Another excerpt from Francis Wheen's : „Karl Marx, a life“
DIGRESSION: ON PRODUCTIVE LABOR
(It was said that Marx was greately influenced by notable ironist Swift.)
A philosopher produces idea, a poet poems, a clergyman sermons, a professor compendia and so on. A criminal produces crimes. If we take acloser look at the convention between this latter branch of production and society as a whole, we shall rid ouself of many prejudices. The criminal produces not only crime but also criminal law, and with this also the professors who give lecture on criminal law and in addition to this the inevitable compendium in which this same professor throws his lectures on to the general market as ?commodity'… The moreower produce the whole of the police and the criminal justice, constables, judges, hangmen, juries, etc; and all these diferent lines of business, which form just as many categories of the social division of labor, develop different capacities of the human mind, create new needs and new ways of sadisfying them. Torture alone has given rise to the most ingenious mechanical inventions, and employed many honourable craftsmen in the production of its instruments. The criminal produces an impression, partly moral and partly tragic, as the case may be, and in this way renders a 'service' by aousing the moral and aesthetic feeling of the public. He produces not only compendia on Criminal Law, not only penal codes and along with them legislators on this field, but also art, belles- lettres, novels, and even tragedies, as not only Mullner's Schuld and Schiller's Rauber show, but Oedipus and Richard the Third… The effects of criminal on the development of productive power can be sow in detail. Would locks ever have reached their present degree of excellence had ther been no thieves? Woul the making of banknotes have reached its present perfection had there been no forgers?... And if one leaves the sphere of private crime, would be the world market everhave come into being but for national crime? Indeed, would even the nations have arisen? And has not the Tree of Sin been at the same time the Tree of Knowlege ever since the time of Adam?
Page 308-309
Post je objavljen 03.04.2011. u 23:27 sati.