I think this was meant for the list. By the way, MacKenzie somewhere explicitly critiques Butler's theory of performativity. But it's a sympathetic critique IIRC. As for the performative nature of economics, I think the more interesting finding is how economics shapes economists in its own image--the well-known finding that economics tends to make economists jerks. But of course economics does not really teach people how to perform--it's business school where people get confidence that they alone as masters of the universe can break the law without violating its true spirit while everyone else must be held to the letter and spirit of the law. That is the true psychology of the privileged class today as Luc Boltanski has pointed out. Bukharin and Veblen are not that helpful anymore in understanding bourgeois psychology
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Lakshmi Rhone <[email protected]> Date: Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 10:59 AM Subject: Re: [Pen-l] Brenner-A&R To: Paul Cockshott <[email protected]> Carnot developed thermodynamics after development of steam engine. Robt Allen argues that the development of the steam engine did not, in the first instance, depend on scientific or technological knowledge unique to the UK but simply on factor prices (cheap energy, expensive labor) that made the Industrial Revolution uniquely economical in the UK. Another important factor was state power, viz. the state power to protect nascent British industry and eviscerate Indian industry. This point is argued by Prasannan Parthasarathi. On Sun, Jul 29, 2012 at 11:40 PM, Paul Cockshott < [email protected]> wrote: > How much significance should we give to the advances in physics that made > possible the invention of practical steam engines. With only wind and water > power, the scope for industrialisation in Europe would have been much lower. > This wouldmean that the universities and scientific research base were > crucial. > > --- original message --- > From: "Lakshmi Rhone" <[email protected]> > Subject: [Pen-l] Brenner-A&R > Date: 27th July 2012 > Time: 10:30:49 pm > > > What Brenner accurately specifies as capitalist social and property > relations, A&R vaguely call inclusive institutions. Brenner suggests > that what you get out of pre-capitalist social relations is cathedrals and > weapons of repression. I think that this underestimates > the kind of technological advance that did take place, especially in the > Song Dynasty. You would have there what both B and A&R would describe > as extractive institutions, but the result was not limited or simply > extensive growth but a profound outburst of growth. And to the extent > that you get even more astonishing growth in the West, it happens well > after the establishment of what Brenner specifies as capitalist property > relations > and the reason for that explosive and productivity growth, relatively > speaking across cultures and over time, is probably less a result > of some special advantage in institutions but fortuitous factor price > advantages that made industrialization economical in the UK, as Robert > Allen has explained. > My other concern is that to the extent that we see capitalist property > relations as alone capable of making broad based technological progress > possible, we end up as apologists for those relations. This is certainly > where A&R end up. > > ------------------------------ > The University of Glasgow, charity number SC004401 >
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