Louis,
I don't know what this is all about, but I have already noted on this
list that Bourdieu is the originator (in French) of the term "social
capital," whose relation with "cultural capital" I am unsure about. I also
noted that Bourdieu's usage is different from that which has become more
popular since, drawn on the work of Glenn Loury, James Coleman, and Robert
Putnam. They see it as some kind of communitarian trust, or whatever, that
supports civic-mindedness and voting, and avoidance of corruption, etc., all
of which "reduce transactions costs" to be momentarily neoclassical, thus
presumably improving economic performance, as Putnam explicitly argues in
his _Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy_, 1993,
Princeton University Press.
Bourdieu's concept is not exactly Marxist but is a lot closer in that
it emphasizes social relations. He develops it in the context of
traditional societies and sees at as a kind of balancing between people in
terms of obligations. Thus a Northwestern American Indian might gain
"social capital" by holding a very big potlatch which then puts his
neighbors under a social obligation to him.
I am one who has been at least somewhat critical of some of the
so-called post modern writings. But I think that Bourdieu is both less
obscure than some and has a lot to offer about a lot of questions.
I would also note that Deirdre McCloskey has been very much concerned
with problems of empirical testing and in her latest book and in a lot of
public presentations has focused on problems of econometric testing,
particularly the overemphasis on the use of R squared in regressions as a
measure of "significance." McCloskey does not reject empirical research or
econometrics, but in the spirit of Edward Leamer has been trying to "take
the 'con' out of econometrics," a worthy cause.
Barkley Rosser
-----Original Message-----
From: Louis Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Tuesday, February 23, 1999 2:45 PM
Subject: [PEN-L:3771] Bourdieu, etc.
>>Is that esoteric?
>>
>>Doug
>
>No, what you clipped from my post is what I find esoteric, the notion of
>"cultural capital".
>
>Louis Proyect
>
>(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
>
>
