[FRA:] Adorno & Horkheimer: towards a new Manifesto?

[Christopher Cutrone]

I wasn't arguing that there are no natural human needs, but, rather, that even these are radically transformed and transformable, and that therefore they cannot be conceived adequately as (simply) "objective." 

But my larger point is that it is not (simply) that exchange-value is subjective and use-value is objective. 

Perhaps the most uncontroveritble point I am making, however, is that, according to Marx (and hence Adorno following him), exchange value appears as a mere convention but has an "objective" (in the sense of "alienated" *social*) force, so that it is not addressable as a matter of will (i.e., is not about the will of the capitalists against that of the workers), but is a social form (that's the nature, for Marx,  of the "fetishism" of the value of *labor* in capital). 

-- Chris

--- On Mon, 12/27/10, Lev Lafayette <lev.lafayette at isocracy.org> wrote:

> From: Lev Lafayette <lev.lafayette at isocracy.org>
> Subject: Re: [FRA:] Adorno & Horkheimer: towards a new Manifesto?
> To: ccutrone at speedsite.com, "Discussion of Frankfurt School Critical Theory" <theory-frankfurt-school at srcf.ucam.org>
> Date: Monday, December 27, 2010, 2:54 PM
> On Mon, 2010-12-27 at 09:19 -0800,
> Christopher Cutrone wrote:
> > Exchange-value *appears* as a mere social convention
> but is actually
> > objective, in the sense that we actually live in a
> society driven by
> > the utilitarian ethos of "the greatest good for the
> greatest number,"
> > in which productive efficiency in *time* is the
> measure.
> 
> That's not really objective at all. Quantifiable and
> factual, certainly.
> But exchange values are not independent of the
> participating actors,
> their (real and distorted) expressions of will, which is
> what would be
> required if they were objective.
> 
> If human beings were not social animals, we would still
> derive use-value
> from nature (indeed, as any animal does), but there would
> not be
> exchange value.
> 
> > Use-value *appears* objective, in the sense of being
> about concrete
> > utility, but is actually social in origin, because
> human needs have
> > been changed and indeed created by society. 
> 
> "Human needs have have been ... created by society"? 
> 
> That's a trajectory I don't particularly care to follow.
> The notion of
> human wants being partially the result of social
> construction can be
> taken seriously. The radical philosophical constructivism
> that claims
> that there is no objective human wants (or objectivity at
> all) leads
> down a very damaging path.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> 
> Lev
> 
>