Marx and Social Justice: Ethics and Natural Law in the Critique of Political Economy

Description

In Marx and Social Justice, George E. McCarthy presents a detailed and comprehensive overview of the ethical, political, and economic foundations of Marx’s theory of social justice in his early and later writings. What is distinctive about Marx's theory is that he rejects the views of justice in liberalism and reform socialism based on legal rights and fair distribution by balancing ancient Greek philosophy with nineteenth-century political economy. Relying on Aristotle’s definition of social justice grounded in ethics and politics, virtue and democracy, Marx applies it to a broader range of issues, including workers’ control and creativity, producer associations, human rights and human needs, fairness and reciprocity in exchange, wealth distribution, political emancipation, economic and ecological crises, and economic democracy. Each chapter in the book represents a different aspect of social justice. Unlike Locke and Hegel, Marx is able to integrate natural law and natural rights, as he constructs a classical vision of self-government ‘of the people, by the people’. ‎Contents......Page 9 ‎Acknowledgements......Page 13 ‎Introduction. The Ethical Archaeology of Justice in Marx......Page 15 ‎Notes......Page 25 ‎Part 1. Dialectic between the Ancients and the Moderns: Natural Law and Natural Rights......Page 39 ‎Chapter 1. Natural Law and Natural Rights in Locke: Indifference and Incoherence of Liberalism......Page 41 ‎Thomas Hobbes and the State of Nature and War......Page 42 ‎Richard Hooker and the Laws of Nature and Ecclesiastical Polity......Page 45 ‎Locke on Natural Rights and Natural Law......Page 48 ‎Ethics and Structure in Natural Law......Page 50 ‎Natural Law Limits to Natural Rights in the Original State of Nature......Page 56 ‎Eclipse of Natural Law and Social Justice in the Second State of Nature......Page 59 ‎Irrelevance of Natural Law, Incoherence of Liberalism, and the Return to Hobbes......Page 65 ‎Notes......Page 70 ‎Chapter 2. Justice Beyond Liberalism: Natural Law and the Ethical Community in Hegel......Page 86 ‎Early Theological Writings and Dreams of Classical Antiquity in Hegel......Page 89 ‎Hegel’s Natural Law and Critique of Liberalism and Natural Rights......Page 94 ‎Social Ethics and Integration of Natural Law and Natural Rights......Page 103 ‎Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, Law, and the State as Objective Spirit......Page 109 ‎Formation of the Ethical Life in the Family, Civil Society, and the State......Page 114 ‎Marx’s Critique of Hegel and the Revival of Classical Democracy in Spinoza and Rousseau......Page 120 ‎Notes......Page 125 ‎Part 2. Ethics, Virtue, and Natural Law in Marx......Page 141 ‎Chapter 3. Civil and Legal Justice: Integrating Natural Rights and Natural Law......Page 143 ‎Religious Prejudice, Judaism, and Civil Rights......Page 144 ‎Natural Rights as Ideology and Alienation......Page 152 ‎Transition of Politics from Pure Ideology to Human Rights and Emancipation......Page 155 ‎Critique of Liberal Democracy and Contradictions between Economic and Political Rights......Page 157 ‎Marx’s Theory of Emancipation and Human Rights......Page 162 ‎Natural Rights of Free Press and Universal Suffrage......Page 164 ‎Notes......Page 166 ‎Chapter 4. Workplace Justice: Ethics, Virtue, and Human Freedom......Page 177 ‎Alienation and the Virtue of Work and Self-Determination......Page 179 ‎Work as Productive Life and Creative Beauty......Page 184 ‎Ethics, Human Needs, and Natural Law......Page 189 ‎Virtue and Late Medieval Thomistic Natural Law......Page 194 ‎Notes......Page 198 ‎Chapter 5. Ecological Justice: Historical Materialism and the Dialectic of Nature and Society......Page 206 ‎Alienation of Production, Labour, and Nature......Page 209 ‎Dialectic of Nature and the Alienation of Consciousness......Page 215 ‎Natural Science as the Objectification and Social Praxis of Species Being......Page 218 ‎Science as Objectivity and Alienation......Page 220 ‎Social Metabolism, Contradictions, and Ecological Crises......Page 224 ‎Social Justice and the Natural Laws of Ethics and Ecology......Page 230 ‎Notes......Page 234 ‎Part 3. Structures of Democracy, Economy, and Social Justice in Marx......Page 247 ‎Chapter 6. Distributive Justice: Justice of Consumption, Economic Redistribution, and Social Reciprocity......Page 249 ‎Labour, Nature, and Society in the Gotha Program......Page 250 ‎Equality, Fair Distribution, and the Public Expenses of Production......Page 253 ‎Distribution, Fairness, and the Means of Social Consumption......Page 255 ‎Socialism, Self-Realisation, and Human Need......Page 261 ‎Critique of Reformist and Vulgar Socialism – Happiness without Meaning......Page 269 ‎Notes......Page 277 ‎Chapter 7. Political Justice: Ethics and the Good Life of Democratic Socialism......Page 286 ‎Franco-Prussian War and the Formation of the Paris Commune of 1871......Page 287 ‎Dismantling the Old State and Rise of Political Democracy in the Commune......Page 292 ‎Organisation of Labour and Economic Democracy......Page 296 ‎‘Declaration to the French People’ and the Social Programmes of the Commune......Page 299 ‎Marx, Lincoln, and the Human Emancipation from Racial and Wage Slavery......Page 305 ‎Notes......Page 310 ‎Chapter 8. Economic Justice: Ethics, Production, and the Critique of Chrematistics and Political Economy......Page 323 ‎Commodities, Exchange, and the Labour Theory of Value......Page 328 ‎Labour Power, Surplus Value, and the Alienation of Chrematistic Production......Page 336 ‎Natural Law of Contradictions, Crises, and Capital......Page 341 ‎Natural Law of Justice and Natural Law of Value......Page 352 ‎Notes......Page 355 ‎Bibliography......Page 377 ‎Index......Page 400