If "contradiction" is understood to mean that which gives rise to social antagonism, there will never be a human society without contradiction. It's not clear to me that Marx ever suggested that such a society could exist, though certainly some of his self-professed followers seem to believe that it can. If Marx did indeed believe such a society was possible, then he was more deeply utopian than any of the people at whom he hurled the insult of "utopian socialist."
Towards a Goth Politics
Against Utilitarianism, Against the Happiness Agenda I was having an online argument with a right-wing, Mises-type ultracapitalist, on the topic of Marxism. In the course of the conversation, he opined that the problem with Marx's economics was that Marx wrote about maximizing "utils" or "utilons" - that Marx did not realize that human utility cannot be so easily quantitatively measured, since different people subjectively desire different things in different ways. I almost tore my hair out in frustration. How do you respond to this kind of ignorance? How can we have any kind of discussion about economics when people are carrying around these bizarrely inane strawmen? Anyone who was the least bit familiar with Marx's writing would know that Marx would never use such ridiculous terms as "utils" and "utilons". Having done a little digging, the earliest references to these kinds of ideas I can find come not from Marx but from...
Comments
Post a Comment