Jim:
1. Jagganath
> Were does the _sole_ come from? not from me. I'd say "main," not
> "sole,"
I give up trying to pin down your notion of juggernaut capitalism.
2. Apriorism
> You don't think that systems of patriarchy and ethnic domination are
> conservative, a matter of those in charge fighting to preserve their
> powers
In this reductive sense capitalism would qualify too -- wealth-holders
also fight to protect their privilege and power. But we would agree
that while capitalism privileges capitalists, it cannot be described as
merely a system of privilege. So let's extend that insight!
> or to try to restore the _status quo_ ante, if they lost power in the
> past? I have a hard time seeing these systems as "revolutionary"
> the way capitalism is -- revolutionizing even its own conditions
> of production, disrupting even its own status quo -- because
> these systems (when considered abstractly, independent
> of capitalism) do not involve limitless
> accumulation the way that capitalism does.
Is "revolutionary" being defined in such a way that only capitalism
qualifies? How is the above different from a GACohenesque
statement of the materialist theory of history? Tautology lurks!
> Articulated with capitalism, the
> advantages of those the top of the gender or race hierarchy can
> accumulate wealth and power on the basis of their position, but
> without that, their advantage involves receiving use-values,
> which become increasingly hard to accumulate.
Is this a statement that anything "revolutionary" must be associated
with rapid accumulation?
> Also, the power of the patriarchs and the dominant ethnic
> groups involves _restraining_ competition, whereas capital is
> inherently competitive.
I see no reason to assume either statement.
...
> But then there's the powerful homeostatic tendency (the
> conservatism) of these institutions, which pushes to protect or
> restore privileges.
So the underlying idea here is that noncapitalist institutions are
merely characterized by "privilege," which by definition can have
no dynamic beyond struggles over how much the privileged get
at the expense of the unprivileged -- a lot of pushing back and
forth. Hence the notions of "conservative" and "homeostasis"
-- these are really just implications of the same idea.
So far I see nothing that is inductively generated from
the study of gender or ethnicity or culture. What is written is
reductive, apriorist reasoning.
3. Really, really real
> suppose that capitalism _isn't_ real.
> Does that mean that it's simply in our minds? does that mean that if
> we could simply convince people to think differently, all that nasty
> money-grubbing stuff, that search for the maximum surplus-value,
> would go away? should we all try to convert people to a new religion
> (or a new atheism) in order to convince them to stop acting in a
> capitalist way?
Nothing I've written implies this kind of position, which we both agree
is rubbish.
4. No! *this* is how the world works!
> What is _your_ theory of the way the "modern"
> world is working, why it's moving in the direction it
> seems to be moving? I've been willing to stick my neck out and
> put forth my theory.... Now it's your turn.
Nice try.
> _Any_ theory can be criticized,
You betcha.
> since _no_ theory corresponds exactly
> to the empirical world. Or do you exempt your own theory from
> this rule?
When I do conceive a single world-explaining theory, which I expect
to get in a vision any time now, it will be immaculate, because it
will already incorporate all critiques of itself.
5. Questions
For you or anyone else:
1. Is it possible to explain why class is privileged analytically,
without resorting to tautology?
2. What *do* we mean when we say "capitalism"? There seem to be
at least three senses. (a) we identify capitalist relations of
production,
and the word "capitalism" adds no meaning -- it signifies no more than
the presence of capitalist relations. (b) capitalist relations are
taken to
be so dominant that they in some way fundamentally structure a given
society and historical period (c) such "capitalism" can now be taken to
drive history, with noncapitalism reduced to mere resistance. This
sometimes goes under the names of modernization or globalization.
Consider point (b). If a lot of output in a society is produced
by unwaged household labor, what does it mean to
call that society capitalist? If gender relations are fundamental to
structuring workplaces, what happens when we seize on a
nongendered set of categories to provide the fundamental
characterization of thoee workplaces?
Best, Colin
