‘revolutionaries’. And then, of course, ditch Hegel, save only his ‘dialectic’, handy for theorizing revolution.
The attempt late in the nineteenth century by the Marburg school to create something called Kantian ethical socialism ended up being a refreshing new insight, that collided fairly quickly with mainstream marxism.
This is a subject that you can make a thorough mess of, and I feel leary of reading this book.
It might represent a false hope. But these issues don’t ring a bell with anyone anymore. And that’s a pity, more a sign of the ideological reign of neoliberalism.
The issues of socialism/liberalism ought to be something like driving a car, nearly universal knowledge. Instead, between the distortions of the left for the last ninety years, and the distortions of neoliberalism, noone can think straight anymore.
Knowledge of socialism/liberalism might start purely theoretically, and consider the issues from scratch, bypassing the jargon-ridden pep-rally baloney that always ends up in propaganda. The left is cluttered with so much Marxist bullshit noone can address the issue of socialism, which should be a component of civics of the most elemental sort, not the usual rapid loudmouthing of current political conditions (as deserved as that might be).
In any case, Van Linden’s book gives a real taste of ethical socialism, and the devastating way that Kantian ethics, even as it embraces classical liberalism, undermines it logically, as the implications of the categorical imperative expose the whole system of capitalist economy, step one. That perhaps was the point of the subtitle of the book by Martin. But this kind of treatment isn’t going to be a decent treatment of those concepts in its dragon’s maw of gobbling up the classic Kantian socialism, and without any awareness of the problem, stir it ininto the Leninists madness.
In any case, there is a big difference here between Kantian ethical socialism, classic nineteenth century brand, the Marburg Cohen version, and this later effort of unknown lineage (in a book I haven’t read).
It should be a requirement of civic participation for everyone to be familiar with the whole shebang on liberalism and socialism, plus all the critiques.
But the powers that be prefer to use television instead.