Re: Marx on civil liberties and justice

["brian turner" <bkt90@hotmail.com>]

>From: Alex Day <aday999@yahoo.com>
>To: zhongguo@openflows.org
>Subject: Re: Marx on civil liberties and justice
>Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 15:20:19 -0700 (PDT)
>
>Brian and Jonathan,
>
>Jumping in here....
>
>   I think, what underlies this whole disagreement is
>whether the economy is separated off from politics or
>not.

I do acknowledge the influence of economic inequality on politics.  I'm 
simply arguing for a heirarchy of preferences, and the advancement of civil 
liberties is something to cheer and not be dismissed as worthless or 
meaningless.  Right-liberals say good enough, stop there.  I say no.

>This is also central to many of the arguments in
>China over the past several years.  Most liberals
>(people like Zhu Xueqin) argue that the economy is a
>sphere of natural rights that are foundational and
>pre-political.  The problems of the present,
>therefore, are a matter of the state (power)
>interfering in the economy.  Many on the left have
>been critical of this assertion of a pre-political
>separation.  Brian seems to be making an argument
>similar to the liberals: there is no compulsion if
>there is formal equality in the market;...

[...later...]

>Again, it seems the key for Brian is that the market
>be founded upon formal equality, which would keep
>certain unscrupulous people from using the state to
>unfair advantage in gaining wealth.  Keep Zhu Xueqin's
>'foot' (state power) from standing on the 'invisible
>hand' of the market.


"Formal equality" means equality before the law, right? I'm speaking of 
economic egalitarianism.  Relatively equal distribution of capital.  I don't 
regard equality before law as sufficient to make exchanges fully and 
authentically voluntary as right-liberals do.

For instance the development of rural Japan in the post-WW2 era.  I regard 
that sector of their economy as relatively just (equal dist. of land with 
anti-polarization measures, state subsidized cooperatives, local democratic 
participation, guaranteed stable markets, health and welfare, education), 
though I think democratic collective farming might have been even better.

>'the awesome
>power of bourgeois freedoms' comes to stand outside
>and before struggle--classical idealism; freedoms are
>a-historical universals and are "human freedoms",
>unrelated to power-relationships or pre-power; such
>"human freedoms" must be established first, before
>social equality is possible.

Well what alternative is there?  Yeah, Mao or Tito can redistribute the land 
and create equality and economic justice without giving freedom, so it can 
happen.  But is that really the best way?  Look how easily Deng and Jiang 
took the tools of Mao's autocratic state and destroyed the economic social 
justice.  And now what are they left with?  Once the land reform is totally 
reversed, India will look better (and in someways already does).

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