Partly the reason for the jargon is that I do not
think I am being original in saying what I am saying,
and I think that some of your interpretation is better
put in some respects. The thing is, I find it odd that
the term social is arguable under capitalism. Maybe
the next discussion will deal with the category of the
"ugly" in aesthetics under capitalism.
Certainly the meaning of social is context based,
e.g. one can have social and private which is what I
had in mind. Another example is what the private
sector’s interpretation of social was, namely
networking. That was completely irrelevant in a social
science context since it will not, as a concept, add
to the understanding of how human development occurs.
As to your interpretation of the social, I gather it
is that which exists within reach of human
intervention as opposed to out of reach. If that is
the case, there will always be things to which humans
cannot have access e.g. the universe, hence the
natural exists outside the social, so a wooden table
is social but not natural since it is man that cut the
tree and transformed it into a table. Hence, social is
not a pervasive category. I think two questions (at
least two) come to be asked, one the relevance of this
conception to a betterment of social science, i.e.
does it help us understand human development better
and, two, in which system of thought should such a
definition of the social be situated.
On the first score, that anomalies exist could be
dated back to ancient Chinese philosophy, everything
exists along side its opposite, Kantian categories are
a good take off on this. There are at least some
things that have not changed much over some years.
Markets and subsistence, money and barter are a good
example of things that existed long before capitalism
and still exist today. So one way of characterizing
why capitalism should be different than other
historical periods is that there are now more markets
and more exchange is carried out with money. Not bad.
But that is not capitalism, many societies in the east
had more markets and more money in the middle ages but
were not capitalist. What distinguishes capitalism is
a relationship by which a few people get better off
by exploiting a mass of people that do not own their
means of subsistence, hence the private expropriation
and the social production under capitalism. And so,
all other theories on hold, all commodities that
represent society’s wealth have to be socially owned.
The social has come to mean the collectivisation of
production. Now, so that you do not think that I am
straying away, when you say that “Non-capitalist
societies also altered streams and transformed nature
in various ways” yes they did they also had money and
markets, but that was not capitalism. The phrase
capital consumes man and nature comes literally from
Marx. So what happens to the new relationship of man
to nature under capitalism. Is this also going to be
driven by the fact that there is more people
destroying nature or is there a new relationship by
which the development of man outstrips nature from its
naturalness so to speak. It may be that there exists
a certain arithmetic by which we simply add up people
and see the effect on nature, or is the profit motive
at deadly odds with nature. It is rather the latter.
There you have another concrete contradiction under
capitalism. All the concrete contradictions that can
be invoked under capitalism and how they work each
other out in reality makes totality.
Now comes the methodological qualification. Are
markets under capitalism and previous periods the
same. Well for one thing all of our livelihood depends
on the market, in previous times markets were used for
luxury goods only. So in different times the concept
market takes different shapes. Now is your concept
social going to be the same now and then. I think not.
The rate at which the earth is mindlessly mined now
far supersedes then because when locked in the private
drive for profits, the excesses, the social excesses,
via the visible hand are huge. In the same vain,
social becomes the fashion by which humans appropriate
nature and make it social nature under capitalism,
which is by all means huge. That is why I was willing
to pay for that untouched stream on earth, one that
escaped acid rain, this may yet exist in America and
it could be called “main-stream economics, main-stream
sociology, etc.
Now for question number two, where should we put this
unchanging concept of social. I am worried that these
classes of concepts are poor because they take you
back to the sort of vacuous situation where relative
to everything one has nothing. It is inappropriate for
concrete and historically determined thought to use
tools that are invariably true for all times. I think
this concept should go to metaphysics. There one finds
things that are immutable in time, like universals,
and a structure of thought like positivism, i.e. where
things happen because they will themselves to happen.
On the subordination of science to power, the oft
quoted example is how in Nazi Germany nearly all
scientist kowtowed the state’s line remain a benchmark
for the sociology of knowledge.
On the issue of the state intervention in science one
would have to have a theory of the state. Is it a
partner of capital or not.
That is another question.
Excuse the spelling I have a French keyboard and I was
never good at typing.
--- Ken Hanly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Well I just object to what seemed outrageous
> abstract academic term
> slinging. I dont think it adds anything to a
> discussion, except to reflect
> the conspicuous production of signs significant only
> to some elite
> fraternity. This is not to say that abstractions and
> special terms cannot be
> useful.
> If I understand the passage talking about the
> concept of man in the
> reproduction of social life etc. I think I agree but
> I am not sure. I still
> find the terminology somewhat of a barrier. Is the
> following part at least
> of what you are saying?
> The way in which people live and continue to
> live is dependent on
> particular forms of social organisation and
> relations.
> I don't see why "material" is singled out.
> All life is material
> ultimately. Of course there is a contrast possible
> with the material versus
> thought but then thoughts, language, concepts, etc.
> are also dependent (to a
> degree at least) upon the "social". Of course, it
> might be possible for
> individual people to live as a castaway but the vast
> majority of people
> llive and no doubt always will live in social groups
> with certain
> organisational forms and relations. One of the
> basic errors of the
> "atomic" individualist approach is to abstract from
> these relations and
> posit a certain human nature...usually egoistic..
> apart from these and to
> try to interpret all collective relationships as
> functions of the
> intereaction...eg through contract. for
> example....of these individuals.
> What's the significance of a stream being
> natural? I suppose there
> still are some that are relatively unaltered by
> human activity. But being
> natural or unnatural as a stream has nothing to do
> with capitalism per se.
> Non-capitalist societies also altered streams and
> transformed nature in
> various ways.
> Of course the physical world is altered by
> capitalist relations of
> production. You say capital consumes both man and
> nature. Does this mean
> that material resources and labor power are used in
> capitalist production?
> Thats true but would surely be true in any form of
> production wouldnt it?
> "forms of consciousness come to reflect this
> relationship of man's relationship with nature.." A
> phrase such as "this
> relationship of man's relationship with nature"
> just sets my brain
> spinning.
> Is this an example of what you mean. Under
> capitalism natural resources
> such as trees, land, minerals, and water are seen as
> exploitable and
> consumable for profit. Because of this people come
> to think of these
> resources as of primarily instrumental value, and
> as valuable only insofar
> as they are exploitable by capital. This contrasts
> with the viewpoint of
> deep ecologists and others. This shows by the way
> that not all persons way
> of thinking will reflect a dominant way of thinking.
> While I agree that science is often ideological
> I dont personally see
> that talk of a big bang is clerical. Do you mean
> clerical as in religion or
> in some other manner? The practical appllication of
> science such as in
> testing the safety of GM seeds seems a more typical.
> example of where
> science as ideology is more evident. Just to give a
> dramatic example. Only
> one set of test data that was used by the Canadian
> govt. to assess the
> safety of GM seeds was made available to a panel of
> experts of the Canadian
> Royal Society that was assessing the process for the
> government since the
> data was regarded as proprieetary information. As
> the
> panel pointed out, a standard requirement in
> science in evaluation is open
> availability of data and confirmation by peer
> assessment. Although the
> government claims its assessments are science based,
> the assessments violate
> a basic requirement of science-based assessment. So
> "science" reflects
> ideology. OF course in research paid for by
> corporations results are
> proprietary and hence none of this science will be
> scientific as based upon
> independent critiques and assessment. This is not to
> say that the research
> results are not sound only that we do not have
> standard scientific
> assurances that they are. Yet these research results
> will be used in
> hearings and other fora to make the claim that GM
> safety assessment is
> science-based.
> CHeers, Ken Hanly
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: ALI KADRI <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Friday, February 16, 2001 5:48 AM
> Subject: [PEN-L:8185] Re: Re: Re: Social Capital
>
>
> > That is ok, the "in the begenning" clause was
> meant
> > anecdotaly in reference to a sid. hook
> understanding
> > of the matter. of course you know this is a matter
> of
> > definitions and it it is not easy to squeeze this
> in
> > one sentence, so best to skim over that in this
> > context. certainly you would agree with the
> concept of
> > man in the reproduction of material life being
> social
> > ie could not exist in the physical apart from the
> > forms of orgnization of society and the social
> > relations attendant on it. of course analytically
> you
> > can separate the social from the physical aspects
> but
> > is this realistic, eg, is there such a thing as a
> > natural stream under capitalism, i for one, am
> willing
> > to pay to see a stream untouched by a relationsip
> > called capital/ capial consumes both man and
> nature.
> > forms of consciousness come to reflect this
> > relationship of man's relationship with nature,
> which
> > under the speicifc historical condition of
> capitalism
> > also reflect class and class interests, so much
> so,
> > that natural science like nature does not escape
> the
> > hold of ideology. so will see now in physics for
> > instance, a clerical like interpretation of the
> origin
> > of the universe, eg inflation theory and big bang
> etc.
> > many physiists talk like clerics. the extent to
> which
> > facts can be perverted, in this crisis age, is
> higher
> > than in the age of thales ( he was a refugee to
> asia
> > minor escaping the wrath of godkings in the near
> > east). so the ether substratum of thales dims in
> > relative ignorance when compared to mainstream
> science
> > today.
> > --- Ken Hanly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: ALI KADRI <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > > To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > > Sent: Tuesday, February 13, 2001 3:46 PM
> > > Subject: [PEN-L:8058] Re: Social Capital
> > >
> > > Everything is social to begin with? What is that
> > > supposed to mean.?
> > > In the beginning God made the social and saw
> that it
> > > was good and
> > > the represenation of TOTALITY. Why not Thales'
> view
> > > that in the beginning
> > > was water the totality that became air, and
> earth
> > > etc
> > > At least Thales view is not some intellectual
> > > gobbledygook and is
> > > materialist ( or may be) to boot.
> > >
> > > Also if everything is social how can there be a
> > > social being which reflects
>
=== message truncated ===
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