At 01:12 PM 10/7/97 -0400, Shawgi Tell wrote, inter alia:
> Irrationalism is the only "system of thought," if it can be
>called a system, by which the bourgeoisie justifies everything. The
>most damaging product of this irrationalism is the theory of "human
>nature." It presupposes that all human beings are bestowed,
>preordained or preconditioned with certain qualities that are
>immutable. The bourgeoisie glibly states that it is "only human" to
>possess these enduring qualities. Of course, these qualities are
>none other than the habits of the bourgeoisie. They do not see,
>they do not want to see, a human being who has communist qualities.
I do not think the label "irrationalism" is a particularly useful way of
explaining how a given ideology works, especially that, if taken literally,
the claim that capitalism is irrational is demonstrably false. I think we
must distinguish two qualitatively different phenomena here:
(i) the actual process of decision making under capitalism that faces well
known limitations resulting in externalities; while the externalities may
pose, in a long run, a serious social problem -- their existence hardly
qualifies "capitalism" as "irrational" except perhaps in a figurative sense,
as used by Baran & Sweezy;
(ii) the ex post facto legitimation of the decisions already made and
courses of action already taken, also known as rationalization; under that
rubric, we have the quoted stories about human nature, invisible hands, and
kindred metaphysical Deus ex machina entities created for the sole purpose
of explaining events by politically acceptable narratives; sure, such
rationalizations amount to fantasies, but their existence is hardly unique
to capitalism (every society has its own mythology); nor does anyone
seriously maintain (save for die-hard neo-classical economists) that these
fictions are actual factors in making real life decisions by real life actors.
A more fruitful approach is the study of collective decision making (and
their unintended consequences) and the role of myth and ceremony in modern
bureaucracies -- both areas rather extensively studied by organizational
sociology.
PS. There is an intersting article by Heilbroner in the last issue of The
Nation, commenting onthi pittfalls of the conventional economic theory, and
advocating the consideration of social variables in explaining economic
behavior.
regards,
wojtek sokolowski
institute for policy studies
johns hopkins university
baltimore, md 21218
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
voice: (410) 516-4056
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POLITICS IS THE SHADOW CAST ON SOCIETY BY BIG BUSINESS. AND AS LONG AS THIS
IS SO, THE ATTENUATI0N OF THE SHADOW WILL NOT CHANGE THE SUBSTANCE.
- John Dewey
