| This question <20|19> overall <23|25> Hans: <23|26>. |
| Question 63: Is it a character flaw to be lazy in an exploitive system? |
| [24] Hans: Which behavior is moral if the system itself is immoral? Sprocket [19] missed the boat completely. He thinks that the slow worker does indeed create more value, and that workers are the ones who exploit rather than being exploited. |
| Martin [20] makes the very interesting argument that lazy workers will get lower income and therefore they do not have to be ostracized by the system. I agree, but I want to make two points here: |
| (1) Marx says somewhere that those behaviors are considered moral which fit together with the system. There is no absolute morality, morality is relative to society and is used to keep people in line. Martin's answer seems to adhere to this strict Marxist position. I am of the view that Marx is here pouring out the baby with the bathwater, and that Marx violates this strict principle himself since his critique of capitalism is very much a moral critique. It is not a matter of point of view, but Marx shows objectively that capitalism is morally wrong. We are taught to make the so-called fact-value distinction so that we do not see this. |
| (2) If the Marxist immanent critique of capitalism is valid, then those living under capitalism have the moral obligation to get rid of it. One can therefore speak of morality which transcends the system one lives in. Then the question of laziness has to be revisited: is laziness morally justified as resistance to and sabotage of an immoral system? |
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