>>> "Rod Hay" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 09/28/99 06:31PM >>> You can agree with Louis, but it must be admitted that for two weeks Wojtek has been pointing out a flaw in the argument ((((((((((((( Charles: No this doesn't have to be admitted , because it is not true. It is Wojtek's argument that is flawed in many ways, and others and I have been pointing out the flaws in Wojtek's arguments continuously as he has been making them. See archives if you missed it. Wojtek has a kind of shifting theory of value. He doesn't seem to apply the labor theory of value, despite his feints at historical materialist commentary. Then he asked why didn't the Third Worlders develop the wealth before capitalism. This assumes that capitalist hyper-productivity is the optimum standard of "wealth" creation, ignoring that other modes of production that are less hyper-productive of exchange-value but not necessarily as indifferent to the goal of production and distribution of use-values may have better standards of wealth. In other words, he seems to have a highly ethnocentric concept of wealth. Wojtek and you have still not answered the question of why ,if no significant wealth , in the capitalist conception of it as exchange-value, was added to the European treasuries by its early slavery and colonies, did the Europeans spend so many resources in conducting slavery and colonialism ? By this you imply that the Europeans were not efficient but very wasteful and couldn't tell that they were not making any significant profits from outside of Europe. Slavery and colonialism were sort of an elaborate tourism by the Europeans, with no significant net economic gain on the scale of in Europe operations. Wojtek puts forth sort of faux materialist comments mocking references to what he calls morality. He doesn't even realize that the founder of historical materialism fills his discussion of the original capitalist colonialism and slavery with references to the use of force and violence in effecting the primitive exploitation for the primitive accumulation. In other words, materialism does attend to the social and cultural ideology of a group as a factor in its economic development, etc., etc., etc. all kinds of things wrong with Wojtek's analysis of the issues on this thread. In this context, Wojtek is not finding any flaws in our argument because he shows no awareness of the gaping flaws in his argument, and those flaws in his arguments render his critique of our arguments ineffective. CB (((((((((((((((((( and it took this mocking of the argument to get other than insults from Lou. The argument put forward by Jim B. and Lou does not have any explanatory power. In fact, as Wojtek was pointing out for those who can read is that the logical conclusion of the argument is a racist one. For pointing out the inherent racism of the argument he gets called a racist by Lou. And around and around we go. ----Original Message Follows---- From: "Charles Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [PEN-L:11889] Re: units of analysis (was: wojtek) Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 14:57:07 -0400 I agree with Louis on this issue. Wojtek regularly uses formulations that are not just offensive in form, but white supremacist in content. Then he tries to defend his analyses by accusing his critics of "moralizing" and "intellectual or cultist thirdworldism" , posturing as if he is merely being a militant materialist. It should be possible to openly criticize this as just what it is without being accused of unfair play or flaming. If anything the initiation of any flaming is by Wojtek, not his critics. It is not legitimate scientific method to ban from this list criticisms of racism and white supremacist theory, as if just by being on a progressive list, listers don't truck in left racism. Categorization of analyses as racist is scientific and not primarily sensitivity training. The idea that there are no racist theories or statements on these lists , properly and openly labelled as such, is outrageous. Banning criticisms of racism as bad manners is racist. Charles Brown >>> Louis Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 09/28/99 01:16PM >>> >Not only is "dummies" pretty mild, but I read Wojtek as using the word in >the specific way of saying "if you take the Blaut perspective seriously one >can lambaste the third-world as being inhabited by dummies." It is mild to you, but--trust me--to an Argentinian or Brazilian leftist it would be highly insulting, in or out of context. Part of the problem with PEN-L is that there is not a single regular poster from a legitimate colonized country. And the last time somebody who even had a marginal connection to such a country--Henry Liu--was here, he resigned in protest over what he regarded as naked racism. Now I know that most people here are glad that he is gone with his constant rejoinders, but I can assure you that anybody from Jamaica, Brazil, Uganda or the Philippines who showed up might have similar reactions, but would not be so vocal in their objections. >I don't believe words can be ripped out of context, the way some people >want to ban HUCK FINN because of its use of the n-word. It's not a matter >of putting a spin on anything. The context is Wojtek's hatred for "third worldism" in general, which was articulated a couple of weeks ago in his excitement over the prospects for a law and order "white hope" Mayoral candidate in Baltimore. >BTW, I don't understand your attack on Wojtek as a "professor." Are >professors always wrong? My problem with Wojtek is that he acting unprofessorial. I try to imagine how language like "third world dummies" would go over here at Columbia in a room with Gayatri Spivak, Manning Marable and Edward Said in attendance. Even uttered in a "sarcastic" fashion, it would earn the speaker nothing but opprobrium. I guess the standards on PEN-L are a lot more lax. Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html) Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archives http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://members.tripod.com/rodhay/batochebooks.html http://www.abebooks.com/home/BATOCHEBOOKS/ ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
