The Journal of Value Inquiry 25: 385-388, 1991.

Book Review

N. Scott Arnold, Marx's radical critique of capitalist society: A reconstruction and critical evaluation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. $35.00, cloth. ISBN 0-19-505879-8. 352 pages (indexed). N. Scott Arnold writes: "It has often been said that Marxism, or communism, may work just free in theory, but that it won't work in practice. My contention in these chapters is that it won't work in theory either" (pp. viii-ix). Arnold claims that Karl Marx's critique of capitalism is radical. Radical critics believe that society's basic institutions are the source of systemic problems which can be solved only by a revolutionary transformation of those institutions. Arnold argues that the institutions of postcapitalist society envisioned by Marx are historically unrealizable, and so Marx's radical critique of capitalism fails. In the first chapter, "The Very Idea of a Radical Critique," Arnold argues that radical critics must (1) establish that society's problems are systemic and caused by its basic institutions, (2) provide a normative ethical theory which explains why society's problems are problems, (3) specify the alternative institutions that should or will replace existing ones, and (4) describe a plausible transition from existing institutions to the proposed new ones. Specifying the alternative institutions entails showing that they will not create the same problems that are found in present society, giving an account of the new institutions' functions, and arguing that those institutions could be socially stable. Marx's radical critique of capitalism is reconstructed in chapters 2 through 7, and evaluated in the remaining three chapters. Arnold devotes the second chapter, "Alienation," to explicating Marx's charge that the economic institutions of capitalism bring about the workers' alienation from the products of their labor, from the activity of their labor, from their species being (Marx's term for human nature), and from other persons. In the third chapter, "Exploitation: Marx and B/Shm-Bawerk," Arnold argues that Marx's labor theory of value (LTV) is false. Marx accepts the law of value (LV) which states that market commodities that are exchanged have equal value, and the value identity thesis (Identity Thesis) which claims that a commodity's value equals the amount of socially necessary labor required to produce it. Together, the LV and the Identity Thesis imply the labor time corollary (LTC), which says that commodities that are exchanged in a market at equilibrium embody equal amounts of socially necessary labor. Since for Marx, "value just is embodied socially necessary labor" (p. 67), the LTV just is the conjunction of the Identity Thesis and the LTC. The theory of surplus value (TSV) maintains that the capitalist's profit is the value embodied in the product sold minus the value of the employed labor power. Arnold refers to the Austrian marginal utility theorist, Eugen B/Shm-Bawerk (1851-1914), who argues that Marx's acceptance of the Identity Thesis in the first volume of Capital is contradicted by Marx's denial of that thesis in the third volume. In the first volume, Marx distinguishes between constant capital which is invested in

386 the means of production and raw materials needed to produce the product, and variable capital which is used to purchase labor power. Because profit is embodied socially necessary labor, profit is generated through variable capital. It should follow that labor-intensive industries are more profitable than capital-intensive firms, yet in reality the latter tend to be as profitable as the former. Marx's answer in the third volume is that when capitalists move investments from less to more profitable firms this results in competition, and so labor-intensive and capital-intensive industries tend to be equally profitable. Marx modifies the LV to say that while no single commodity may sell at its true value, price does reflect value and profit reflects surplus value within the entire system of commodity exchanges. Brhm-Bawerk charges that Marx's modification of the LV actually repudiates it, as well as the LTV and the TSV. Denying that Marx can escape Brhm-Bawerk's charge that there is an unresolved contradiction between the first and third volumes of Capital, Arnold concludes: "If we are looking for a (complete) explanation of equilibrium exchange ratios, the LTC is just false .... Given that the LTC is false~ so is the Identity Thesis. Therefore, the LTV is false" (pp. 85-86). Having concluded that the LTV is false, Arnold urges in chapters 4 and 5, "Parasite Exploitation" and "Property Relations exploitation," that no good reasons exist for accepting Marx's claims that there is surplus value exploitation and capitalistic exploitation: "The idea that the worker is doing unpaid labor for the capitalist cannot be part of a truly radical critique of capitalist society without the LTV" (p. 96). Arnold also argues that Marx's belief that capitalists qua capitalists do not create value is incorrect, and that workers are exploited only if the proposed alternative institutions are historically realizable. In chapters 6 and 7, "Post-Capitalist Society: Relations of Production and the Coordination of Production" and "PostCapitalist Society: Distribution, the State, and the Good Society," Arnold reconstructs Marx's vision of the institutions of post-capitalist society. Based on his reconstruction of Marx's radical critique of capitalism, Arnold claims - in chapters 8 and 9, "The Unrealizability of the Second Phase of Post-Capitalist Society" (PC e society) and "The Unrealizability of the First Phase of Post-Capitalist Society" (PC 1 society) - that both PC 1 and PC 2 societies are historically impossible. In the Critique of the Gotha Program, Marx suggests that the transition from capitalist to post-capitalist society will occur in two phases. In PC 1 society (often called socialism), the means of production will be owned by the workers, workers will be recompensed according to their actual labor, and a democratic state will defend the gains of the first phase. PC 2 society (communism) will provide the material preconditions (MPCs) of the good life to everyone, the state will "wither away," and the distributive principle will be "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need." In both phases, there will be a centrally planned economy rather than a market economy. According to Arnold, PC 2 society will be unable to provide the MPCs of the good life. This is so because, regardless of the level of material abundance, catastrophic illness and untimely death still will occur in PC 2 society. Further, some components of the good life - for example, high selfesteem - are possible only on the condition that they are not generally obtainable. Arnold expresses these points through an imagined critic this

387 way: "In the end, the unrealizability of Marx's vision of PC 2 society comes down to the fact that somebody will get hit by a truck and not every short guy who really wants to play .professional basketball will be able to" (p. 223). In addition, PC 2 society cannot overcome primary evils "noninstitutional facts" which are "permanent features of the human condition" (p. 225) - such as profound ignorance, conflicting conceptions of the good life, limited benevolence, and moderate scarcity. Appealing to arguments made by Ludwig von Mises and F. A. Hayek that the coordination of centrally planned economies is inherently less efficient than market economies, Arnold maintains that the workers' conditions would be worse in PC 1 society than under capitalism. Also, because the costs of that society must be borne by the workers, PC 1 workers would not be recompensed according to their actual labor, and so surplus value exploitation would exist in PC 1 society. In chapter 10, "The Market Socialist Alternative and Concluding Observations," Arnold argues that market socialism also fails as a radical alternative to capitalism. Arnold has a comprehensive knowledge of analytic Marxism, but he seems unaware of work outside that tradition. As a result, he does not consider relevant responses to his criticisms of Marx, and he accepts as obvious contestable interpretations. For example, Arnold does not deal with the objections of Rudolf Hilferding ( 1877-1941) to B6hm-B awerk' s charge of an unresolved contradiction in Marx's thought. Hilferding urges that B6hm-Bawerk's charge loses its persuasiveness once it is seen that - while B6hm-Bawerk begins his economic analysis with the individual, attempts to discover a mechanism for determining prices, and so presupposes a subjective theory of value - Marx starts his analysis with society, attempts to discover the "laws of motion" of capitalism, and hence posits an objective theory of value. Arnold also does not discuss the argument of Ladislaus Bortkiewicz (1868-1931) that Marx's defective method of deriving prices from values can be corrected so that the LTV is preserved. The articles by B6hm-Bawerk, Hilferding, and Bortkiewicz are collected in a book edited by Paul M. Sweezy, Karl Marx and the Close of His System (Clifton, N.J.: Augustus M. Kelley Publishers, 1975). Arnold does not see that Marx rejects the notion of a substantive human nature: "Indeed, it would be pretty implausible to deny that there is such a thing as human nature. 'Human' is, after all, a natural kind term" (p. 48). For Marx, paradoxically, human nature - species being - consists in humans not having a nature. However, they do have a history. This history is their own production. Through their interactions with each other and their environment, through their labor, persons create and thereby may discover both their present identities and the possibilities of future self-transcendence. This autop.oietic activity, though, always occurs within the context of previous interactions. As Marx notes in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte: "Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past" (p. 15). What Arnold wrongly identifies as "permanent features of the human condition," Marx correctly diagnoses as "the tradition of all the dead generations [that] weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living" (p. 15). The task is not to argue for the inevitability of that nightmare, but

388 rather to resist it. In the Gnomologia, Thomas Fuller perceives that "to believe a business impossible is the way to make it so." Persuading others of a business's impossibility is the way to ensure that it stays so. Believing that the institutions of post-capitalist society are impossible, Arnold no doubt finds absurd further attempts to realize them. As Miguel de Unamuno observes in his Essays and Soliloquies, however, "only he who attempts the absurd is capable of achieving the impossible" (p. 104). J. M. Fritzman Department of Philosophy Recitation Building Purdue University West Lafayette, IN 47907

The Journal of Value lnquiry 25: 389-392, 1991.

Second Look

Bernard R. Boxill. Blacks and social justice. Savage, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1984. $52.25. ISBN 0-8476-6755-3 (cloth); 251 pp. (indexed). Blacks and Social Justice is an important book for at least two reasons: first, the author does an excellent job of presenting some of today's pressing moral and social problems, and second, he offers formidable resolutions to these problems. By using the skills characteristic of analytical philosophers in examining problems like affirmative action, mandatory school bussing, and the racial integrationists and separatists debate, Boxill brings much needed clarity to the discussion of these pressing issues of social justice. The problems that Boxill examined seven years ago are still live issues today. In my judgment, Boxill's discussion is one of the most penetrating analysis of these problems. Unfortunately, his book has not been given the attention that it deserves. Thus, I believe the book requires a second look, seven years after its publication. A major claim that Boxill defends in the book is his contention that the "color-blind principle" is not a principle that should be applied in all cases if we wish to achieve social justice. By the "color-blind principle" he means a rule that requires that we not make social, moral, and legal decisions on the basis of a person's race. According to Boxill, the defmition of the color-blind principle is uncontroversial, but he thinks that some writers have not clearly understood its implications. The color-blind principle does not imply that race is never, in fact, taken to be relevant in making legal, moral, and social decisions, but that it should not be relevant. Supporters of the principle readily admit that the color-blind principle has been violated in the past and that these violations have created such things as injustice, poverty, and resentment, but they don't believe that we should attempt to rectify these things by adopting policies or programs that once again violate the principle. Boxill skillfully illustrates the inadequacies of the arguments by those who categorically support the color-blind principle by focusing on two general approaches in the affirmative action and school bussing debates. One approach is labeled the "backward-looking" approach and the other the "forward-looking" approach. By "backward-looking" he means an approach that takes into account the actual history of how certain holdings and states of affairs came about. According to this approach, certain groups are entitled to affirmative action as a matter of right, not because affirmative action promotes such ideals as social utility or eguality. If we adopt the backward-looking approach, then we cannot always be color-blind because to do so would violate some person's rights. Boxill insists that respecting people's rights affirms the dignity and self-respect of persons. This is an especially important aspect of rights for individuals and groups who have had their dignity and self-respect challenged by racist laws and social practices.

390 The forward-looking approach, on the other hand, judges the appropriateness of policies and programs like affirmative action and mandatory school bussing according to such things as the amount of social utility that they promote or how appropriate they are as means to achieve equality of opportunity for all. The forward-looking approach does not have to focus on race or the actual history of the parties involved in order to determine whether some holding or state of affairs is just. Such things as people's needs, equality of opportunity, and the promotion of social utility can override rights claims made by individuals and groups. On this view, it is not always necessary to know, for example, whether or not a person who receives a preference in a competititve job situation was an actual victim of racial discrimination in order to rightly conclude that such a preference is justified. According to this approach, we should take race into account only if doing so promotes certain ideals. Boxill challenges those who support affirmative action and mandatory school bussing on purely forward-looking grounds. He rightly points out that if some people's holdings are not the result of wrongdoing, they should not be required to relinguish them simply because doing so would promote lofty ideals. Boxill defends the backward-looking and color-conscious approach to affirmative action and mandatory school bussing, but he is quick to warn us that there are also good forward-looking reasons for instituting s u c h policies. His conservative critics, including the much quoted black economist Thomas Sowell, have rejected color-conscious laws or social policies. Sowell argues that we do not need to take a person's race to be a morally relevant characteristic in order to achieve social justice. Sowell and other conservatives believe that affirmative action and mandatory school bussing policies are impractical as well as unjust. Their contention is that the market can solve the problems that blacks and other disadvantaged persons experience. On the other end of the political spectrum, Marxists and liberals reject the conservative market solution, but they embrace the color-blind principle. They contend that we will either have to totally change our present socioeconomic system or modify it in order to eliminate such things as poverty and disadvantage, but they also believe the means that we adopt to achieve these ends should be color-blind even though some groups have a history of disadvantage and subjugation because they are members of certain racial groups. Boxill rejects the conclusions of the conservatives, Marxists, and the forward-looking liberals on this point. Even if their approaches could eliminate poverty and disadvantage, Boxill believes that the resulting state of affairs should not be described as social justice. According to Boxill, we cannot achieve social justice if we disrespect what people are entitled to as a matter of right. As a firm supporter of rights, Boxill has to respond to the charge that he is willing, at least in principle, to let people's entitlements override people's needs. Boxill is careful to explain that because people have a moral right to something does not entail that they should always demand the thing that they have a right to. Do affirmative action policies defended on backwardlooking grounds require that some people forgo basic needs in order to

391 respect the legitimate entitlements of blacks? Boxill argues that they do not. But if respecting black entitlements did force others in society to forgo basic needs, would respecting such entitlements be just? We need to hear more from Boxill on this issue. An extremely valuable part of Boxill's account of social justice is the importance that he assigns to human dignity and self-respect (pp. 189-199). For Boxill a just society must not establish or defend institutions that act as an affront to the self-respect of blacks or any other group. Blacks do themselves serious harm by adopting means to eliminate their poverty of disadvantage that do not affirm their self-respect and dignity as persons. Boxill claims that persons with dignity know that they are worthy of their fights and they act from a sense of being secure in the conviction that they must be accorded respect in virtue of being rightholders. For Boxill, an important way for people to demonstrate that they respect each other as persons with dignity and self-respect is by acknowledging the wrongs that they have done to each other. He believes it is a serious affront to a person's self-respect and dignity when a wrongdoer refuses to acknowledge a wrong committed against another person. By refusing to acknowledge the wrongdoing the perpetrator leaves the door open for the conclusion that the victims were not rightholders, which invites the victims to think less of themselves. Boxill argues that well intended forward-looking arguments in support of affirmative action fail to take into account the importance of acknowledging wrongdoing and thus they are not adequate to achieve social justice (pp. 168-171). Another important ingredient of Boxill's account of social justice is his belief that individuals and groups should not be obstructed by society and other individuals from flourishing, providing that they are acting within their fights. By flourishing he does not mean the mere satisfaction of one's interests, but flourishing is measured in accordance with an ideal of human nature (pp. 95-100). Boxill rigorously rejects the interest theory of the good as well as an interest account of harm because such theories of good and harm are tied to the satisfaction of the wants and desires of individuals. Boxill argues that if we adopt the interest theory of harm, we cannot always say that forced segregation is wrong even when it causes black children to have deep feelings of inferiority. If the children affected by segregation don't desire not to feel inferior or segregated, then segregation and the resulting feelings of inferiority will not violate any interest that they have, given that their interests are defined by their present wants and desires. He notes that a proponent of the interest theory of the good might attempt to save the theory from this undesirable consequence by appealing to the future interests of the children affected, but he argues that this will not work. Boxill writes: The theory may seem capable of handling this complication through the inherent stipulation that a child is harmed, not by intereference with his future interests and plans of life, but by interference which will lead him to have the kinds of future interests and plans of life that will not be most likely to lead to his greatest overall satisfaction. But if this tack is taken,

392 the future interests theory abandons the account of harm it is meant to secure. (p. 98) Given the shortcomings that Boxill finds with the interest theory of the good, he chooses to embrace a Platonic conception of what it means to live a good life. According to this conception of the good, a good life for human beings is to be measured in accordance with an ideal of human nature rather than by merely summing up how one's interests are satisfied as determined by one's desires and wants. If we define a good life in these terms, then whether it is good for blacks and whites to separate or to integrate becomes an empirical matter that must be judged relative to how close the particular proposal comes to satisfying or approximating a Platonic ideal of a good life. Using a Platonic conception of good and harm Boxill argues that parents do not have a fight to send or keep their children in segregated schools, and they have no right to liberty to have their children educated as they please (p. 112). This conclusion is based on the belief that whether or not the state has a right to interfere with the wishes of the parents depends upon the fights of the children rather than the non-paternalistic fights of the parents. However, the Platonic conception of harm is not without its problems. The Platonic conception rests on the problematic assumption that there is some normal or proper way for humans to function. The conception also problematically assumes that a good character results when human beings function in the proper way. We face enormous difficulties in deciding what constitutes normal or proper functioning. Boxill must explain what he means by proper functioning because his functionalist account of harm says that a person "is harmed by the impairment of abilities to function to which he has a fight" (p. 103), where function refers to the world outside as well as inside of our bodies. Boxill fails to appreciate that these worlds for different individuals, even within the same culture, may be vastly different. Thus, we may be compelled in using his functionalist account to draw different conclusions about two individuals who are acting in identical ways. The virtue of the Platonic conception of harm is that it allegedly provides us with a standard by which to judge whether or not people black or white are being harmed or allowed to flourish. Unfortunately, such a standard evades us because at best it awaits much more information about the nature of our inner worlds and the relationship between our inner worlds and the worlds outside of our bodies. There is so much of interest in this fantastic book that I cannot discuss all of the provocative positions and arguments that Boxill presents and examines. Although I have not discussed his excellent chapters on "Ronald Dworking and Bussing" and "Marxism, Justice, and Black Progress," I strongly recommend them to the philosophical as well as the general reader. Howard McGary Depariauent of Philosophy Rutgers University Douglass College New Brunswick, NJ 08903