Sunday, February 28, 2010

Results of a search: The Old Chestnut, "B for O"

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n08/-retort/blood-for-oil
[these are not my words!]
Capitalism presents itself, Marx said on more than one occasion, as an ‘immense accumulation of commodities’. [yeah most of 'em made in China] In a full-scale commodity producing economy, what comes to matter about each separate article is not so much its constellation of uses as its value as an item of exchange, its function as a ‘material depository’ (Marx again) of exchange value. The commodity’s value is generated from its shifting place in a complex, self-contained world of money equivalents. So that finally the usefulness of petroleum presents itself as merely the outward and accidental aspect of something more basic: the article’s price.



(JS): I'm not really so sure about the Marxism. I like the part about the immense pile or collection but I'm not quite so sure about the stuff from "material depository" on. This text sounds to me like it was written by some experts, though, does it not? The text's author or authors really sound like they know their stuff. It's from a website that is probably famous . I suppose the London Review of Books is famous?
I was searching "blood for oil" when I found it. I was interested in the old saw. Is the phrase still around? Figures like Bob Dole (I have books about him for some reason) or Romney, Mitt would surely disdain any serious consideration of the slogan. "Blood for Oil." What a scandalous thing to say. Where would such talk lead? To the truth, probably. Oooooops!!! Can't make any money there, now can we?

OK we know where the Google search leads.

the quoted material is a presentation of your basic Leftist type of stuff. Another such view is contained within the slogan "B 4 O," and these are just more views on our plate for consideration. After all, we are a society based on free enquiry. Free enquiry is related to freedom of speech. I do not see much point freely enquiring if you are not going to speak about it. Freedom of speech requires (you guessed this?)that Um----well, that we actually be that way. (Here we have both the scandalous Clintonian use of "is" as well as staunch refusal to follow spell-check and switch "enquiry" to "inquiry," but don't shoot me.)

I do not think the ideas in the quoted material are necessarily correct. What I do think to be correct, however, is the first part about "an immense accumulation of commodities." That is it. A huge pile of commodities. I would totally agree with this. After that, the view in the quote is wandering off into typical Marxist realms of speculation. I am more or less neutral on all this. What is a "full-scale commodity producing economy"? I don't know. What is an "economy", for that matter? Now so fast, Marxists!!

It is true that capitalism, as it now exists, requires this accumulated pile of commodities to be exchangeable, one against the other, but that is what I want changed. What I want to do is extract a portion out of the pool of commodities, and designate it for some particular use (has to do with the Third-world). Not exchangeable against itself but exchangeable against something in particular. A transfer system: from overy-developed to under-developed worlds. That, to is exchange. But a bit different. The particular commodities, which are extracted from the entire edifice of capitalistic production (or what I term the "capacity to produce"), are directed to one specific group and not another. What is different is that they are no longer "money equivalents." Now they have their own value. And as for price, it is taken out of the equation altogether. I want to give those commodities away --- free.

Monday, February 22, 2010

What is a Country?

What is the entity, "USA?" What does that mean?

"USA" equates to a society that is highly based on economics. ... everything is decided by "the market" (whatever that is) ... It is based on economics almost to the point of committing suicide.

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Friday, February 19, 2010

All Equal

For a moment, let us think about the life of a woman who works behind a counter at a store that sells some small items.

Her job is to interact with customers. Such a person is often nice, sunny and cheerful----and the customers in a refined civilization such as ours appreciate this.

The store needs to accept plastic (cards) in order to thrive in a competitive business environment. The girl, too. Every time she sees a credit card, she has to accept it the same way she accepts cash. She has to treat it same as cash.

As capitalism develops, it erases all distinctions between persons----even distinctions that are still necessary. Capitalism lies: it pretends it is socialism.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Capitalism

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Capitalism----who knows where the capitalist wind blows?
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Its turgid winds of blowing and turning leave all of us flummoxed. If leftists -- many of whom are genius material -- do not know what is going on, I'm sure the corporation executives do not know what they are doing either.
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Wednesday, February 17, 2010

tweet style

Business is based on everybody fighting with each other.

But capitalism is not.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Industrial Belt, N. Illinois

Staying in Rockford, Illinois, you really learn what it is to live in a depressed economy. Large mansions line the road. I wonder why, though ---- why it is that I cannot find a dignified restaurant. I want to eat eggs this morning. Everyone is surly; no one gets along.

There are no clever ideas. There's a lack of entrepreneurs. It's a society in stagnation. There's a big lesson there:

...once the "magic of the market" loses its pixie dust it's going to be hard to re-ignite the flame.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Original Ideas

What would happen if some percentage between five and thirty-five per cent of world economic output were extracted out of commodity circulation and redeployed? It would be used as the base from which to free the world of severe wealth-deprivation. Humans suffer from malnutrition, lack of drinking water and so forth, in many countries. The number of such persons is large.
Even a five per cent extraction and redistribution might allow many of the deprived world food and water for their basic needs for physical well-being or health. We do not know what to make of this idea. It conforms to nothing currently being discussed in the intellectual circles. It is something we really have to think about, and then perhaps, we will be able to consider the notion.

Far from being a charity concern such a redistribution move is concerned with the nature of the interaction of capitalism and welfare. It is not a matter of charity. It would redeem the social character of capitalism. (See previous blog to get a better idea about this concept of mine that concerns a social side to capitalism.)

It would not be such a big change from the present system of capitalistic economics. For example, more or less the same commodities would be made. It would interrupt normal business only for a removal from commodity circulation and redeployment. I am quite certain that such an economic move would still be classifiable as being capitalistic. This is to be understood as a kind of clever idea within capitalism. It is an innovation within capitalism, or a new idea for the capitalist system, not aimed at supporting capitalism per se (ala "The Laguno Report") but simply aimed at the general welfare, and at basic moral principles. It also would coincide with the present system that we understand as being that of "capitalism." The notion of the definition of the term "capitalism" is beyond my scope here, but the move would help obtain that definition. In thinking this over for about eight years the present author has never found a compelling reason that I am wrong, and thus this, my idea, represents what might be a legitimate aspect of a more advanced stage of capitalism.

In thinking the idea over for around eight years another result is that I have come to a new understanding of capitalism. I believe therefore that we may be thinking about capitalism in the wrong way.

Thus, there are two basic tenets of this philosophical system and these are those of a new trading method or wealth-distributional method, and, a new understanding of what "capitalism" is.

My Kind of Idea

The system of social organization that emerged with capitalism needed to have elements of basic sociality, ethics, and goodwill.

This is a copy of my own (previous) blog, of course.

It is amazing to me that this would strike readers as something unusual or difficult to understand but such seems to be the case. To me, it's obvious.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Accounting For Sociality In Economic Theory

The system of social organization that emerged with capitalism needed to have elements of basic sociality, ethics, and goodwill.

It could definitely not have succeeded without these. Modernity succeeded because of goodwill, and because of the ethical behavior of the humans making up society (this is just what is lacking in what Loretta Napoleoni describes as "Rougue Economics"). It is not some kind of dry, mechanical causality like that which is expressed mathematically ---- a supply-demand graph/curve.

All societies, and modern ones are not excluded, need their deeply human, cultural, social ethical component ---- the system of capitalism of the last 200 years being no exception.
So capitalism is dependent on goodwill ---- and goodness.

Now, notice how this creates a cognitive dissonance with the predominant and mainstream approach. What they emphasize is economic rationality -- not ethical sociality.

Friday, February 5, 2010

Capitalism

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Capitalism is always going to be a compromise. But let's think about it, and get ouselves a strategy. The idea that one ought to just "let the market work its magic" is incorrect.

We are the market.

It's up to us.

New and Improved "Free Your Mind" -with notes, too!

The social changes accompanying capitalism seem to free up the mind. Hegel had a very neat plan with thesis and anti-thesis following one another in sequential order. Capitalism embodies this dualism or dialectic but not sequentially. Capitalism is the only known social development that includes its own antithesis not sequentially but concurrently along with the whole story of its development. It is as if capitalism as a historical and social movement dangles before its member-"nation" or membership group an illusory proposition of rebelling against it.
The mind, therefore, is freed up to rebel against capitalism. But that is just another part of capitalism's plan. It is the only cultural development that packs its own antithesis.
There is nothing sequential about it. Capitalism is its antithesis, in real time. The usual Marxist or Leftist theory believes in a capitalist stage. After this stage, comes another, and so on and on. In fact it is more like a "wrapping up" of all the historical contradictions of history itself --of Western history --or else it is a telescoping----what I seem to be saying is, in reverse----collapsing the telescope (the view) of history into one neat, self-contradictory unit. Within that world or that period, of capitalism's potential for self-criticalness, are the youth of my own generation. We really thought we could rebel.

This is because capitalism frees up one's mind; and only under capitalism does the individual have the freedom to think of rebelling. In my time, we did that. I remember the"revolutionaries" we had in high school. That was the very early seventies actually. This type of thing went on in the thirties, as well. "New York Intellectuals" can testify that there were more Stalinists than creative "critical theorists" at New York City College in the thirties. That is one example.
Revolution is sexy, you know. Capitalism gives you this stage of rebellion. All that is pretty much over now. And so is capitalism itself.



notes

"The social changes accompanying capitalism" - What is capitalism? It is a movement of things. It is movement coming into Western civilization. It is the wind of change coming into history in an organized way. The stipulation that it comes in an organized way is very important.
This change wave that I am calling capitalism had the power to usurp monarchy. The purpose of monarchy was to set up a power system that can administrate and control an area. That area is called the kingdom. Capitalism was not terrorism. It was not a disorganized movement. There was coherence and structure to it. It it had been a disorganized wind rather than an organized wind, it could not have had the power to displace the previous system, that of monarchy.

free up the mind - the question here, of course, is whether capitalism just seems to do that or really does. Does it seem to free up the mind or does capitalism really do it? Up to us, isn't it?

"the frustration everyday Americans feel" "those who fought for this country" -Palin's words reek of propaganda and opportunism. She is an enemy. This is a completely evil person. Palin is an enemy of America. There should be no doubt about it. It would be like Hitler or Stalin coming to power. There are such persons. There are these persons in every society, but modernity has, since the French Revolution, given these type of persons the opportunity to commandeer these modern social processes for their own purposes. This can be fit into the essay above.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Cooperative society and trade

We have a capitalistic sort of society. In this kind of society, trade builds a cooperative condition. We just don't want to admit it.

This is a hidden area, a hidden topic. We need to look with fresh eyes. There are two aspects to this that, I reckon, I can discern. There is the objective condition of capitalism. Capitalism did establish itself; it somehow had the power to usurp the kings and queens who had been in power up until then. That is history. It is a big transition of some kind. One system appears to have replaced another, quite different one. It is not clear what kind of transition this is, nor is it clear exactly what needs to come next, although presumably, there will continue to be progress (and not Fukuyama's "End of History," although the dark possibility of apocalypse is also to be considered). Now in addition to the facticity or apparentness of capitalism, which includes the fact that there is a large aspect of co-operativeness, there is another thing I am able to discern, which is the co-existent fact that we do not admit the specific fact that it is cooperative.

Instead we enact a big ideological drama, a big masquerade. We do not simply forget to notice that capitalism is co-operative. We have to actively fend off knowledge of it, so we enact the counter-theory. This would encompass all theories that now exist. It is really incredible that I am saying this. But it appears that all of the theories --- they are establishment, right-wing, neoliberal or in fact any other systems of thought --- all follow the same pattern: all of them miss the co-operativeness of the new kind of society that is being created. All the existing systems of economic theory should therefore be understood as being ideological. They fail to get at the notion of co-operativeness in capitalism. So: it's a big deal.
Yet as I have formulated the matter myself, capitalism has a very important side that is cooperative. This we might call one of the present author's original findings. And amongst theories that fail to discern the true cooperative nature of capitalism we must even include Marxism, which appears to "oppose" the other theories.

Everyone thus totally agrees on the wrong thing----it's really amazing----what they have in common is an incorrect judgment. This convenient and necessary finding is an incorrect finding that as a result continuously broadcasts to the world the "ideologically correct" notion that capitalism to not be understood as cooperative.

As I said, we have two elements, in this analysis. There could be other analyses, for example a three-part one. But in this analysis, the first part is the objective condition. That is one thing. We see the objective condition of our society. (To some extent.) Then there is the denial of that objective condition, for the real condition is that it is cooperative, and it is necessary not to see that fact. So, the seeing of the true condition is masked, by means of a whole slew of ideologies of competition, self-interest and so on. All of these perform the same necessary service. They cover up the social side of capitalism.

Anything else would have been crushed, because capitalism could not afford to comprehend its co-operative side. Now, presumably, it can, and I have noticed it. (Readers may also see similarities with Marx's "superstructural ideology" concept my view of which is that it is a rather good concept and comes close to what I am saying, too.)

Plato is considered to be an objective philosopher, and also an idealist. Therefore, ideas can be objective, too. The objective condition can also be related to its ideas. So a society has its "condition" and also its characteristic set of myths, or ideas. This latter is the society's ideology, or its characteristic ideas. A society, then, has its "idea condition." Capitalism, therefore, is going to have its characteristic idea-set. We can therefore discern both an objective condition of society as such as well as an objective "idea condition" of that society. We can discern both a condition, and, an ideology about that condition. An objective idea, held by society, proceeds through history right alongside the material objectivity of the society as such.
The objective idea that manifests in the capitalistic sort of society is (to give one popular term as the example) that capitalism is competitive. This is what the idea is supposed to be. It is what you are supposed to think. According to prevailing (and also incorrect) ideas about what capitalism is it is based on individual desires for wealth and profit, it is based on rational self-interest, and it is based on privately held properties. And so forth.
That's the ideology and they do as well as they can with it. This is something like the case of what some call the "superstructural ideology." But, in this case, it gets cheaper and crasser as time goes on. Capitalism as somehow essentially a private thing is a cultural fabrication perfected (OK, I just said crass and now I'm saying perfect, I know) over the last two hundred years. They created an objective language, or set of terms, to go along with or accompany the objective reality. This means that the response of the society to objective reality was---to lie about it. So as a result of all that----we call capitalism private. That fact is not true.
The truth is hidden, but this, alas, is simply how capitalism proceeds. It really needed to lie about itself, to keep the participants on board. They then proceed to become quite busy with the Left vs. right debate, you see. Liberals usually make the mistake of being full of rancor about this whole ball of wax of "private" capitalism and so forth, decrying the corporations and so forth. They would be better to knock it off with the hostility, which does not in the end (i.e. today!) do anyone any good, but rather they ought to just responsibly replace untruth with truth.

If humanity fails to do it----we could be in for a, Um----rough ride.



The frontal part of capitalism: "I'll take your money." The hidden part of capitalism: "I want to be an elite and remain separated from you and your interest." These two parts are in total contradiction. This is the whole story of capitalism as human system, as society, as culture. Perhaps the game has gone on long enough, and we can change now. I'm not sure but it is a possibility that I would like to float. (Along with some shares in my new "jack silverman" brand.)



[note: the idea of Plato, along with Hegel, as being "objective idealists" is something I read about a long time ago, when I was studying philosophy on my own. May have been Isaiah Berlin, but I am not sure where I read this, nor of whether it is a common kind of terminology: "objective idealist" was a label applied to certain philosophers, in that book.]

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Free your mind, or rebel or something

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The social changes accompanying capitalism seem to free up the mind. Hegel had a very neat plan, in which thesis and anti-thesis follow one another in sequential order. Capitalism embodies this element of dualism, or the dialectic element, but it does not do so sequentially. Capitalism is the only known social development that includes its own antithesis, not sequentially but concurrently, "packed into" the story of its development. It is as if capitalism as a historical and social movement dangles before its member "nation" or its membership group an illusory proposition or possibility of rebelling.
The mind, therefore, is freed up to rebel against capitalism. But that is just another part of capitalism's plan. It is the only cultural development that packs its own antithesis.
It is not sequential. Capitalism is its antithesis, in real time. The usual Marxist or Leftist theory believes in a capitalist stage. After this stage, comes another, and so on and on. In fact it is more like a "wrapping up" of all the historical contradictions of history itself --of Western history --or else it is a telescoping----what I seem to be saying is, in reverse----collapsing the telescope (the view) of history into one neat, self-contradictory unit. Within that world or that period, of capitalism's potential for self-criticalness, are the youth of my own generation. We really thought we could rebel.

This is because capitalism frees up one's mind; and only under capitalism does the individual have the freedom to think of rebelling. In my time, we did that. I remember when we had "revolutionaries"—in high school. This type of thing went on in the thirties as well. "New York Intellectuals" may well tell us of a time when there were more Stalinists than the more creative type persons called "critical theorists" at City College, New York, in the thirties.
Revolution is sexy, you know. Capitalism gives you this stage of rebellion. All that is pretty much over now. And so is capitalism.
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