Lisa & Ian Murray wrote:
> Money is therefore not only the object
> but also the fountainhead of greed.... Hedonism in the abstract
> presupposes an object which possesses all pleasures in potentiality."
>
> Doug
> ===
>
> Very Aristotelian. Wouldn't it perhaps be more accurate to say that
> hedonism presupposes an object which mediates the transition from potential
> to actual pleasure[s] in systems of generalized commodity production?
I think it was Kevin Quine (on femecon-l a few years ago) that said Marx was
Aristotle with an attitude. Ian's emendation seems reasonable, except that he
leaves out something important in Marx's formulation, hedonism IN THE ABSTRACT.
The worker (and I include most college students under this category)
essentially wants the things money can buy, not money as self-expanding value.
Plato began the attack on this desire when he claimed that the poor lived only
to satisfy immediate appetite (ignoring that they had no choice if they wished
to live).
Marxism must ultimately I think be considered a hedonistic world view, so I
don't want to use a vocabulary which allows for the damning of the desire for
pleasure as such.
Carrol
> that in addition to money being "the face of the boss", money is the flip
> side of [or perhaps competitor with] the law, which also mediates the
> production of pleasure[s]?
>
> Ian
>
> What page #?