I was adding to Ian's post, not Tom's. I do agree that "bourgeiois ideology" is a phrase to avoid. I don't think I've used it very often on this (or any other) e-list.
So I'll accept Tom's argument below. Carrol -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Tom Walker Sent: Friday, April 18, 2014 9:16 AM To: Progressive Economics Subject: Re: [Pen-l] Ants at the Piketty Picnic: What's Wrong with "Inequality"? That is a VERY small point, Carrol. I used that construction to establish a conversational tone, not to state a confirmed universal Truth. You will notice that I didn't start the sentence with "It is a well known fact..." You seem to be unaware that arguments which contain an allegation of "bourgeois ideology" are at best lazy and contentless expressions of smug self-righteousness? Also you needlessly repeated the word "obscure," which makes your conclusion doubly obscure. On Fri, Apr 18, 2014 at 6:33 AM, Carrol Cox <[email protected]> wrote: I have just a small point to add to what Ian argues below. Most, if not all, arguments, analyses, etc that begin with "people want" are at the best irrelevant and/or false, at the worse strong expressions of bourgeois ideology. They obscure obscure reality -- sometimes deliberately. Carrol -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Eubulides Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2014 8:41 PM To: PEN-L Subject: Re: [Pen-l] Ants at the Piketty Picnic: What's Wrong with "Inequality"? ________________________________ > Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2014 16:07:28 -0500 > From: [email protected] > > That's not strong enough. > > I submit to you that people want to get rich not to be freed from > coercion, but to be able to *exercise* coercive power over their fellow > men and women. > > -raghu. ============== Sorry, not rich enough; there are enormous numbers of people immersed in systems of production and administration who are not rich who nonetheless exercise significant coercive power over others. Cops, for example; managers 'low' in corporate hierarchies. Building code inspectors, airline pilots, nurses, software developers, judges etc. Plenty of those jobs involve varieties of coercion that Warren Buffett and other old-fashioned capitalists don't need to deploy. The microdynamics of coercion are, in a sense, a free lunch for Buffett and his ilk precisely because of the history of coercive practices that have been developed over the last several hundred years. "The dull compulsion of the markets" and all that. The head of the king is still not cut off. E. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l -- Cheers, Tom Walker (Sandwichman) _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
