"Cold beer, here! Cold beer, here!" Hey pen-pals, I've been uploading megabytes to Pen-l about how the marginalist discourse of "immutability of subjects" hinges -- yes, I said *hinges* -- on a late Victorian pantomime that is occasionally presented under the ridiculous sobriquet of the "lump-of-labour fallacy". The anachronistic sound of the term should have been enough to set off a few alarm bells. Do I have to spell it out? You know, lump as in "immutable", labour as in "labouring subject". The problem with many pomoistas, from my experience, is that they seem to be so interested in endlessly "talking about doing" something that they don't notice when it is actually being done. Imagine you are reading an current introductory economics textbook and come across the phrase "the nigger-lover fallacy" used in reference to affirmative action policies or you find matter-of-fact references to "members of the weaker sex" and "homo perverts" or even an entire section devouted to the "jewing-down-of-prices fallacy" that begins "Many adherents of the Hebrew faith believe they can obtain a commercial advantage by haggling over the price. This is clearly a fallacy . . ." But I guess that's all too terrifyingly specific for a discourse about the "immutability of subjects-in-general." Tom Walker http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
