Re: Zizek on PKs
Pen-L'ers, All who have participated in the on-going discussions/debates on both theories of ideology and historical materialism, keep it up !!! By far this is some of the most intelligent and relevant exchange I've seen on pen-l. Signed, a respectful lurker, John Gulick Ph. D. Candidate Sociology Graduate Program University of California-Santa Cruz (415) 643-8568 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Deleuze-Guattari
Louis said: The important question for Marxists is why these irrational ideologies get a mass following. I explain this in terms of economic crisis. Fascism arises at a time when there is great unemployment and/or hyperinflation and in societies that have a rather well-developed working-class movement, such as Italy, Spain and Germany. The fascist movement gains a middle-class base because it stresses a "national socialism", one that rises above the class antagonisms of Bolshevism. This message has an enormous appeal to the shopkeeper and farmer, who were ruined by the capitalist class and inconvenienced by working-class militancy. A mobilized middle-class and lumpen-proletariat is financed and supported by the big bourgeoisie through the back-door. This mass movement attacks the trade unions and left parties until the workers are defeated. The regime that arises out of this violent struggle soon cuts its ties to the middle-class mass movement. This is a historical materialist presentation of the rise of fascism which I find useful. I can of course fill in the details, if you'd like. Little young me said: I thought recent reputable historical research has shown that a sizable percentage of the German working class (formally defined) supported the Nazis (although of course this percentage mushroomed when the Depression took hold) -- especially workers from certain regions, in certain trades and industries, with certain wartime experiences, from certain religious backgrounds, etc. (I don't mean to sound like I'm doing a positivistic factor analysis here). Louis, I think your formula is too formulaic. Logically there's no reason why an ideology of transcending the perpetual strife of class warfare (as well as the petty bickering and compromise of bourgeois politics in the face of crisis, another conditioning feature which you fail to mention) cannot appeal to a significant portion of the working class. Louis said: So the combination of four years of trench warfare, strike-breaking, police repression and rural deprivation made socialism seem like a good idea to millions of suffering Russians. I regret that this lacks philosophical profundity, but it sort of makes sense to me. Little young me said: I don't think socialism (much less Bolshevism) appealed to the vast majority of peasants (and of course Russia was mostly peasants at the time) -- to the extent that they espoused any political philosophy it was one of communal self-reliance and resistance to the predations of the state (the draft) and state-backed landlords (rents). The Bolsheviks were best organized to supplant the collapsing Tsarist State and Provincial Government and seemingly best equipped to withdraw from WWI, and thus relieve the peasants from wartime death and famine. To the extent that there was outright proactive support (as opposed to support by default) for the Bolsheviks it was because they had made nebulous promises for land reform. This is a big difference from explicit and conscious support for socialism, whether it be NEP "socialism" or forced draft industrialization "socialism". I'm not anything approaching an expert or even a learned dilettante on Germany or Russia but this is my understanding of the inter-war situation in the two countries. Best, John Gulick Ph. D. Candidate Sociology Graduate Program University of California-Santa Cruz (415) 643-8568 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Truth
Because of the change in the address, this message did not go through last time. I hope it goes this time. ajit ricardo: All claims to truth are "arbitrary"? In saying this you can easily fall prey to the kind of criticism Devine has correctly made against you. You mean incorrectly? See my response to Jim. _ Perhaps you meant that since the first principles of a philosophy cannot be proven true, they are arbitrary. __ That's true! _ But Hegel abandoned this attempt to BEGIN philosophy with a set of "first" principles. First principles will always lie exterior to reason. Reason can only justify itself through its own experience; it has no need of another principle except its own act of reasoning. To seek a firm foundation apart from the act of reasoning is like trying to swim without getting into the water. ___ But do you think Hegel succeeded in his attempt. I think there are lots of ideas in Hegel which are simply posited. And then of course the logicians think that dialectics is all mumbo zumbo anyway, but I'm not saying that. Ajit continues: Hegel is a totalizing thinker. Once you get inside of it, there is no way out--there is nothing outside of it. ricardo: I think this is a valid criticism; and I think you are correct that pursuing this issue in any complex way will demand a detailed reading of Hegel, something which may be inappropriate in this forum (pen-l). Ajit: I also think that there will be no scope for 'multiculturalism' in Hegel's world-- the state of freedom is an unicultural state, the universal destiny of 'mankind', to which somehow orientals don't belong. ricado: To me multiculturalism is not a solution but a problem: ___ I know, and that's my problem with your position. _ does the full recognition of cultural practices associated with minorities conflict with the recognition of individual rights and political liberties? ___ This is not a question of majorities and minorities. 'Hindus' are the majority in India. Some cultures do not have the same sense of "individuality" and "individual rights" as the modern western cultures and Hegel have. You don't have to go too far, take a look at the traditional native American culture itself. Again the question is not that whether the native Americans' sense of individuality is in conflict with the predominant cultural norms of "individual rights and cultural liberties" in America. Even if it did conflict, the multiculturalist must protect and respect the predominant American cultural norms. It is a part of the multicultural fabric. The problem arises when one culture, usually the dominant culture, argues that it is the only "reasonable" way to live and the other cultures must 'assimilate', i.e. accept a cultural genocide. I do think that the question of justice for all requires to be thought through seriously though. On what principle a sense of justice could be built? Cheers, ajit sinha
Re: Truth?
At 11:37 5/10/97 -0500, Paul Zarembka asked : ** Reply to note from Ajit Sinha [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sun, 05 Oct 1997 18:46:45 +1000 Is it time for this list to get into "absolute truth" or "objective truth", "relative truth", and Lenin's MATERIALISM AND EMPIRIO-CRITICISM? Paul _ No. I don't think so. I think we have had enough of truth already, and we should let Lenin rest in these rough times. Cheers, ajit sinha * Paul Zarembka, supporting the RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY Web site at http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka and using OS/2 Warp. * cc: Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ajit Sinha [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: truth
At 08:52 6/10/97 -0700, Jim wrote: Is it a central part of post-rational "thought" that one simply repeats one's point rather than defending it? (or to find jokes that aren't there?) So, I'll repeat mine: in what sense can one "show" the "arbitrariness of all the truth claims"? why should we believe your "demonstration" if it is also arbitrary? why should we listen to you if you are not making truth claims of some sort? (are you claiming that we should read your postings to pen-l because they are aesthetically pleasing?) ___ Where in the book of "rational thought" is it written that James Devine determines the terms of the debates? You have implicitly made a claim to somekind of "truth" without spelling it out, i.e. you have made an assertion that there is something called truth and "rational" thought must refer to such truth in its discourse. Now, the burden is on you to establish this position. Once you do that, only then you can ask me to expose its arbitrariness. As far as finding jokes where there wasn't any is concerned, it only testifies to my sense of humor and your lack of it. what do you mean by "arbitrary"? The most fitting definitions in my dictionary have this word meaning "based on or determined by individual preference or convenience rather than necessity or the intrinsic nature of something" or "existing or coming about seemingly at random or by chance or as a capricious and unreasonable act of will" (WEBSTER'S NINTH NEW COLLEGIATE DICTIONARY.) If you are asserting that assertions of truth necessarily have subjective components, I agree. _ So you give the game up? By 'arbitrary' I mean propositions which are not justified by 'reason'. They are posited, presupposed. Rest of your post is an exercise in selfcontradiction. And I'm not in a mood to take pleasure in pointing them out. My general sense is that you are confusing the idea of empirical 'facts' with 'truth'. In your case there would be as many truths as empirical facts, and your position would degenerate into most absurd empiricism of all. Cheers, ajit sinha I don't think anyone ever can know the "absolute" or "objective" truth. So any assertion of such knowledge is more than merely arbitrary. It's ideological. But some propositions are more true than others; some are less ideological than others. Some views are more logical, fit with the actuality of the phenomenon being described (which unfortunately can only be understood via empirical evidence), or are methodologically more sound than others. Some are better guides to practice than others. The difficulty is that the truth about world that exists outside of our perceptions is that it's multidimensional, complex. So, for example, a proposition that's more logically coherent than another could easily be less consistent with known evidence. People can choose between a variety of different propositions that are "equally true" following their subjective desires. But that does not make efforts to get a greater understanding of what the heck is going on "arbitrary" or futile. Assertions of truth aren't _simply_ subjective. Many of them can be knocked down, criticized for being illogical, not fitting the evidence, incomplete, etc. Some of them can't be falsified in any way. Though I reject Popperian hard-core falsificationism, it seems a good idea to make it explicit when a proposition isn't falsifiable and try to avoid relying too much on such propositions. The point is that there are constraints on our subjective choices about what we think is true or untrue. I think it's pretty well established that Elvis is dead and that the Nazis killed a whole lot of innocent people. My assertions of the truth of these propositions are not arbitrary (though perhaps my choice of which propositions to make was arbitrary). Paul, it's been a long time since I read Lenin's contributions on this stuff. I wish you or someone would summarize it for pen-l. in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clawww.lmu.edu/1997F/ECON/jdevine.html Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ. 7900 Loyola Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90045-8410 USA 310/338-2948 (daytime, during workweek); FAX: 310/338-1950 "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- K. Marx, paraphrasing Dante A.
Cuba: capitalist success seems far from certain
October 7, 1997 Sherritt Rocks the Boat in Cuba But Success Is Not In-Shored By PETER FRITSCH and JOSE DE CORDOBA Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL HAVANA -- Ian Delaney brings a rare board meeting here to a close one recent afternoon, late for an engagement back in Toronto. But he can't get away just yet: A Cuban citizen holding 100 shares of his company, Canada's Sherritt International Corp., would like an audience with the chairman. While such small-time shareholders usually get shunted off to investor relations, this one is named Fidel Castro, Cuba's voluble Comandante en Jefe, who is engaged in a grudging flirtation with capitalism. Mr. Delaney will miss his Toronto appointment. The meeting, like the shares -- which Mr. Delaney gave to the Cuban leader last year to hold "in trust for the Republic of Cuba" -- are symbolic of Sherritt's increasingly cozy business relationship with this island nation of 11 million. No other foreign company here has charted a course so dependent on a country whose motto continues to be "Socialism or Death." Toronto-based Sherritt International was formed in 1995 when Sherritt Inc., a Canadian fertilizer and mining concern, split in two. Fertilizer interests went into a company subsequently named Viridian Inc. Sherritt International was formed specifically to continue to do business with Cuba, where it has invested about $200 million in everything from nickel mining and oil to hotels and produce farming. Last November, Sherritt raised $500 million from an issue of convertible debentures for further investments here. "Our fingerprints are all over the way business gets done in Cuba," says the 54-year-old Mr. Delaney in an interview at Sherritt's Cuban headquarters in a suburban Havana mansion. "We work overtime to educate these people" about how a market economy works. But despite Sherritt's clout, the payoff has been bittersweet and success seems far from certain. The company's halting progress is being closely watched as a barometer of the pitfalls and possibilities of investing in Cuba, a country still in desperate economic straits. On the down side, Sherritt's Cuba dealings have earned Mr. Delaney, 10 other executives and their families the ire of the U.S. State Department, which last year forbade them entry into the U.S. for violating the Helms-Burton law. The law punishes people who "traffic" in stolen property -- the property in question being U.S. corporate assets nationalized after Cuba's 1959 revolution. The U.S. action, roundly condemned by the majority of the international community, puts Mr. Delaney, wife Kiki and their two sons on the same list with Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi. But perhaps most important for the company's investors, Sherritt has been largely unable to put the fruit of its $500 million debt issue to work here, despite the company's designation by Cuba as a "desired investor." Sherritt's share price, according to investors, reflects frustration with the slow pace of its Cuban investments, political worries related to a recent rash of bombings in Havana hotels, and low nickel prices. Sherritt shares closed Monday at $5.694 on the Toronto Stock Exchange, off its 52-week high of $6.935. (The company earned about $24.3 million on revenue of $208 million in 1996.) "They'll likely try to put a good face on it, but the reality is that the investment climate here has soured considerably in the past two years," a western diplomat in Havana says. The main reason for that, analysts say, is that Mr. Castro has braked hard on the limited economic reforms begun in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. While Mr. Delaney may well be Mr. Castro's favorite capitalist, it appears that Mr. Castro remains wary of capitalists of any stripe. "Cuba is trying to act with caution regarding Sherritt to avoid a great concentration of power in one company," says Omar Everleny, an economist with the Center for Cuban Economic Studies, a government think tank in Havana. The upshot for foreign companies, even favored ones like Sherritt, is clear: The standstill in economic reform makes it difficult to invest here. That means Sherritt investors will have to wait longer than anticipated to see a return on their investment. The clampdown is likely to get uglier. Anticapitalist rhetoric has reached a fever pitch in advance of Wednesday's Communist Party Congress. The state-owned newspaper Trabajadores, or Workers, recently urged the party to "halt the mercantilist, disintegrative and individualistic effect" of economic reform in 1993 that allowed the average Cuban to hold U.S. dollars. The Cuban rhetoric doesn't seem to bother Mr. Delaney. "The reality is that there's a very live and healthy political debate that goes on here; this is not a monolithic system," he says. At any rate, he adds, Sherritt doesn't depend on Mr. Castro, who is 71 years old and, according to diplomats and other observers, isn't in the best of health, for its
Business as Religion or Religion as Business?
N E W S B R E A K MICROSOFT Bids to Acquire Catholic Church By Hank Vorjes VATICAN CITY (AP) -- In a joint press conference in St. Peter's Square this morning, MICROSOFT Corp. and the Vatican announced that the Redmond software giant will acquire the Roman Catholic Church in exchange for an unspecified number of shares of MICROSOFT common stock. If the deal goes through, it will be the first time a computer software company has acquired a major world religion. With the acquisition, Pope John Paul II will become the senior vice-president of the combined company's new Religious Software Division, while MICROSOFT senior vice-presidents Michael Maples and Steven Ballmer will be invested in the College of Cardinals, said MICROSOFT Chairman Bill Gates. "We expect a lot of growth in the religious market in the next five to ten years," said Gates. "The combined resources of MICROSOFT and the Catholic Church will allow us to make religion easier and more fun for a broader range of people." Through the MICROSOFT Network, the company's new on-line service, "we will make the sacraments available on-line for the first time" and revive the popular pre-Counter-Reformation practice of selling indulgences, said Gates. "You can get Communion, confess your sins, receive absolution - even reduce your time in Purgatory - all without leaving your home." A new software application, MICROSOFT Church, will include a macro language which you can program to download heavenly graces automatically while you are away from your computer. An estimated 17,000 people attended the announcement in St Peter's Square, watching on a 60-foot screen as comedian Don Novello - in character as Father Guido Sarducci - hosted the event, which was broadcast by satellite to 700 sites worldwide. Pope John Paul II said little during the announcement. When Novello chided Gates, "Now I guess you get to wear one of these pointy hats", the crowd roared, but the pontiff's smile seemed strained. The deal grants MICROSOFT exclusive electronic rights to the Bible and the Vatican's prized art collection, which includes works by such masters as Michelangelo and Da Vinci. But critics say MICROSOFT will face stiff challenges if it attempts to limit competitors' access to these key intellectual properties. "The Jewish people invented the look and feel of the holy scriptures", said Rabbi David Gottschalk of Philadelphia. "You take the parting of the Red Sea -- we had that thousands of years before the Catholics came on the scene." But others argue that the Catholic and Jewish faiths both draw on a common Abrahamic heritage. "The Catholic Church has just been more successful in marketing it to a larger audience," notes Notre Dame theologian Father Kenneth Madigan. Over the last 2,000 years, the Catholic Church's market share has increased dramatically, while Judaism, which was the first to offer many of the concepts now touted by Christianity, lags behind. Historically, the Church has a reputation as an aggressive competitor, leading crusades to pressure people to upgrade to Catholicism, and entering into exclusive licensing arrangements in various kingdoms whereby all subjects were instilled with Catholicism, whether or not they planned to use it. Today Christianity is available from several denominations, but the Catholic version is still the most widely used. The Church's mission is to reach "the four corners of the earth," echoing MICROSOFT's vision of "a computer on every desktop and in every home". Gates described MICROSOFT's long-term strategy to develop a scalable religious architecture that will support all religions through emulation. A single core religion will be offered with a choice of interfaces according to the religion desired -- "One religion, a couple of different implementations," said Gates. The MICROSOFT move could spark a wave of mergers and acquisitions, according to Herb Peters, a spokesman for the U.S. Southern Baptist Conference, as other churches scramble to strengthen their position in the increasingly competitive religious market. KBviaNewsEDGE Copyright (c) 1994 Knight-Ridder / Tribune Business News Received via NewsEDGE from Desktop Data, Inc.: 03/07/94 19:20 (Actually, this was, received from Fraser Hess, Denver, CO--G)
Re: Truth?
** Reply to note from [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tue, 07 Oct 1997 19:04:24 +1000
At 11:37 5/10/97 -0500, Paul Zarembka asked
Is it time for this list to get into "absolute truth" or "objective truth",
"relative truth", and Lenin's MATERIALISM AND EMPIRIO-CRITICISM?
Paul
_
No. I don't think so. I think we have had enough of truth already, and we
should let Lenin rest in these rough times. Cheers, ajit sinha
Ajit,
I infer from your reaction that you have not read Lenin. He precisely
says that none of us possess "absolute truth", "the truth", etc. What
Lenin does say is that scientists, including Marxists, work from the
proposition that "objective truth" exists and we struggle to get closer to
it ("relative truth"). I don't see how you can contest that. Otherwise,
why are you on these lists debating with people? certainly it is not just
fun and games.
Lenin,
end of Section 5, Chapter Two: "The materialist dialectics of Marx and
Engels certainly does contain relativism, but is not reducible to
relativism, that is, it recognises the relativity of all our knowledge, not
in the sense of denying objective truth, but in the sense that the limits
of approximation of our knowledge to this truth are historically
conditioned."
end of Chapter Two: "The standpoint of life, of practice, should
be first and fundamental in the theory of knowledge. And it inevitably
leads to materialism, brushing aside the endless fabrications of
professioral scholasticism. Of course, we must not forget that the
criterion of practice can never, in the nature of things, either confirm
or refute any human idea *completely*. This criterion also is
sufficiently 'indefinite' not to allow human knowledge to become
'absolute', but at the same time it is sufficiently definite to wage a
ruthless fight on all varieties of idealism and agnosticismThe sole
conclusion to be drawn from the opinion of the Marxists that Marx's theory
is an objective truth is that by following the *path* of Marxist theory we
shall draw closer and closer to objective truth (without ever exhausting
it); but by following *any other path* we shall arrive at nothing but
confusion and lies" (italics in original).
Paul
*
Paul Zarembka, supporting the RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY Web site at
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka and using OS/2 Warp.
*
Irrationalism
Greetings, The main content in the struggle against irrationalism, the cutting edge, is not just the fight against all the ideological and political trends that do not base themselves on the laws of social development. It mainly confronts those who conciliate with the defenders of the capitalist status quo. They conciliate with those who want to reform the capitalist system in a bid to preserve the status quo. In precise terms, it is the struggle against those who conciliate with the liberal/social-democratic political line that is determined to create illusions about the possibilities to reform the capitalist system, that this reform or restructuring will lift it out of its continuing crisis. In philosophical and theoretical terms, those who advocate that the capitalist system can rid itself of its problems through reform, do not see in the capitalist crisis the condition for the creation of the new modern society. According to them, there is no further stage in the development of the society. They advocate that the capitalist system is the "best" and "final" stage of society, and that the capitalist system is the "best" system which ever came into being in spite of its weaknesses and shortcomings. They also create the illusion that capitalism will evolve into a system without crisis sometime in the far distant future. Irrationalism is the only "system of thought," if it can be called a system, by which the bourgeoisie justifies everything. The most damaging product of this irrationalism is the theory of "human nature." It presupposes that all human beings are bestowed, preordained or preconditioned with certain qualities that are immutable. The bourgeoisie glibly states that it is "only human" to possess these enduring qualities. Of course, these qualities are none other than the habits of the bourgeoisie. They do not see, they do not want to see, a human being who has communist qualities. In fact, it can be proven with the precision of science that there is no such thing as human nature. It can be shown that human consciousness and human qualities are dependent on the mode of production, on the mode of living. As the mode of production changes so does human consciousness and qualities. There is nothing immutable nor eternal in terms of human qualities, except that human beings make their own history according to the laws governing society and nature. The only constant is change and nothing else. To suggest that there is such a thing as "human nature" is to completely succumb to irrationalism. The bourgeoisie argues irrationally and is contradictory when it claims that the capitalist system can be reformed, yet contends that because of "human nature" there is not even the possibility of change. Which assertion of the bourgeoisie is correct? Which formulation do they present as valid? The bourgeoisie has sunk so low in terms of theory and its opposition to enlightenment that it can even claim both sides of its own contradictory assertions. Irrationalism lacks objectivity of consideration. Those who follow it even deny the existence of the objective world. Take, for instance, deconstructionism, which is all the rage in the U.S., particularly with regard to race. According to this "philosophy," only those persons who are members of a definite society, group of people, or gender can grasp the reality of their condition. Only females can understand what their problems are. The same is the case for workers or national minorities. Such a ridiculous way of looking at reality incites people to marginalise themselves but does not add one iota to human knowledge about the system on which the society is based. How far would science have advanced if scientists had to be whatever they were analyzing in order to understand the thing in itself and in its relations? A reactionary organization called "International Democratic Association" to which belong Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Helmuth Kohl and other prominent bourgeois has a presupposition that there is no alternative to the existing conditions. In other words, it recognizes the existing conditions yet determines beforehand that there is no way out of those conditions except by consolidating them through reform or restructuring. Such reform leads to the further deepening and broadening of the crisis created by the basic condition. The advocates of reform or "shock therapy" refuse to concede that these reforms are making things worse. They actually accuse others of obstructing the reforms, of being conservative, while they are daring and radical, and see glory in an earlier free market period of capitalism or even further back to the divine right of kings and medievalism. Radicalism, in this instance, refers to how far society can be pushed backward. Irrationalism is subjectivism taken to the extreme in isolation from the objective world. At the same time, its program and conclusions are actually applied in the modern
Re: Truth?
Addressed to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] ** Reply to note from [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tue, 7 Oct 1997 14:38:38 -0700 (PDT) I just happened to skim through Kevin Anderson's _Lenin, Hegel, and Western Marxism (U of Ill. Press, 1995) who argues Lenin's position in his 1908 Empirocriticism shifted by 1914 when he re-read Hegel to try to come to grips with Social Democracy's support for war. Thus the Philosphical Notebooks are Lenin's more mature view on such questions, and Andersons also tries to illustrate this in later debates like over trade unions. Anderson suggests Stalinism has upheld Lenin in 1908 and suppressed his later and more nuanced, dialectical approach. Engels also gets a few boots. Bill, I haven't seen the Anderson work (have others?), but it sounds curious. Why would Stalinism promote 1908 Lenin except as part of the Lenin cult it wanted? just as it used Marx when useful. Paul * Paul Zarembka, supporting the RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY Web site at http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka and using OS/2 Warp. *
(Fwd) Re: PKs and Apologies
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Rakesh Bhandari)
Subject: Re: PKs and Apologies
First, men are to leave these gatherings emboldened to make women serve
them--their children, the sick, the aged and themselves--as long as they
button-up, sit up straight and go to work (though of course the majority of
That wasn't what the gatherings were about.
The dominant theme was atonement for past
sins, much more than your parody ("button-up,
etc."). People are reading domination into
this more than MAY be warranted, was my point.
. . .
Second, what's this crap about making men feel they have a moral obligation
to keep their promises. Men are obligated to make a family wage to support
their wives and children?! So men are obligated to work however many hours
and in whatever conditions it will take to keep their pututative promises
to be economically responsible for their families?!
YES.
Of course to keep the family-based promises, male workers have to agree to
give up more labor time in their contracts with capital. This seems to me
Not necessarily. To keep their promises, maybe men
have to challenge the rule of Capital. As far as it goes,
PK doesn't really preclude a world of possibilities.
Once again, I think you're reading too much into,
rather than drawing from. You may not know that
the evangelical movement early 20th century was
aligned with populism and included many bone-rattling
denunciations of Capital, if not of capitalism in its
entirety.
If you don't mind, I would say all this commends
to us all another homely virtue . . . being a good
listener. Tomorrow we'll cover eating your
vegetables.
Family values of the Walton's type (catch it on the family channel) is the
utopia of the bourgeoisie on the precipice of catastrophic depression.
And it seems to me to be the family values that Schumpeter found so
attractive in Hitler's vision.
Yipes. We're on the precipice of catastrohpic
depression??!? Schumpeterian Hitlerism?
I love PEN-L.
Meanwhile, Doug said:
Why can't we imagine an even better scenario - drunkard fornicator
gives it up and pledges himself to an equal partnership with his wife?
Why does a return to "health" have to come with a reassertion of
patriarchy?
To which I reply, of course we can, and of course it
doesn't. Now, don't you think that getting past the
drunkard/fornicator part is more difficult than moving from
virtuous patriarch to equal partnership? In the first case, you've
got some meathead who can't even carry on a serious
conversation.
I liked the Zizek quote and agreed with Wojtek that it is more
difficult to read than it needs to be. I'll leave the translation
debate to Tom and W.
Cheers,
MBS
===
Max B. SawickyEconomic Policy Institute
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 1660 L Street, NW
202-775-8810 (voice) Ste. 1200
202-775-0819 (fax)Washington, DC 20036
http://tap.epn.org/sawicky
Opinions above do not necessarily reflect the views
of anyone associated with the Economic Policy
Institute other than this writer.
===
Help re:Bairoch
Does anyone know whether Paul Bairoch's _La Suisse dans l'economie mondiale_ has been translated to english? If not, has anyone here read it? What does he discuss? Thanks, Dave
Re: economics students' attitudes
Thad Williamson wrote: Does anyone have handy references or the actual data from studies showing that students who major in economics or in economics grad programs develop personal attitudes that mirror the theory of the rational calculating economic actor they are studying? Robert H. Frank, Thomas Gilovich, and Dennis T Regan, "Does Studying Economics Inhibit Cooperation?," Journal of Economic Perspectives 7 (1993), pp. 359-371. For an upcoming presentation relevant to pomo stuff, I would like to make point that studying postmodernism can lead to self-reinforcing effects on outlook to world (despair, depoliticization, etc.) and use the economics stuff as parallel. Have you checked out Terry Eagleton's book Illusions of Postmodernism? A bit irresponsible, in that he attacks a "mood" rather than any specific texts, but still entertaining suggesetive. Doug
Re: Ear rationalism
While tirelessly exposing the depradations of irrationalism, the TML daily risks drawing attention away from an even more pernicious disorder, "ear rationalism". Unlike irrationalism, ear rationalism sounds perfectly rational to the naked ear. Put under the microscope, however, "ear rationalism" is revealed as a shabby concoction of puns and plays on words. There is only one way to combat ear rationalism. That is to insist that each and every word have one and only one meaning under all circumstances and to irradicate all homophones from the language. The irradication of ear rationalism will lead inevitably to the ear radication of irrationalism. Regards, Tom Walker ^^^ knoW Ware Communications Vancouver, B.C., CANADA [EMAIL PROTECTED] (604) 688-8296 ^^^ The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
Prospect of Market Collapse; Value of Unpaid Household Work
Martin Wolf: 1929 and all that TUESDAY OCTOBER 7 1997 Financial Times "There is no cause for worry. The high tide of prosperity will continue." Andrew W. Mellon, 1928. Andrew Mellon, one of the great financiers of his era, had no doubts. Neither did US president Calvin Coolidge, who told Congress at the beginning of 1928 that they and the country "might regard the present with satisfaction and anticipate the future with optimism". These views were the conventional wisdom of their day. They proved horribly wrong, all the same, when the stock market collapsed. Today, with a bull market longer and stronger than that of the Roaring 1920s, the question must be whether so resounding a crash could happen again. The coming 10th anniversary of Black Monday on October 19 can only sharpen anxiety. Between September and November 1987, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 29 per cent of its value, much of this on October 19, when it fell 23 per cent. As the chart shows, the rise in the index since 1994 shows a remarkable parallel with what happened in the three years before the crash of 1987. A deep bear market in the US must be the biggest threat to today's bright picture of more widely shared economic growth. Yet, in its latest World Economic Outlook, the International Monetary Fund merely mentioned - rather than stressed - this concern. One reason for such insouciance could well be what happened after the 1987 crash. The Dow recovered its pre-crash levels by the second half of 1989. Since then it has risen more than 200 per cent in nominal terms. Standard Poor's Composite Index is also up some 200 per cent over pre-crash levels. In retrospect, the dramatic events of a decade ago were but a brief hiatus in the bull market of the past one and a half decades - a period when real returns on holdings of US equities have been roughly double their long-run average of 6.6 per cent. On a number of standard measures, US equities were about as cheap in the early 1980s as at any time since the early 1920s. There was room for a massive recovery. When it came, it generated correspondingly huge returns on equity investments. Over time, such returns have come to seem normal. This has encouraged more buying of shares, pushing values up further. Equity investment is now widely seen as offering a guaranteed path to ever-greater wealth. This is how markets come to blow bubbles. Standard indicators suggest that Wall Street is indeed overvalued. At such times, it is also standard behaviour to argue that standard indicators are meaningless. On Standard Poor's Composite Index, the dividend yield is down to 1.6 per cent. This is roughly half what it was in the 1960s and also less than half what it was in the early 1990s. But the dividend yield is not a fundamental indicator of value. The price-earnings ratio is far more suggestive. According to Professor Jeremy Siegel of the Wharton School, between 1871 and 1992 the price-earnings ratio averaged 13.7. Now it is a little under 24, close to an all-time high. Even in October 1987, it was only 22. Over the past 120 years the price-earnings ratio has oscillated between euphoric peaks of about 25 and depressed troughs of not much above 5. Ultimately it has reverted to mean. The only year since the second world war when the price-earnings ratio was higher than at present was 1992. That was the beginning of the cyclical recovery, when the share of corporate profits in gross domestic product briefly dropped to 6 per cent. By the second quarter of this year, the share was close to 10 per cent. This is not as high as in the mid-1960s when it reached 12 per cent, but well above its trough. The real return on corporate equity, back at over 8 per cent, is also up to levels not seen since the mid-1960s. Combined with economic growth running at around 3 per cent, the recovery in the share of profits in GDP has generated growth in profits of 10 per cent a year in real terms since 1992. This recovery has underpinned the stock market surge. Yet for anything like this to continue over the next five years, the share of profits in GDP must reach unprecedented levels. Another mean-reverting series is the valuation ratio - or "Tobin's Q", after the Nobel-laureate James Tobin of Yale University. This index measures the ratio of stock market value to the net assets of companies, at replacement cost. When the ratio is low it is cheaper to buy companies on the floor of the stock exchange than to make investments. When it is high, the reverse is true. A symptom of a high valuation ratio is strong investment. This is precisely what is to be seen, with growth in private non-residential fixed investment of 8.5 per cent a year since the second quarter of 1992. Among the analysts that have placed particular weight on the valuation ratio is Smithers Co, a London-based investment adviser. Using a series produced by the Federal Reserve, recently revised to give lower values for
truth
Ajit writes:Where in the book of "rational thought" is it written that James Devine determines the terms of the debates? Nowhere; if you don't want to discuss this stuff, you don't have to. In fact, I didn't know that you were debating. Restating your argument seems more along the line of the old Monty Python routine where I'm the one who says "I paid for an argument and all I got was a contradiction!" (Frankly, I never see myself as involved with a discussion with only one individual. I'm talking to the whole of pen-l, including myself. On the latter, I'm trying to clarify my thoughts.) You have implicitly made a claim to somekind of "truth" without spelling it out, i.e. you have made an assertion that there is something called truth and "rational" thought must refer to such truth in its discourse. Now, the burden is on you to establish this position. Once you do that, only then you can ask me to expose its arbitrariness. "What is truth?," the jesting Pilate said. Doug notes that it makes little sense to ask me to prove the existence of "truth" and "rational thought" unless you actually believe in them. But here goes. I assume that reality exists independent of my perception of it, even if I perceive it incorrectly and incompletely. (This is only an unprovable _assumption_, since you might be a product of my fevered imagination. But it's an assumption which we have to make if we want anything to make sense.) Given that assumption, a greater _approach_ to the truth would involve having a subjective picture of that reality that fits the objective reality more accurately and completely. As I said, there is no absolute truth that we can know. We can only approach it, attain relative truth. I'm glad that Lenin agrees. BTW, I notice that Shawgi Tell opposes agnosticism. I for one embrace agnosticism (as opposed to religion, which includes atheism, the faith that there are no gods). In fact, I think agnosticism -- skepticism -- is the only _scientific_ attitude. We _don't_ know the objective truth. All we really have is "working hypotheses" which can be rejected when better working hypotheses come along. But the fact that there may be better working hypotheses indicates the importance of _relative truth_ and of truth criteria in the first place. I had written what do you mean by "arbitrary"? The most fitting definitions in my dictionary have this word meaning "based on or determined by individual preference or convenience rather than necessity or the intrinsic nature of something" ... If you are asserting that assertions of truth necessarily have subjective components, I agree. So you give the game up? By 'arbitrary' I mean propositions which are not justified by 'reason'. They are posited, presupposed. This is the standard yes/no (dichotomous) form of thinking that is quite fallacious. You seem to have said that "all truth is totally subjective arbitrary" (yes). You interpret my statements as "giv[ing] the game up," accepting your "yes" interpretation rather than defending the "no" position you assumed I held (which I guess would be a belief that one can attain total objectivity and access to absolute truth). But I was pushing the "maybe" position -- or rather the complex and perhaps difficult-to-understand position that the reality is a mixture of "yes" and "no." Rest of your post is an exercise in selfcontradiction. And I'm not in a mood to take pleasure in pointing them out. My general sense is that you are confusing the idea of empirical 'facts' with 'truth'. In your case there would be as many truths as empirical facts, and your position would degenerate into most absurd empiricism of all. I am not engaged in that empiricist confusion (see next paragraph). It would be useful if you made an effort to read what I wrote. (For another author with similar views, see the methodological section of the introduction to the GRUNDRISSE. However, I don't like to quote authority, so I left him aside.) As is well known, empirical "facts" are totally infused with theory (as when Keynesian theory defines national income product accounts that define the macroeconomic "facts"). However, that does NOT mean that we can reject efforts to confront our subjective theories with the test of practice or the test of efforts to measure the world outside our skulls. (I also point to other tests, like those of logical consistency or methodological coherence.) in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clawww.lmu.edu/1997F/ECON/jdevine.html Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ. 7900 Loyola Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90045-8410 USA 310/338-2948 (daytime, during workweek); FAX: 310/338-1950 "It takes a busload of faith to get by." -- Lou Reed.
European PE
Having read and enjoyed _Dancing with Dogma_ and _The state we're in_, I wonder if folks could recommend similar treatments of western and central European national economies. Additionally, any good material on the PE of Maastricht would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Dave
pen-l format
I got this note from our technical support person: you have requested that the subject headers include a [listname:1234] addition. This option is not available in Listproc 8.1a. It seems that changing these headers creating a big stir since it didn't adhere to the RFC's. The debate still rages, but there is talk of including an option in the next release of Listproc software. Until then, we are out of luck. -Kevin I am sorry, but our upgrade seems to be in this respect a step backward. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 916-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: economics students' attitudes
J. of Economic Perspectives Winer 1996 Volume 10 No. 1 "Does Studying Economics Discourage Cooperation?" Yeser, Goldfarb and Poppen with coment by Robert H. Frank, Gilovich, and Regan Cheers!! Alex At 06:41 AM 10/7/97 -0700, Thad Williamson wrote: Dear Pen-L'rs, Does anyone have handy references or the actual data from studies showing that students who major in economics or in economics grad programs develop personal attitudes that mirror the theory of the rational calculating economic actor they are studying? For an upcoming presentation relevant to pomo stuff, I would like to make point that studying postmodernism can lead to self-reinforcing effects on outlook to world (despair, depoliticization, etc.) and use the economics stuff as parallel. Thanks, Thad Thad Williamson National Center for Economic and Security Alternatives (Washington)/ Union Theological Seminary (New York) 212-531-1935 http://www.northcarolina.com/thad Alex Campbell Research Associate, National Center for Economic and Security Alternatives 2317 Ashmead Place, NW Washington, DC 20009 202 986 1373 (voice)/ 202 986 7938 (fax) [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Deleuze-Guattari
Harry Cleaver: Your characterization of fascism as "a mass movement of the petty-bourgeoisie that seeks to destroy all vestiges of the working-class movement" certainly grasps some aspects of that pheonmenon. But except for reminding people that it IS anti-working class, I don't think it is very helpful. I don't find the concept of "petty-bourgeoisie" helpful at all, but even if it did denote some meaningfully distinct group, the label doesn't help us understand what was going on in the genesis of fascism. You say DG's discussion of "how it came about" is superficial, but you offer no alternative. Defining it doesn't explain its genesis. Louis Proyect: The genesis of fascism? Do you mean where Hitler got his ideas, or do you mean how these ideas gathered a mass following? The first question does not exactly interest me. I imagine that you could find the strands of "Mein Kampf" in German nationalist and racialist ideology going back to the late 19th century, just as you could have traced Father Coughlin's ideas back to some of the more retrograde aspects of the American Populist movement and Catholic theology. The important question for Marxists is why these irrational ideologies get a mass following. I explain this in terms of economic crisis. Fascism arises at a time when there is great unemployment and/or hyperinflation and in societies that have a rather well-developed working-class movement, such as Italy, Spain and Germany. The fascist movement gains a middle-class base because it stresses a "national socialism", one that rises above the class antagonisms of Bolshevism. This message has an enormous appeal to the shopkeeper and farmer, who were ruined by the capitalist class and inconvenienced by working-class militancy. A mobilized middle-class and lumpen-proletariat is financed and supported by the big bourgeoisie through the back-door. This mass movement attacks the trade unions and left parties until the workers are defeated. The regime that arises out of this violent struggle soon cuts its ties to the middle-class mass movement. This is a historical materialist presentation of the rise of fascism which I find useful. I can of course fill in the details, if you'd like. What DG are trying to theorize is precisely the emergence of that body of behaviors and policies that we call fascism. They are offering a formulation which interconnects what's going on at the "molecular level", i.e., with individuals, families, schools, etc., and the emergence of a social movement. This seems to me to be exactly what is required to understand how fascism came about as such a devastatingly destructive social force. What happens at the "molecular level" is largely secondary. For example, you can study the psychology of a fascist and make all sorts of interesting observations about the authoritarian personality, sexual repression, etc. Reich did a nice job on this. But the important question is how fascism as a *movement* arises. We have to use the same criteria as we do in understanding any other social or political mass movement. For example, I find it useful to understand black nationalism in terms of the rise of a black proletariat in the northern states, the impact of imperialist war on the rising expectations of returning black GI's, etc. What came together in 1789, in 1848, in 1870, in 1905, in 1910, in 1917 and so on in such a way as to explode? We can perhaps find limits to DG's analysis, but what they are offering, it seems to me, is exactly the KIND of analysis we need. In comparison, to return to the earlier point, HM comments about contraditions between base and superstructure strike me as rather empty formalisms. I find Trotsky's analysis of 1905 and 1917 quite useful myself. It is that old moldy fig historical materialism once again, but a rather adroit application of the method if I say so myself. Trotsky explained these revolutionary upsurges in terms of the impact of imperialist war, among other factors. (Imperialist war has a way of focusing one's attention in a rather dramatic fashion, as my memories of 1967 draft notices come back to me.) The other important factors were hunger and poverty. The explanation for hunger and poverty is that the Russian ruling class spent everything on guns and not butter. So the combination of four years of trench warfare, strike-breaking, police repression and rural deprivation made socialism seem like a good idea to millions of suffering Russians. I regret that this lacks philosophical profundity, but it sort of makes sense to me. "Domination" is certainly a useful term, but it implies precisely the limitation and perversion of desire in all its forms. This is another way of talking about living labor --which in Marx appears as a moment of kind of primordial life force-- which is "dominated" by capital, i.e., limited, constrained, alienated, used as a vehicle of social control instead of being a form of self-realization. The term "desire", like the
Re: truth
Ajit Sinha wrote: You have implicitly made a claim to somekind of "truth" without spelling it out, i.e. you have made an assertion that there is something called truth and "rational" thought must refer to such truth in its discourse. Now, the burden is on you to establish this position. This is interesting. Having rejected "truth" and "rational thought," Ajit asks Jim Devine to prove their existence according to the canons of truth and rationality. Is there a contradiction here, or has contradiction gone out the window too? Doug
FW: BLS Daily Reportboundary=---- =_NextPart_000_01BCD300.86535440
This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not understand this format, some or all of this message may not be legible. -- =_NextPart_000_01BCD300.86535440 charset="iso-8859-1" BLS DAILY REPORT, MONDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1997 ___When the special factors that muddied September's employment report are cleared away, it appears job growth has slowed but remains healthy, according to Labor Department data. The unemployment rate remained at 4.9 percent. September marked the end of the third year that the unemployment rate has been below 6 percent The employment report indicated a slowing but still vigorous economy, with little if any signs of accelerating inflation, analysts said (Daily Labor Report, pages D-1, E-1). ___The number of payroll jobs increased by a moderate 215,000 last month while the nation's unemployment rate remained unchanged at 4.9 percent. The gain in payrolls, despite the return of more than 160,000 UPS workers who had been on strike the month before, was far less than most financial analysts had expected Many analysts interpreted the small bounce in payrolls as a sign that economic growth is moderating and that any noticeable rise in inflation is unlikely in coming months .(Washington Post, Oct. 4, page D1). ___For a second consecutive month, America's employers have added only modest numbers of new workers to payrolls, further evidence that the pace of economic growth is slowing. The unemployment rate remained near the lowest levels in 23 years, reflecting the economy's strength One prominent question raised by the report was whether the sluggishness in late-summer job growth reflected a slowing of demand for workers or a depletion of the labor pool. Another possibility, one mentioned by Philip L. Rones of the Labor Department, was that his might be little more than statistical "payback" for a huge increase in jobs, now revised up to 384,000, in July (New York Times, Oct. 4, page B1). ___The economy added a weaker-than-expected 215,000 jobs in September, marking a second month of tepid growth and perhaps signaling that things are starting to settle down (Wall Street Journal, page A2). The economy is doing better and unemployment is down, but many American are worried enough about their own finances to be holding down two jobs. That's the finding of the employment consultant Challenger, Gray Christmas Inc. The company noted that, in June, the Labor Department reported 299,000 people were working full-time at two jobs, up 26 percent from a year earlier. Challenger Gray says the costs of care-giving and helping adult children with their finances has prompted many of these people to seek a second paycheck (Washington Post, Oct. 5, page H5). Worldcom Inc.'s audacious bid to acquire MCI Communications Corp. is the latest vivid example of how big companies try to become gigantic companies to gain clout and dominance over an industry. But, while the power plays grab headlines, a less noted but interesting development is occurring on the merger-and-acquisition front. In an economy with ever-tighter labor markets, some deals are being driven by a need for workers. Companies are being acquired for quick access to scarce talent .(Wall Street Journal, "The Outlook," page A1). In a column, "Census Data Income Illusions," on the op-ed page of the Washington Times, Donald Lambro, chief political correspondent for the Times, mentions BLS weekly earnings figures. He says, "All this is consistent with a broad range of other ... data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics during this administration which has recorded a continuing decline or stagnation among middle class incomes, including real median weekly earnings " -- =_NextPart_000_01BCD300.86535440 b3NvZnQgTWFpbC5Ob3RlADEIAQWAAwAOzQcKAAcACQAJADcAAgAwAQEggAMADgAAAM0HCgAH gAEAFQAAAEZXOiBCTFMgRGFpbHkgUmVwb3J0AIcGAQ2ABAACAgACAAEDkAYAJAwAAB0D AC4AAEAAOQDgKo5OItO8AR4AcAABEQAAAEJMUyBEYWlseSBSZXBvcnQAAgFxAAEA AAAbAbzSnumvxrtF0z4sEdGoHgAgr5wCMAAgzeiRAB4AMUABDQAAAFJJQ0hBUkRTT05f RAADABpAAB4AMEABDQAAAFJJQ0hBUkRTT05fRAADABlAAAIBCRAB VAkAAFAJAAAvDwAATFpGdec9o57/AAoBDwIVAqQD5AXrAoMAUBMDVAIAY2gKwHNldO4yBgAGwwKD MgPGBxMCg8YzA8UCAHBycRIgE4X+fQqACM8J2QKACoENsQtg4G5nMTAzFCALChQiMwwBFMBvdAWQ BUBCTEEF8ERBSUxZB/BFIFBPUlQsBdBPTgUacFkbME9DVE9CEEVSIDYbMDE5OZY3CoUKhV8doFdo CfDEIHQd4CBzcAWQBzF0IGYA0HQFsAQgHiBhoQVAbXVkZAiQZAZR7QUwZQbQBJAnBCAgcAtQXm8G wAnwBUAWYHAWASBjCsAeQGNsZSIRIBBhqHdheRswaSHxcB5wQRHRIGpvYiAJwG9adx4gIBHABCBz FfB3+SABYnUhggDAC4AEIB3g/wdAHiAjAQDQBaEf4BgQHhDYbyBMAaAFsUQgQArACnQhU2QfgGEu ICDyVB4xdW4g+h+AHkAlhEMiogVANC45IB5wcr5jIWEosSA3H6AKwGsgAWceIgnwIBBvZh4THiBp +QsgIHkicR9UHiIpLySDfyCQHfEgkCThHEArNgMwJ3g4NS4o4iD/IyAtQGk+YyoBIrEkwybyJUJz dOMDEAMgdmlnBbAIYCDRvQWgbgNwIwED8CRhbCMw3nQiYCMgLYAAcHkeUDVw/wYxLXEmkTDgBJAf gCbyC4CvF+E1EAIgJnFuB0B5NQDPJLELcCAQMdMoRAtwOfBdJ1VSIbMbMAqwZweRRJQtMRswRTyw
FW: CUPW ASSURES THAT PENSION AND SOCIAL ASSISTANCE CHEQUES WILL BE DELIVERED
Subject: CUPW ASSURES THAT PENSION AND SOCIAL ASSISTANCE CHEQUES WILL BE DELIVERED Attention News Editors/Labour Reporters: CUPW ASSURES THAT PENSION AND SOCIAL ASSISTANCE CHEQUES WILL BE DELIVERED OTTAWA, Oct. 6 /CNW/ - ``The Canadian Union of Postal Workers offer to sort and deliver pension and other social assistance cheques in case of a strike has been accepted by the Federal Government,'' said Deborah Bourque, Vice President of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. ``We are pleased by the agreement. We hope that a settlement is still in the cards and that this agreement proves to be unnecessary,'' added Bourque. The CUPW has been trying to negotiate a new contract with Canada Post since April 1997. Our demands revolve around the creation of new jobs, converting precarious jobs into decent ones, improving postal service, and the preservation of a universal postal service for all. To back our demands we may be forced to go on strike. ``If we do go on strike, we will not be on strike against the people of Canada, but rather against a Corporation that seeks to provide cheaper postage rates to large Corporations at the expense of service to ordinary Canadians,'' Bourque said. ``We are very happy that low income people, seniors and the disabled will not be used as pawns by this government or Canada Post during a labour dispute,'' added Bourque. ``The Union's offer to deliver these cheques at no cost during a strike - was rejected. Now Canada Post insists on paying workers on strike a flat rate of $50.00 to deliver the cheques. We will encourage our members to donate the money to a local charity. -0-10/06/97 For further information: Catherine Louli, Communications, (613) 236-7230, ext. 7935 -- Release sent courtesy of Canada NewsWire Portfolio Email. To update your email portfolio, point your web browser here: http://portfolio.newswire.ca/broker
Re: Zizek on PKs
To put it simply, one can never put it simply. Wojtek's explanation of the difference between elective affinity and conspiracy is well taken, I cheerfully withdraw the conspiracy theory label. But Wojtek's elective affinity leaves me unconvinced. Elective affinity is still a top-down model, even if it's only the selection that's top-down and even if the collusion of suits is charitably seen as strategic rather than conspiratorial. Ideology is after all a labour process and -- as with any other labour processes -- most of the work is done by the non-owners of the means of production. The product is by no means neutral and serves to reproduce the relations of production under which it is produced. But it seems to me that ideology is so pervasive that it doesn't need any exogenous boost from Madison Avenue or the Christian Coalition (not to say that it doesn't get such boosts). The edge that conservative and advertising narratives have over leftist treatises is not just that they are narratives. It is that they agree with the narratives that "Joe and Jo Sixpack" spontaneously produce out of their alienated experiences, what Kenneth Burke referred to as identification. The 'ineptitude of the left' consists in the left's starting from almost untenable disadvantage and then compounding that disadvantage through an arrogant refusal to identify with the alienated forms in which ordinary people experience their oppression. Instead, the left would rather elevate an "objective analysis" of that oppression to a privileged place and idealize marginal forms of struggle. The elevator is broken. Regards, Tom Walker ^^^ knoW Ware Communications Vancouver, B.C., CANADA [EMAIL PROTECTED] (604) 688-8296 ^^^ The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
economics students' attitudes
Dear Pen-L'rs, Does anyone have handy references or the actual data from studies showing that students who major in economics or in economics grad programs develop personal attitudes that mirror the theory of the rational calculating economic actor they are studying? For an upcoming presentation relevant to pomo stuff, I would like to make point that studying postmodernism can lead to self-reinforcing effects on outlook to world (despair, depoliticization, etc.) and use the economics stuff as parallel. Thanks, Thad Thad Williamson National Center for Economic and Security Alternatives (Washington)/ Union Theological Seminary (New York) 212-531-1935 http://www.northcarolina.com/thad
Re: Zizek on PKs
Wojtek Sokolowski wrote, I agree with most of what Comrade Zizek said. My only problem is how many people without a PhD in sociology cum literary criticism can read through Comrade Zizek's text and then say "Right on, Comrade Zizek. I would not say it better myself." I don't have a PhD in sociology or literary criticism and can read through Zizek's text and say "Right on, comrade Zizek." But then I've read a lot of Walter Benjamin. The passage Doug quoted sounds heavily influenced by Walter Benjamin's notion of the "dreaming collective". Although I haven't read the Zizek article, I'll rely on my understanding of Benjamin to refute Wojtek's "translation" into everyday English. To put it simply, Wojtek translates a psychological theory into a conspiracy theory. Instead of helping to explain why people *voluntarily* embrace an ideology, Wojtek points out that a ruling elite simply imposes the ideology on people. This is not very useful, unless one envisions a lot of political success from shouting at people "You've been brainwashed!" I do agree that Wojtek's translation _is_ more like everyday English. That is because everyday English is saturated with demonizing. This demonizing has a function in the formation of identity, as Zizek illustrates in the following quote, To give a most elementary example: in the anti-Semitic vision, the Jew is experienced as the embodiment of negativity, as the force disrupting stable social identity--but the 'truth' of anti-Semitism is, of course, that the very identity of our position is structured through a negative relationship to this traumatic figure of the Jew. Without the reference to the Jew who is corroding the social fabric, the social fabric itself would be dissolved. In other words, all my positive consistency is kind of 'reaction-formation' to a certain traumatic, antagonistic kernel: if I lose this 'impossible' point of reference, my very identity dissolves. What would a "left" conceivably look like without IT'S negative referent, the "ruling elite?" Regards, Tom Walker ^^^ knoW Ware Communications Vancouver, B.C., CANADA [EMAIL PROTECTED] (604) 688-8296 ^^^ The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
Re: Truth?
I just happened to skim through Kevin Anderson's _Lenin, Hegel, and Western Marxism (U of Ill. Press, 1995) who argues Lenin's position in his 1908 Empirocriticism shifted by 1914 when he re-read Hegel to try to come to grips with Social Democracy's support for war. Thus the Philosphical Notebooks are Lenin's more mature view on such questions, and Andersons also tries to illustrate this in later debates like over trade unions. Anderson suggests Stalinism has upheld Lenin in 1908 and suppressed his later and more nuanced, dialectical approach. Engels also gets a few boots. This is a very crude summary. My reason for offering it is to ask for more discussion on this issue, since I too am tired of the continual suggestions that 'classical' Marxism ever claimed ABSOLUTE truth or that subjectivity in knowledge is a pomo discovery. At the same time it does seem to me that Stalinism did infect a lot of left thinking, and that we need to be sharper in the contest still being fought between materialism and idealism, etc. Bill Burgess ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Department of Geography, Tel: (604) 822-2663 University of British Columbia, B.C. Fax: (604) 822-6150
Re: Irrationalism
At 01:12 PM 10/7/97 -0400, Shawgi Tell wrote, inter alia: Irrationalism is the only "system of thought," if it can be called a system, by which the bourgeoisie justifies everything. The most damaging product of this irrationalism is the theory of "human nature." It presupposes that all human beings are bestowed, preordained or preconditioned with certain qualities that are immutable. The bourgeoisie glibly states that it is "only human" to possess these enduring qualities. Of course, these qualities are none other than the habits of the bourgeoisie. They do not see, they do not want to see, a human being who has communist qualities. I do not think the label "irrationalism" is a particularly useful way of explaining how a given ideology works, especially that, if taken literally, the claim that capitalism is irrational is demonstrably false. I think we must distinguish two qualitatively different phenomena here: (i) the actual process of decision making under capitalism that faces well known limitations resulting in externalities; while the externalities may pose, in a long run, a serious social problem -- their existence hardly qualifies "capitalism" as "irrational" except perhaps in a figurative sense, as used by Baran Sweezy; (ii) the ex post facto legitimation of the decisions already made and courses of action already taken, also known as rationalization; under that rubric, we have the quoted stories about human nature, invisible hands, and kindred metaphysical Deus ex machina entities created for the sole purpose of explaining events by politically acceptable narratives; sure, such rationalizations amount to fantasies, but their existence is hardly unique to capitalism (every society has its own mythology); nor does anyone seriously maintain (save for die-hard neo-classical economists) that these fictions are actual factors in making real life decisions by real life actors. A more fruitful approach is the study of collective decision making (and their unintended consequences) and the role of myth and ceremony in modern bureaucracies -- both areas rather extensively studied by organizational sociology. PS. There is an intersting article by Heilbroner in the last issue of The Nation, commenting onthi pittfalls of the conventional economic theory, and advocating the consideration of social variables in explaining economic behavior. regards, wojtek sokolowski institute for policy studies johns hopkins university baltimore, md 21218 [EMAIL PROTECTED] voice: (410) 516-4056 fax: (410) 516-8233 POLITICS IS THE SHADOW CAST ON SOCIETY BY BIG BUSINESS. AND AS LONG AS THIS IS SO, THE ATTENUATI0N OF THE SHADOW WILL NOT CHANGE THE SUBSTANCE. - John Dewey
Re: Deleuze-Guattari
On Tue, 7 Oct 1997, john gulick wrote: I thought recent reputable historical research has shown that a sizable percentage of the German working class (formally defined) supported the Nazis (although of course this percentage mushroomed when the Depression took hold) -- especially workers from certain regions, in certain trades and industries, with certain wartime experiences, from certain religious backgrounds, etc. Could you possibly be referring to Michael Mann? He believes that 20th century Marxism has made a mistake by describing fascism as a petty-bourgeois mass movement in an article titled "Source of Variation in Working-Class Movements in Twentieth-Century Movement" which appeared in the New Left Review of July/August 1995. If he is correct, then there is something basically wrong with the Marxist approach, isn't there? If the Nazis attracted the working-class, then wouldn't we have to reevaluate the revolutionary role of the working-class? Perhaps it would be necessary to find some other class to lead the struggle for socialism, if this struggle has any basis in reality to begin with. Mann relies heavily on statistical data, especially that which can be found in M. Kater's "The Nazi Party" and D. Muhlberger "Hitler's Followers". The data, Mann reports, shows that "Combined, the party and paramilitaries had relatively as many workers as in the general population, almost as many worker militants as the socialists and many more than the communists". Pretty scary stuff, if it's true. It is true, but, as it turns out, there are workers and there are workers. More specifically, Mann acknowledges that "Most fascist workers...came not from the main manufacturing industries but from agriculture, the service and public sectors and from handicrafts and small workshops." Let's consider the political implications of the class composition of this fascist strata." He adds that, "The proletarian macro-community was resisting fascism, but not the entire working-class.." Translating this infelicitous expression into ordinary language, Mann is saying that as a whole the workers were opposed to fascism, but there were exceptions. Let's consider who these fascist workers were. Agricultural workers in Germany: were they like the followers of Caesar Chavez, one has to wonder? Germany did not have large-scale agribusiness in the early 1920's. Most farms produced for the internal market and were either family farms or employed a relatively small number of workers. Generally, workers on smaller farms tend to have a more filial relationship to the patron than they do on massive enterprises. The politics of the patron will be followed more closely by his workers. This is the culture of small, private agriculture. It was no secret that many of the contra foot-soldiers in Nicaragua came from this milieu. Turning to "service" workers, this means that many fascists were white-collar workers in banking and insurance. This layer has been going through profound changes throughout the twentieth century, so a closer examination is needed. In the chapter "Clerical Workers" in Harry Braverman's "Labor and Monopoly Capital", he notes that clerical work in its earlier stages was like a craft. The clerk was a highly skilled employee who kept current the records of the financial and operating condition of the enterprise, as well as its relations with the external world. The whole history of this job category in the twentieth century, however, has been one of de-skilling. All sorts of machines, including the modern-day, computer have taken over many of the decision-making responsibilities of the clerk. Furthermore, "Taylorism" has been introduced into the office, forcing clerks to function more like assembly-line workers than elite professionals. We must assume, however, that the white-collar worker in Germany in the 1920's was still relatively high up in the class hierarchy since his or her work had not been mechanized or routinized to the extent it is today. Therefore, a clerk in an insurance company or bank would tend to identify more with management than with workers in a steel-mill. Even under today's changed economic conditions, this tends to be true. A bank teller in NY probably resents a striking transit worker, despite the fact that they have much in common in class terms. This must have been an even more pronounced tendency in the 1920's when white-collar workers occupied an even more elite position in society. Mann includes workers in the "public sector". This should come as no surprise at all. Socialist revolutions were defeated throughout Europe in the early 1920's and right-wing governments came to power everywhere. These right-wing governments kept shifting to the right as the mass working-class movements of the early 1920's recovered and began to reassert themselves. Government workers, who are hired to work in offices run by right-wingers, will tend to be right-wing themselves. There was no
Re: Zizek on PKs
At 09:40 AM 10/7/97 -0500, Doug Henwood cited: As I was paging through the freshly arrived New Left Review #225 last night, I came across this passage from Slavoj Zizek's article, "Multiculturalism, or the Cultural Logic of Multinational Capitalism": "To work, the ruling ideology has to incoporate a series of features in which the exploited majority will be able to recognize its authentic longings. In other words, each hegemonic universality has to incorporate at least two particular contents, the authentic popular content as well as its distortion by the relations of domination and exploitation. Of course, fascist ideology 'manipulates' authentic popular longing for true community and social solidarity against fierce competition and exploitation; of course, it 'distorts' the expression of this longing in order to legitimize the continuation of the relations of social domination and exploitation. However, in order to be able to achieve this distortion of authentic longing it has first to incorporate it Etienne Balibar was fully justified in reversing Marx's classic formula: the ruling ideas are precisely *not* directly the ideas of those who rule. How did Christianity become the ruling ideology? By incorporating a series of crucial motifs and aspiration of the oppressed - truth is on the side of the suffering and humiliated, power corrupts, and so on - and rearticulating them in such a way that they became compatible with the existing relations of domination. And so on, heavier and heavier. I agree with most of what Comrade Zizek said. My only problem is how many people without a PhD in sociology cum literary criticism can read through Comrade Zizek's text and then say "Right on, Comrade Zizek. I would not say it better myself." The text exemplifies a larger problem faced by the Left (and most of social sciences as well), identified by C. Wright Mills as a translation problem (also addressed by Orwell in his _Politics and the English Language_). If one were to translate the cited passage into everyday English, such a translation may look as follows: "Every ruling elite justifies its rule by manipulating popular beliefs. The ideas voiced in those beliefs are geniune expressions of popular longings and desires. Yet, those beliefs are re-told and re-interpreted in the mass media in such a way that the goals and interests of the elite appear as a natural consequence and extension of those genuine popular longings. This manipulation technique makes it easier for the ruling elites to direct popular sentiments and energies toward the goals that otherwise would not receive popular support. For example, to popularize its military expansionism, the Nazis focused on popular longing for genuine community and social solidarity and reinterpreted those longings in their propaganda in such a way that military expansionism appeared as both a natural consequence and the means of making those longings come true." However, I would prefer more contemporary examples, abdundantly featuring on commercial television, such as reinterpreting popular longing for sexual prowess or attraciveness in such a way that the possession of certain commodities (automobiles, clothing, tobacco products, etc.) apears as a natural consequence and the means of instant achieving of the said prowess or attractiveness. The advantages of the translated version over the original are twofold. First, it can be effectively communicated to audiences with the attention span and vocabulary of a 12th grader -- which is precisely where the Left performs less than satisfactorily. Second, it shows the Left a way to popular consciousness: by re-telling and re-interpreting popular myths by adding the Left-wing punch lines to them, rather than banging the audience over the head with Freud. regards, wojtek sokolowski institute for policy studies johns hopkins university baltimore, md 21218 [EMAIL PROTECTED] voice: (410) 516-4056 fax: (410) 516-8233 POLITICS IS THE SHADOW CAST ON SOCIETY BY BIG BUSINESS. AND AS LONG AS THIS IS SO, THE ATTENUATI0N OF THE SHADOW WILL NOT CHANGE THE SUBSTANCE. - John Dewey
histomat
Harry Cleaver writes: My problems with historical materialism are several. First, I have NOT found it useful Second, methodologically I think HM violates Marx's discussion in the Grundrisse about not retrospectively projecting concepts from contemporary society, i.e., capitalism, back onto earlier social relationships. Harry, doesn't it matter what definition one attaches to "historical materialism"? It seems to me that you're criticizing the "histomat" of the 3rd international, which took Kautsky's fatalistic interpretation of history and ran much too far with it. Histomat is a rigid and technologically determinist interpretation of Marx's 1859 sketch of the "guiding thread" for his "studies." In that interpretation, you are right, Marx projects an image of capitalism's dynanism onto the previous "modes of production" (as does G.A. Cohen). (Histomat was part of the dogmatic duo with "diamat"). But there are non-determinist interpretations of that sketch that fit within the broad range of the materialist conception of history, those that emphasize both clauses of "people make history but not exactly as they please" (unlike the histomat or the Althusserian interpretations, which emphasize only the second clause). There are those that interpret a guiding thread as being a heuristic -- a set of questions -- rather than as a set of pre-determined answers. in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clawww.lmu.edu/1997F/ECON/jdevine.html Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ. 7900 Loyola Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90045-8410 USA 310/338-2948 (daytime, during workweek); FAX: 310/338-1950 "As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; as far as they are certain, they really do not refer to reality." -- Albert Einstein.
Re: economics students' attitudes
See _The Making of an Economist_ by Arjo Klamer and David Colander, Westview. Doing a survey of 1rst and 3rd year economics grad students at MIT, Columbia, Chicago and someplace else (Harvard or Yale maybe) they evaluate the changes in attitudes that occur over the course of graduate school indotrination... er, education. I belive this includes the factoid that _The Economist_ picked up that grad students ranked "knowledge of an economy" lease important to success in grad school and "skill at mathematics" most important. Gina ** Gina Neff [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Tue, 7 Oct 1997, Thad Williamson wrote: Dear Pen-L'rs, Does anyone have handy references or the actual data from studies showing that students who major in economics or in economics grad programs develop personal attitudes that mirror the theory of the rational calculating economic actor they are studying? For an upcoming presentation relevant to pomo stuff, I would like to make point that studying postmodernism can lead to self-reinforcing effects on outlook to world (despair, depoliticization, etc.) and use the economics stuff as parallel. Thanks, Thad Thad Williamson National Center for Economic and Security Alternatives (Washington)/ Union Theological Seminary (New York) 212-531-1935 http://www.northcarolina.com/thad
Re: Physicists Take Philosophers to Task in Paris (N.Y. Times)
What methodology DG use in understanding fascism is simply beyond me " ...Rural fascism and city or neighborhood fascism, youth fascism and war veteran's fascism, fascism of the Left and fascism of the Right, fascism of the couple, family, school, and office ..." What is Left fascism? Louis Proyect DG assert that power is best understood in micro-political terms - networks of power relations found at every point in society - rather than in macro-political terms of large groupings, monolithic blocs, social classes, the political state...they oppose generalizations such as class claiming it is an abstraction that leads to a party being elevated to class representative...focusing on desire, DG distinguish between paranoia schizophrenia that ostensibly correspond to fascist (authoritarian) revolutionary (libertarian) social forms...they contend that revolutionary desire runs through loosely organized small groups...such circumstances apparently offer freedom from hierarchic structures and territorial jurisdictions... revolutionary shizophrenia is set against fascist paranoia...collective action is produced from the fight that we wage against the fascism in our heads... "mass society" theorist A. James Gregor - in his book *The Fascist Persuasion in Radical Politics*/1974 - argued that the symbolism of working-class revolution was appropriated by Marxist movements to justify the kind of authoritarian statism that fascists openly advocate... and I bet that he never even read DG...Michael
Re: Physicists Take Philosophers to Task in Paris (N.Y. Times)
On Mon, 6 Oct 1997, Louis N Proyect wrote: So what's the problem with historical materialism? I happen to find it very useful in understanding fascism. What methodology DG use in understanding fascism is simply beyond me, but their conclusions are nuts: Louis: My problems with historical materialism are several. First, I have NOT found it useful. At one point I tried to use it as a frame of reference for thinking about several different problems I was working on --having to do with capitalist social engineering in the Third World-- and found it unhelpful in understanding what was going on. In every version I have come across I have found only rigid formulas into which various historical phenomena are to be fitted and a lack of concepts to help me understand the dynamics of whatever I have been studying at the time. I think the machine illustrations in E.P.Thompson's book The Poverty of Theory were very much to the point, even tho Thompson himself failed, IMHO, to break free of the structuralism he was critiquing. I like some of his students' work (in Albion's Fatal Tree, and The London Hanged) much better. Second, methodologically I think HM violates Marx's discussion in the Grundrisse about not retrospectively projecting concepts from contemporary society, i.e., capitalism, back onto earlier social relationships. In as much as concepts are generated within specific historical contexts, and are more or less adequate to grasping them, they are marked and limited by those contexts. I think this applies to Marxist theory as well. I neither project/apply it to human society backwards and forwards, a la HM, or in all directions a la Dialectical Materialism qua cosmology. [DG] "The concept of the totalitarian State applies only at the macropolitical level, to a rigid segmentarity and a particular mode of totalization and centralization. But fascism is inseparable from a proliferation of molecular focuses in interaction, which skip from point to point, before beginning to resonate together in the National Socialist State. Rural fascism and city or neighborhood fascism, youth fascism and war veteran's fascism, fascism of the Left and fascism of the Right, fascism of the couple, family, school, and office: every fascism is defined by a micro-black hole that stands on its own and communicates with the others, before resonating in a great, generalized central black hole." [LP] This is a totally superficial understanding of how fascism came about. What is Left fascism? It is true that the Communist Party employed thuggish behavior on occasion during the ultraleft "Third Period". They broke up meetings of small Trotskyist groups while the Nazis were breaking up the meetings of trade unions or Communists. Does this behavior equal left Fascism? Fascism is a class term. It describes a mass movement of the petty-bourgeoisie that seeks to destroy all vestiges of the working-class movement. This at least is the Marxist definition. Louis: Your characterization of fascism as "a mass movement of the petty-bourgeoisie that seeks to destroy all vestiges of the working-class movement" certainly grasps some aspects of that pheonmenon. But except for reminding people that it IS anti-working class, I don't think it is very helpful. I don't find the concept of "petty-bourgeoisie" helpful at all, but even if it did denote some meaningfully distinct group, the label doesn't help us understand what was going on in the genesis of fascism. You say DG's discussion of "how it came about" is superficial, but you offer no alternative. Defining it doesn't explain its genesis. What DG are trying to theorize is precisely the emergence of that body of behaviors and policies that we call fascism. They are offering a formulation which interconnects what's going on at the "molecular level", i.e., with individuals, families, schools, etc., and the emergence of a social movement. This seems to me to be exactly what is required to understand how fascism came about as such a devastatingly destructive social force. The same kind of analysis is needed, I think, for the emergence of cycles of working class struggle, especially the powerful ones that rupture capitalist development and/or precipitate revolution. A lot of interesting work has been done in recent years about the struggles of everyday life, e.g., popular culture theorists, students of peasant struggles. But what has been missing is analysis of how widespread "resistance" reaches a point where it coallesces into revolutionary upheaval. What were the molecular forces (to use DG term) that generated macro upheavals? What came together in 1789, in 1848, in 1870, in 1905, in 1910, in 1917 and so on in such a way as to explode? We can perhaps find limits to DG's analysis, but what they are offering, it seems to me, is exactly the KIND of analysis we need. In comparison, to return to the earlier point, HM comments about contraditions between base and superstructure
Economic sites
I just stumbled across a list containing a wealth of Web links to economic and financial data that may be of interest to Pen-l-ers. I suggest that you check this out and bookmark the site for future use. http://wueconb.wustl.edu/EconFAQ/node71.html#SECTION00013 Sid Shniad
PK and the Left
The PK phenomenon raises all kinds of interesting questions for consideration. Realizing how hard it is to build legitimate grass roots mass movements nationally, I am always somewhat suspicious of something like PK that goes from a few hundred to a few thousand, to hundreds of thousands in just a couple of years. That kind of growth, even if it taps into wide-spread and deep social discontent, does not happen without considerable resources. I rather doubt it was entirely self-financed (by passing the plate at PK events). That does not mean it is illegitimate or a sinister tool of hidden forces. But it does suggest institutional or other support. That support might have come from organized church and religious groups that endorsed what PK said it was all about. It may have come from wealthy donors. It could have come from the religious right, or from other rightwing or right-leaning sources. It may have been combination of all of those and more. Do some of those "investors" have their own ideological agenda? You bet they do. Their relationship to PK may be totally opportunistic, sinister, or parasitic. Others may see PK as a means to gain access to an audience they could not easily secure in their own rights. Assume all of that. Still PK has obviously tapped into a widespread sentiment among some men and speaks to deeply felt needs and anxieties. There is much angst in the land and much pain in the psyches of men, especially working class and "middle class" white men between the ages of 30 and 60 who are watching stable elements of their personal and social world break down and feel powerless to stop it or to protect themselves and their families from its consequences. While most of the Left rails against the "system" and speaks to broad issues of economic and social justice, they do not address the individual and personal pain that is a derivative of the systemic forces at work. That was not always so, but it is so now and has been so for at least the last several decades. That is because the Left can no longer offer the cultural and spiritual support and framework within which individuals can make sense of their lives and of the world-shaking changes going on about them. (One need only catalog the range of "cults," spiritual healers, meditators, counter-culture communes, and other phenomenon that have passed through our social scene over the last three or four decades to see evidence of this void and how folks try to fill it.) Unlike the PK, the Left has proven unable to offer a compelling vision of what an alternative social arrangement might be like. Whether PK has an ulterior or hidden agenda, or is subject to the manipulation of those who do, I really am in no position to judge. That it could fall prey to that despite the best intentions of its founders, I do not doubt. It also appears clear to me that PK's message is a mixed and contradictory one when it comes to male-female relations, hierarchy, and other matters for which legitimate criticism has been raised. Alarmist condemnations and wild stereotyping, however, whatever the intentions of those who use them, do nothing to alter the course PK will take (and may actually accelerate PK down that trajectory as a defensive reaction). The best antidote I know for any reactionary potential PK may have or prophylactic against that is the creation of a legitimate, mass-based, democratic movement that addresses the underlying systemic causes of social and spiritual malaise and alienation -- one that offers those attracted to PK another (not necessarily competing) alternative for what ails them -- one that creates a cultural and spiritual community that is egalitarian, nurturing, healing, supportive, and life-affirming and a vision of how society might be organized toward those ends. That's my two cents. In solidarity, Michael
