some poke signing as ted writes:

"Understanding Capital
is difficult "

i'd say its not

" it's based
on ontological,
anthropological
and
psychological assumptions
radically different
from those that dominate
most modern thinking
about social phenomena "

yes but most folks have not drunk
the kool aide

"It assumes that reality
includes an objective
and knowable "good,"

yes but those words dialectically conceived
are
like complex functions
compared to real functions

"that human being
is potentially a fully "rational" being
able to know
and actualize this "good"
in a good life "

i like the simplicity of that

"and
that realization of
this potential requires passage through a set
of developmental stages "

now its getting postivistic

"in each of which a characteristic degree
of historically diminishing
irrationality
(in the sense of Hegel's idea of the "passions")
dominates"

total horse feathers

" The realization
of the potential
in a "true realm of
freedom"
is associated
with a "feeling"
- "eudamonia" -
to which any
rational being would say "stay."

i like that too
for what little
it yields

"These assumptions are inconsistent with "moralistic" judgments"

assumptions ???

" the
only sources of action
inconsistent with universally valid ethical
principles
are ignorance and impracticability "

okay....

"They are consistent though with "ethical" judgments
i.e. with
judgments of the consistency
of feeling, thinking, willing and acting
with these principles"

gibberish

"The capitalist/wage-labour relation is "unethical"
in this sense "

deduced from gibberish
this is unpersuasive

"it's inconsistent with the ideal ethical relation
Marx (and the
ethical tradition to which his ideas belong)
elaborates as "relations
of mutual recognition."

ideal ???

now we are
in the swamp

brace for submersion

" For instance,
in it wage-labourers are
"exploited."

" They are treated as "means"
rather than as "ends,"
as
"human resources."

"This is inconsistent
with an ideal relation of
mutual recognition"

Ted