1.Blair posts the following from a friend:>> Currently my image is
the following: Marxists see society as a spider net with economics
embedded. All parts, strings, are interrelated and processes define
the entity; a soft wind blow and the whole net starts wobbling.
>>Neoclassical theorists select the economic part out of the spider
net and therefore have only some strings left. The problem now with
the Neoclassical approach is, that the content gets lost to a high
degree. In other words, the spider net floats in the air with an
unknown off-set. Also, for the sake of simplicities, the strings
lack of elasticity when talking about basic Neoclassical economics,
the remaining strings are assumed to be stiff.
>>My interpretation is, that here with the spider net is the
initial connection and simultaneously starts the divergence.<<
That's a _great_ analogy (and I must admit to a perhaps unhealthy
love for analogies)!
But it seems a great analogy for not only the "pomo" perspective but
also _any_ perspective which centers on the idea of the need to look
at the world as a _totality_.
To diffferentiate "pomo" form other views of the social world as a
totality, one might note that "pomo" vision of the web (as I
understand it) lacks a _spider_ who made the web and uses it to
catch food. There's no Subject in History, so Hegel's vision of
History being a matter of the Absolute Spirit coming to Know Itself
Absolutely is rejected (and rightly so).
But there's also no aspect to the "pomo" story (as I understand it)
like that of Marx. Marx, in desperate brevity and thus simplicity,
argued that capitalism acted _as if_ it were some sort of unified
Subject (even though it is not) -- perhaps as a robot spider --
spinning its web all over the world and it all aspects of human
life and the natural environment. To Marx, this robot spider was a
contradictory machine, partly because it was a robot rather than a
conscious and unified subject: the contradictions cause crises and
conflict, setting up the possibility that a real Subject (the
proletariat) would take form from the competing bugs and transform
the web from a tool for catching bugs to a system that serves the
bugs' own needs. Of course, in really-existing capitalism, the bugs
remain divided and alienated, munched on by the robot spider, not a
real Subject at all.
2. Sorry to Blair for bugging him (as it were) to fill in the
details in his bibliography. I should be working on something else,
also. So this is my last message for awhile.
3. Antonio says that Mike Albert has rejected Marxism. You could
have fooled me (if he walks like a bug, talks like a bug, etc., he
must be a bug). I guess that's good: in a world where so many who
call themselves "Marxists" act in extremely unMarxist ways (the old
Soviet bureaucratic elite), it's good to find an obstensible
non-Marxist who thinks and acts in a very Marxist way. (Noam Chomsky
is similar in some ways.)
Mike started out more as an anarchist than a Marxist, so I would
guess he _never accepted_ Marxism the way many Maoists, Troskyists,
etc. embraced it (a kind of acceptance that can be unhealthy). He
and Robin Hahnel developed a very clearly written and pretty damn
coherent synthesis of what's valid of the New Left vision of the
1960s & 1970s and a lot of what is valid in old-fashioned Marxism.
I have some disagreements with Mike (like his implication that
Lenin et al consciously wanted to set up a new ruling class in
Russia in LOOKING FORWARD), but I would count him as a Marxist in
my book. His criticisms of the "Marxian orthodoxy" have to be
treated seriously, of course. Since his criticisms are based on
serious thought, they can and do strengthen Marxism.
In the end, I don't care if Mike (or anyone else) is a Marxist. It's not
labels (or language in general) that matter as much as what people _do_. I
also like his magazine a lot; it represents a pretty successful example of
praxis (given the rightward lurch of the polity).
4. By the way, there already _is_ a comic book about Derrida. I'd like to
know how to find it though (and if it is a fair summary of JD's work).
in bug-eyed solidarity,
J.D. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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.
"God is a spider" -- Ingmar Bergman.
