Sandwichman wrote:
Frankly, my argument for shorter working time isn't based on a
Keynesian analysis. He just doesn't go into it too deeply. I only cite
Keynes to people who think Keynes had the answer but who don't know
that working less was part of the answer that Keynes himself thought
he had.
But, for Keynes, working less is ultimately part of moving beyond the
psychopathology dominant in capitalism to more rational
forms of feeling, thinking, willing and acting.
Understood in this way, there are very serious psychological obstacles
in the way of the political viability of a polciy of working less let
alone in the way of developing the "capabilities" (the "virtues")
required to use the time released from instrumental activity “to
live," as Keynes says, "wisely and agreeably and well.”
A political context in which roughly half the population end up
supporting a ticket focused on attacking as "socialist" a tax policy
that would reduce taxes for 95% while raising them for 5% isn't a
political context in which a policy of working less is politically
viable.
The same psychological obstacles stand in the way of reading Keynes
with understanding.
By the way, Keynes's claim that, despite its psychopathology,
capitalism is the most efficient way of developing productive forces
is mistaken. The degree of development of productive forces expresses
the degree of development of mind, i.e. of rational forms of feeling,
thinking, willing and acting. Psychopathology is, therefore, also an
obstacle in the way of the full development of these forces.
Consequently, enquiring "more curiously" into capitalist
psychopathology would not threaten this development. In fact, it's a
necessary preliminary to the creation of the conditions such full
development requires.
Pretending to ourselves that fair is foul and foul is fair is not only
not necessary, it's a "fetter" on the development of productive
forces. Had he been capable of reading him with "good will," Keynes
could have found this implication of his own foundational ideas worked
out by Marx.
Unfortunately, as the widespread inability to read Keynes with
undertstanding shows, the psychopathology makes such enquiry very
difficult if not impossible.
Keynes himself makes this point as a self-criticism in "My Early
Beliefs".
"I still suffer incurably from attributing an unreal rationality to
other people's feelings and behaviour (and doubtless to my own, too).
There is one small but extraordinarily silly manifestation of this
absurd idea of what is 'normal', namely the impulse to protest - to
write a letter to The Times, call a meeting in the Guildhall,
subscribe to some fund when my presuppositions as to what is 'normal'
are not fulfilled. I behave as if there really existed some authority
or standard to which I can successfully appeal if I shout loud enough
- perhaps it is some hereditary vestige of a belief in the efficacy of
prayer." (Collected Writings, vol. X , p. 448)
Ted
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