POEC 61011

ID: 8092658

Number of words: 3492

MARX AND GERAS: DEBATING WITH EACH OTHER

Exploitation in Marx refers to the capitalists appropriation of the excess of value that
workers embody in commodities in relation with the value they require to subsist. Likewise,
Marx (1990) describes capitalism as a despotic, bloody, cruel, and pauper system in which
the appropriation of surplus-value is made by theft and robbery. These descriptions have
influenced various scholars to think that capitalism is unjust, though Marx explicitly claimed
the opposite.
Since the 1970s there has been an intense controversy if Marx did condemn capitalism as
unjust or not. There are those who have emphatically argued that he did not as well as others
who have insisted that he did. Norman Geras made significant contributions to Marxism
arguing rigorously that Marx implicitly had a theory of justice. His well-known epigraph
Marx did think capitalism was unjust but he did not think he thought so suggests that Marx
did condemn capitalism as unjust, in spite of his own categorical disavowals (Geras, 1992).
I intend to evaluate Gera's proposal asking the next questions: Are we talking about a
proposal of justice coherent with Marx thoughts or, on the contrary, is an interpretation of
him on the basis of a particular knowledge supported by dissimilar historical circumstances?
How relevant is Geras' affirmation that Marx did not know that he judged capitalism as
unjust? Would Marx agree with Geras? First, I examine briefly Geras standpoint. Second,
I propose a discussion between Marx and Geras evaluating the proposal of the latter. Lastly,
I present some conclusions.

Marx did not know he judged capitalism as unjust

In some sense, justice can be understood as an exchange of equivalents. Under capitalism the
exchange of equivalents seems to happen only in the sphere of exchange, but is not so in the
sphere of production in which surplus-value is appropriated by capitalists. After purchasing
their labour power, labourers have still to give to capitalists an extra personal effort in the
form of surplus-value. Through the working day, labourers are working for nothing at some
point. In effect, the principle of equivalence is violated in the production relation by cheating,
forced exchanges and robbery (Harvey, 1982).
These two points must be understood as different angles of vision on a single phenomenon
(Geras, 1985). In this context, Geras asks what it is the appropriate standpoint to analyse
whether or not Marx did condemn capitalism as unjust. According to Geras, one of the
difficulties to address this ambiguity is that Marx "equivocates as to which of them is the one
relevant to the moral question, so that it is legitimate in a way for each side to claim, about
the two different perspectives: Marx really means us to adopt this one" (1985, p. 63). On the
one hand, Marx indicates that under capitalism equal values are exchanged based accordingly
upon the laws of commodity production. This legitimates the version of equivalence. On the
other hand, Marx also says that the departure of the capitalism was characterized by the
violent dispossession of a whole class from the control over the means of production: the
starting point of the development that gave rise both to the wage-labourer and to the capitalist
was the enslavement of the worker (1990, p. 875). In part, Marx aims to refute the idea that
the development of capitalism had been the result of capitalists industry and frugality
(Cohen, 1981). In effect, the exchange of equivalents was not yet a matter of equivalence but
of theft.

Consequently, Geras (1985) says that Marxs prevarication over which perspective
(equivalence or non-equivalence) really matter has confused his commentators. In order to
resolve this contradictory issue, Geras purposes a reconstruction of the argument beyond a
mere exegesis. Though Marx did not condemn capitalism as unjust in his work, there are
implicit reasons to think that he did so. Geras claims that Marxs proposal implicitly has
principles of distributive justice.
Geras (1985) says that Marx is subscribed to an extremely narrow conception of justice. First,
it is associated with the internal standards of specific social orders. Second, it is associated
only with the distribution of consumption of goods, distribution of income and related to the
process of exchange in the market. On the contrary, Geras view is that people may consider
what is good or bad in virtue of notions of natural right which are not necessarily embedded
within legal or conventional entitlements. This takes into account the distribution of
advantages and disadvantages in general, including also the distribution of the productive
resources. Thereby, Geras suggests a restatement of the paradox claiming that Marx did
think capitalism was unjust but he did not think he thought so.
Marx against Geras
Though Geras points out that his intention is not to impute something alien to Marxs own
thoughts affirming that it is Marx himself who clearly challenges, without knowing, the moral
propriety of the capitalist mode of distribution, his statement is pretentious as it may fall into
anachronisms. The idea that Marx was criticizing capitalism as unjust without realizing,
would seem, on the one hand, to overlook the context from where Marx spoke, and, on the
other, to deny or contradict fundamentally the theoretical approach of historical materialism
on which Marx sustained his ideas. Furthermore, Geras proposal, though textually well-

founded, does not provide sufficient positive evidence to claim that Marx really has an
inherent proposal of justice (Rkstad, 2014).
Exploitation as theft
Geras claims that the use of terms such as usurpation, robbery, theft and plunder demonstrates
beyond doubt Marxs conviction of the injustice of capitalism. They in fact make us infer a
commitment to transcendent standards of justice: the positive titles to property embodied in
capitalist law, therefore, are condemned as unjust by reference to a generalized moral
entitlement (Geras, 1985, p. 77).
In reading this statement, it is notable that exploitation is conceived as a moral concept. In
effect, if morality is introduced to the concept of exploitation, then everything related to the
latter can already be unjust. Some philosophers have discussed exploitation mainly in its
pejorative sense. This has caused its moralization, and, consequently, misunderstandings of
Marxs real views (Wood, 2004). Geras could be in this group.
Justice in Marx is a juridical concept which is related to the law and the rights men have in a
specific mode of production (Wood, 1972). He sustains that right can never be higher than
the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby (Marx,
2000). Justice in capitalism cannot thus be higher than it. Marx denies that the relationship
between capitalist and worker is unjust because it is based upon the internal and bourgeois
standards. The process of exploitation not only harmonizes with the capitalist mode of
production, but it is fundamental to its subsistence as a system. In response, Geras says that
though the wage contract is not unjust according both to the Marxs definition of justice and
to the internal, bourgeois standards, it does not mean there is not a broader conception of

justice in Marxs proposals. However, this is not a positive evidence that enables us to accept
the claim that Marx has an implicit theory of justice. For now, there seems to be an insoluble
confrontation between Marx's perspective of justice and Geras' broader perspective, if we
would like to keep in mind what Marx directly claims. Before examining Marx own thought,
I would like to ask if exploitation necessarily connotes moral principles, and if so, examine
the pertinence of thinking in transhistorical justice in Marx.
Wood (2004) proposes an interesting analysis of what exploitation is. He brings Nietzsches
thoughts to deconstruct the naturalised idea of exploitation as a moral concept. For Nietzsche,
capitalist society is the maximum representation of exploitation of humanity. However,
exploitation for him does not necessarily connotes negative moral patterns so long as the
exploiters were noble. Nietzsche sees exploitation as an admirable and just scene while most
of the people think the opposite. But how should we interpret him? It would make no sense
to read him as using exploitation in moral or unjust terms, since that would be a contradictory
interpretation of what he claims. But neither does it make sense to interpret him as using
exploitation in a different perspective from the majority of people would use in condemning
as unjust the exploitation of the week by the strong (Wood, 2004). Wood (2004) poses that
the only way of taking his considerations in mind is to read him as using exploit in the same
way we do when we condemn the exploitation of the weak as unjust, but keeping in mind
that this exploitation is in fact just and admirable for him. In this case, the concept of
exploitation does not contain neither moral nor nonmoral senses per se. Wood explains this
as follow: Rather, it has to be taken to refer to a kind of act about which the term
exploitation leaves it an open question (something about which people might disagree)

whether that act is just or unjust. And it must be about exploitation in that sense that we
believe (while Nietzsche does not) that it is unjust (2004, p. 244).
Therefore, exploitation is not a moral concept per se. Not all acts of exploitation are unjust.
By saying that exploitation and its cognates are not necessarily acts of injustice, I could
presumably doubt of Geras conviction about the presumption of the concept of justice in
Marxs approach. Geras approximation of Marxs thoughts seems to be conditioned from
his own thoughts about justice, falling in possible presentisms (see next subsection).
However, we still needs to encompass what Marx thinks about the connection of exploitation
and its cognates with (in)justice.
Marx coincides with Nietzsche in the belief that there can be acts of exploitation that are not
unjust. While some moralistic critics of capitalism claim it is an unjust system, Marx argues
the opposite. By considering Marxs conception of justice which is embedded in the juridical
realm and dependent of the particular material conditions of the capitalist mode of
production, we could say that he think capitalist exploitation is not unjust (although this does
not mean he does not think it must be abolished) (Wood, 1972; 1984; 2004).
For Marx, exploitation is the capitalists appropriation of the surplus-value that labourers
embody in commodities in relation with the value they require for their own reproduction.
Geras (1985) claims that exploitation could have meant injustice for Marx as he describes it
as robbery, theft and plunder. But as we have seen, exploitation does not necessarily mean
injustice, and in this case this interpretation errs both on the transaction between capital and
labour and the way in which Marx thinks about the features of capitalism: the capitalist
relation involves exploitation of the worker. In Marxs theory capital robs the worker, but
nonetheless claims that capitalists earn surplus-value with the full right (Wood, 2004). The

kind of theft involved in capital exploitation is not considered as a situation of injustice: the
relation between capitalists and labourers is not something economically accidental, but must
constitute a regular production relation as determined by the stage of development of the
labourers productive powers (Wood, 2004). Thence arises the argument that the transactions
between capitalists and labourers are related to the prevalent mode of production, and
therefore embedded within Marxs conception of justice. More specifically, labourers are
paid with the full value of their labour-power which is the socially necessary for the
reproduction of themselves. Surplus-value is appropriated by the capitalist without being an
act of equivalence, but the capitalist does not require to pay anything equivalent for it. As
Wood argues, what makes the relation exploitative is not the performance of unpaid labour,
but the fact that the capitalist exacts this performance using the workers vulnerability
(2004, p. 252).
Moreover, the relation between the capitalist and the labourer is generally voluntary; the
coercion is concealed by the fictio juris of a voluntary contract between them. Labourers are
free proprietors of their own labour-capacity and they can decide to who sell it (Marx, 1990),
as well as capitalists do not generally coerce labourers to accept the wage bargains they offer
them (Wood, 2004). Furthermore, Marx claims that the process of enslavement does not only
affect the proletariat but also the capitalist. The latter ultimately become slave of their
machines and capital which they are supposedly in charge of. This is the contradictory feature
of capitalism in which there is an ongoing process of exploitation of all people (Varoufakis,
2015). But it does not mean that capitalism is unjust, it is its own logic. In short, exploitation
and its cognates are not treated under the principles of justice when Marx criticises
capitalism.

Now, I would like to clarify why capitalism is not judged by Marx under transhistorical
principles. I consider two ideas that I have been thinking and surprisingly someone else also
has (Rkstad, 2014).
As I mentioned, coercion in capitalism is generally masked by the voluntary and equal
exchange between capitalists and labourers. Marxs interest is to attack this illusions which
are sustained by the juridical scope of the capital-labour relation. The illusion that Marx
attacks is such a moralistic idea that justice guarantees liberty to the workers protecting them
from exploitation (Wood, 2004). In effect, Marx's interest is to change society through the
organisation of the working class so as to abolish exploitation. From this perspective, the
use of terms such as theft, plunder, robbery, etc., can be understood as an attempt to reexplain quotidian and naturalised processes in a way that certain elements which were
concealed now come to be visible. This process needs no abstract concepts. The
transformation happens inside according to the logics of each mode of production.
Furthermore, Marx could also be read as attempting to change existing usages of terms such
as robbery, theft, etc., so as to reform normalized judgments about capitalist dynamics. By
reforming the normalized language, certain processes which are normally accepted as moral
(the purchase of labour power), can be described in more negative terms (Rkstad, 2014).
And this case neither needs ahistorical concepts to support the process of transformation of
societies. Marxs attempt was both to illuminate the intern dynamics of capitalism and to
reform the peoples conception of it through the use of familiar terms in a different way.
Transhistorical justice and historic materialism
Geras (1985) claims that Marxs convictions of higher standards of right in communist
societies demonstrate his implicit concern with transhistorical and distributive justice: his

critique in the light of freedom and self-actualization is a critique in the light of a conception
of distributive justice, [], Marx clearly believing that communism will provide greater
freedoms overall than has any preceding social form (1985, p. 72). Marxs affirmation from
each according to his ability, to each according to his needs seems to be a principle of
distributive justice because its abstract connotation would serve to guide the distribution of
goods and services in a society (Rkstad, 2014). Geras also indicates that by condemning
capitalist exploitation through the application of standards which would be appropriate to
post-capitalist societies, Marx applies ahistorical principles of justice.
It could be possible to condemn capitalism in that way, however, there is no reason to think
that those standards are transhistorical, mainly because Marx emphatically says that such
communist standards would be only applicable to communism. A communist revolution
would introduce new standards of right and justice which would be based upon the material
conditions of the communist mode of production, which differs from all previous movements
(Marx & Engels, 2000). Though Marx points out that communist standards are higher than
those of bourgeois society, this does not mean that they approach to some kind of timeless
moral ideal. On the contrary, they belong to a society which as a whole is higher as measured
by its productive powers and the nonmoral goods they furnish to people (Wood, 2004, p.
141). A higher mode of production such as communism is not more just than capitalism, it
only has its own standards of justice and rights. In effect, it is notable here the Marx's
historical perspective in which moral and juridical principles support the new mode of
production but do not create it (Marx, 2000). As Rkstad suggests, there is in fact no
independent reason to believe that this distributive maxim is a stand-alone, abstract and

ahistorical principle of justice by which capitalism is judged and found wanting by Marx
(2014, p. 7). This leads us to think that Marx would disagree with Geras moral judgment.
From my standpoint, Geras view of transhistorical justice applied over Marx can be read as
a direct contradiction of the theoretical approach of historic materialism. Historical
materialism holds that material conditions determine the organisation and development of
societies. Theoretical products, forms of consciousness, religion, philosophy, justice, etc.,
can never be higher than the economic structure of society (Marx & Engels, 2000). The
concept of justice is socially functional because it sanctions the production relations that
corresponds to a specific state of society. By claiming that Marx suggests implicit ahistorical
principles of justice, Geras is contradicting the whole theoretical approach of historical
materialism. Indeed, Marx would probably respond to Geras that if a society adopts
ahistorical principles of justice, they could not function as efficiently as those which
correspond to the mode of production. Wood exemplifies this remarkably:
If a historical analysis of the role of slavery in the ancient world shows that this
institution corresponded to the prevailing mode of production, then in the Marxian
view the holding of slaves by the ancients was a just practice, not only for them but
also for us, and indeed for anyone (2004, p. 133).
From this perspective, Geras view could be read as not really materialist. Marx could say
that Geras is a non-materialist Marxist, so to speak. But this quote leads us to think something
else related to Geras. If Marx believed that it was wrong to judge the role of slavery in the
ancient world as unjust from contemporary perspectives, it would also be possible to affirm
something similar about Geras' point taking into account he is attributing some external ideas
to Marxs thought. I believe Geras falls in presentismos-histricos (presentisms) when he

analyses Marxs thoughts. Presentism is the imposition of own categories of analysis on other
horizons of historicity, obliterating possibilities of understanding their singularities and
immeasurabilities: it is the study of the past in terms of the present. Restrepo (2008) claims
that this represents an epistemic violence over other epistemologies more or less oblivious to
those operating in the present. Geras knowledge is not neutral or universal; there is no desubjectivized knowledge. Knowledge is always anchored and marked by subjects who
produce it, regardless of their reflective capacities. It is conditioned by its producers, the
context and people who receive it.
In effect, Marx and Geras belonged to different historical circumstances conditioning their
ways of thinking. However, the problem is that Geras, as a social subject, reads Marx in his
own terms. His error is that he presents his ideas as neutral and universal (transhistorical
justice is an example) and attributes them to Marxs own thoughts. This suggests that Geras
phrase Marx did think capitalism was unjust but he did not think he thought so is not
successful; it is not Marx who think like that, it is Geras interpretation of Marx.
Conclusion
I discuss Geras conviction about the implicit transhistorical justice in Marxs proposal. I
argued that an analysis beyond exegesis may be controversial, especially if Geras directly
attributes his ideas to Marxs own thoughts which in fact contradict Geras. I showed that
Marxs conception of exploitation does not refer to injustice, first, because exploitation does
not necessarily imply morality, and, second, because Marxs conception of justice responds
to his theoretical approach of historical materialism. For Marx, terms such as theft and
robbery have a pivotal role in illuminating the intern capitalist dynamics as well as reforming
the peoples conceptions of it. Consequently, there is no reason to believe Marx appeals to

transhistorical justice. Furthermore, I explained why higher standards of rights in

communism cannot be read as ahistorical principles of justice; Marx claims that communist
standards would be only applicable to communism. Timeless moral principles do not have
any efficient effect in particular modes of production. Finally, I argue that Geras proposal
falls into presentisms. He directly attributes preconceived ideas to Marxs thoughts. Both
Marx and Geras were social subjects and their knowledge responded to particular contexts.
Therefore, Geras statement Marx did think capitalism was unjust but he did not think he
thought so is not entirely successful because it is not Marxs own thoughts, it is Geras. Marx
would probably disagree with Geras but this does not mean Geras view is not useful to
present times. Ultimately, knowledge is produced continuously. Geras point is not about
Marx, it is about Geras Marxism, a renewed thought of Marx.
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