___
Living in proximity to wealth -- my current arrangement -- I go over to Michigan Avenue, for coffee. My trip went downhill almost immediately, for I had to move over to other side of the room. This in order to avoid a loudmouth man there in the middle of the coffee shop on that side. As I believe I recently said above, he was yammerindo --- all about his numbers and money.
I don't do that. This is more boring than anything I can imagine. I would rather hear just about any other conversation than a man talking about his wealth in numbers. It is intolerably dull. I would rather intentionally publish spelling mistakes or hear rap music.
Then the vulgar scene repeated itself. It happened again, in other words, this time on the other side. And I mean these are the better sort, the rich people if you know what I mean.
Anyway, the new motor mouth, money-confessional-tell-all-two, was on the cafe couch, and he was a little bit skinnier. But it was basically the same hyperactive money garble.
So... Yet again, I had to move! By Jiminy!
I ended up next to some European tourists. They were OK -- had nice kids, too.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
pt 2, as promised
Is fairness basic to capitalism? We can locate the concept of fairness in two ways. The order could be either of two: f to c or c to f. Causality can be set up plausibly in either of two directions.
The implication of fairness being basic to capitalism could be expressed as the notion that fairness precedes successful capitalism. This is one way of stating that fairness is basic to capitalism. But there is another way as well, and I think there could just be some young persons today who, while they do not hold to the concept of fairness in quite the same way as their "fair" forefathers two or three generations back, they perhaps would assert that the fairness one may experience in the world is the result, rather than cause, of capitalism. But the thing to remember is that, in any case, we have to posit capitalism's success here. Capitalism, when it works, is a success with some relationship to fairness.
Now fairness, like freedom, would be considered a virtue. Capitalism would ot. And freedom and fairness are basic to capitalism abeit that it is hard to say just how.
Certainly the development of capitalism didn't somehow just suddenly "make everybody be high," as Bob Marley's song goes. Marley is, in fact, rejecting those in his society that hold wrong values. Certainly the development of capitalism didn't somehow make everyone suddenly become fair or get high on fairness, but it is a success based -- somewhere -- on fairness.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
July 19, 2011
What makes it fun is the element of contrast.
The contrasts.
A capitalist society is "fun" -- or functional -- when it has contrasts. All it has to offer is the thing that surprises. When two things come together, and/but they are different, we say that that is "contrast." Maybe that is all capitalism has. It is all about contrast, and capitalism can just play one thing off against a different thing until... until forever. There are other factors that will get in the way in real life, there are all the flaws in humanity, but within theory, or in some kind of relative dmension -- I would say that if you live in the world of theory capitalism can play with contrast forever, so, in some sense, all there is is contrast.
Contrast is the spice of life, you know, and if you look at the first few pages of a book by K. Marx, called either Das Kapital or "Capital, vol. 1" or whatever, he takes two different things, contrasts them and gets a common value that he seems to call the "exchange" value, and this seems to be the value set for the purpose of making an exchange, for which purpose you put one thing up against another. That is contrast -- one common value comes out of the contrast, but, nevertheless, it starts with a comparison or a contrast between two things, like paper and iron (that is the example given in the original), and these are qualitatively different, and have the element of contrast. So, that is just one example of contrast.
Conservative capitalists or traditionalists make entreaties to tradition. They may speak of traditional values, or, in a related sense, they may speak of "fiscal restrain" and frugality. But capitalism wends its way through the past and present, and into the future, and where in the final analysis is there any tradition? If capitalism is in some sense all about contrast, essentially there is not any tradition at all.
There isn't any tradition at all. It's all contrast. One thing is different from another thing. Those two things trade. This is being presented as a broad principle. Persons, too, are different from each other and that, too, is contrast. The system of course continually advances, or progresses. Capitalism is progressive. And that advancement is a very mysterious march forward in time, and there are surprises at every turn. Surprises, of course, meaning "contrast," once again.
I propose, then, that this element of contrast is all that the system needs.
But, in accord with ideas presented both on this blog and on Jacksilvermaneconomicsblog, I do not think this means you would not regulate, necessarily. I therefore would not say that this means I agree with the view that individuals acting on their own will always automatically do the right thing and so forth ---- what Stiglitz calls the economic "ideology" we are irratioinally sticking to in our times. I do not think that we can necessarily expect individuals to just automatically develop the appropriate contrasts, in terms of the various different items that they trade, against one another. I see not reason to assume that. Contrast is basic to the system in many ways, intended and unintended. As always, the whole "do not regulate" phlosophy turns out to be completely irrelevant.
The contrasts.
A capitalist society is "fun" -- or functional -- when it has contrasts. All it has to offer is the thing that surprises. When two things come together, and/but they are different, we say that that is "contrast." Maybe that is all capitalism has. It is all about contrast, and capitalism can just play one thing off against a different thing until... until forever. There are other factors that will get in the way in real life, there are all the flaws in humanity, but within theory, or in some kind of relative dmension -- I would say that if you live in the world of theory capitalism can play with contrast forever, so, in some sense, all there is is contrast.
Contrast is the spice of life, you know, and if you look at the first few pages of a book by K. Marx, called either Das Kapital or "Capital, vol. 1" or whatever, he takes two different things, contrasts them and gets a common value that he seems to call the "exchange" value, and this seems to be the value set for the purpose of making an exchange, for which purpose you put one thing up against another. That is contrast -- one common value comes out of the contrast, but, nevertheless, it starts with a comparison or a contrast between two things, like paper and iron (that is the example given in the original), and these are qualitatively different, and have the element of contrast. So, that is just one example of contrast.
Conservative capitalists or traditionalists make entreaties to tradition. They may speak of traditional values, or, in a related sense, they may speak of "fiscal restrain" and frugality. But capitalism wends its way through the past and present, and into the future, and where in the final analysis is there any tradition? If capitalism is in some sense all about contrast, essentially there is not any tradition at all.
There isn't any tradition at all. It's all contrast. One thing is different from another thing. Those two things trade. This is being presented as a broad principle. Persons, too, are different from each other and that, too, is contrast. The system of course continually advances, or progresses. Capitalism is progressive. And that advancement is a very mysterious march forward in time, and there are surprises at every turn. Surprises, of course, meaning "contrast," once again.
I propose, then, that this element of contrast is all that the system needs.
But, in accord with ideas presented both on this blog and on Jacksilvermaneconomicsblog, I do not think this means you would not regulate, necessarily. I therefore would not say that this means I agree with the view that individuals acting on their own will always automatically do the right thing and so forth ---- what Stiglitz calls the economic "ideology" we are irratioinally sticking to in our times. I do not think that we can necessarily expect individuals to just automatically develop the appropriate contrasts, in terms of the various different items that they trade, against one another. I see not reason to assume that. Contrast is basic to the system in many ways, intended and unintended. As always, the whole "do not regulate" phlosophy turns out to be completely irrelevant.
Friday, July 8, 2011
Friday, Just 08 (pt. 1 of two parts)
Fairness or evenness is a virtue. Through history – from around the middle Ages at least – observe a great love of chivalry and fairness. If I look at a newspaper from 1809 – I have this – it’s a copy – what I see is concern at a boarding house with separating out the “gentlemen” from the apparent commoners. There is this ad in there, for a boarding house and it is “gentlemen” they are asking for.
In the first chapters of his book on what he thinks isAmerica U. S. England
In the first chapters of his book on what he thinks is
It implies evenhandedness, and the word itself flourished in some pretty brutal times. Especially women were praised by the just and good, as being “fair.” All of this fairness and goodness becomes much less popular in our age, and now we hardly even know what the word means exactly. Does that mean we are less fair than those of say the 14th century?
Businessmen are not fair today – no, they are brutal competitors interested in return on equity whatever that means.
But how exactly are we to attempt to live in a world without the concept of fairness? When you dismiss the concept of the “fair,” what do you exactly dismiss it in favor of? Brute force? Strangulation your bag?
Is fairness basic to capitalism, and, if so, in what way? [t.b.c.]
Thursday, July 7, 2011
The Disconnect Between IDeology and Facts
In the last post, that was July 02, it says it would be "extremely foolish to regard those ... facing the oncoming social change of capitalism not as people but as somehow only individuals."
Of course I could have said "historical" instead of "social," but what I do is I call the oncoming change those persons faced a social change. Why not? I cannot take it out. I wouldn't make any sense. In my universe of economic thought I cannot proceed at all unless I use the word "social." It has to be there at some point. I have tried to take it out. It doesn't make any difference. In the long run I have to say "social" or use some substitute, such as "historical," in the example above. This is the only way it works, and I do not think I am the one who is wrong. If I took that social language out, I would be pretending to views I just do not hold. That would not work; and it wouldn't make sense. It is the assumption that everything takes place on the individual level that does not work for me anymore. I would be writing fiction; but I can't say what does not make any sense to me -- it's impossible.
But that means I disagree with a lot of people. Where do these extreme disagreements come from? I think we are dealing with two things now. We are not dealing with only economics, anymore. We move on to another topic. Now we are not dealing with economics. We are dealing with ideology, and that means with thought -- it means I am talking about human thought processes as regards how we choose what we believe.
It is a conflict between truth on the one hand and ideology on the other. The problem as I would frame it is that there are persons who don't want to deal with the truth. On one side of this conflict is the ideological view; and on the other side is what can only be called the truth. Following after a blogpost I read today, there is what can be termed a "disconnect." There is a disconnect with reality. Now, my personal experience is that "everyone," or "society," in one (slightly different!) sense of the word, seems to hold to some consensus that equates economic explanations which concepts about "the individual," blabbity-blabbity-bla. My views are unique, so it is not a conspiracy against me personally, but at any rate I am saying that to me, this doesn't even make sense; it is not comprehensible. I am seeing a different world than these guys in the newspapers and mostly in the universities are, although there are many great dissident voices in economics that the newspaper wisdom simply ignores (including Adam Smith). This is what we are seeing over and over again. So, you've got to discuss it finally. I could not exist in a university. They would put me on a sedan chair, carry me across the border - or across the street from campus - and dump me on a front lawn.
I can generalize by moving from my own personal experiences to what is going on in the economics discussion in general. Since there is a general choice in favor of unreality, at some point the person who wants to be active in the world (a world that has an exceptionally important economic aspect) has to shift over to the question of ideology; this is the case even though, then, you are not even talking about economics anymore. Rather you are on to a second subject area here. The point is that you have to deal with the question of ideology in order to get at the matter of a choice in favor of an "other" or an other-worldly version of reality. But that is the version the public culture in general, as exemplified by public or press utterances, is attached to, and which they claim they believe in, despite the contrary views of many economist (they are not as extreme as I am but they do seem to be my fellow dissidents ---- I just looked at what was said about Galbraith, [ft.note below] and his view is strongly dissenting from the standard or publicly disseminated or newspaper-ordained view, which is to say the standard ideology).
What, by the way, is "reality"? Reality is what comes up when persons actually think things out. That would be a reality that is the result of persons actually thinking. Then, they are not actually thinking. And that indeed sounds like what I am saying here. These sources of cultural materials like magazines and newspapers and or course the business pronouncements, financial magazines, "The Economist," etc. prefer the other version ---- even if it is disconnected ---- even if it does not represent truth.
This is what is strange and this is what one needs to account for. And of course it is a strong position I am taking, one that seems to me impossible to take in the context of a university culture -- although I am not at one so I don't know, for sure, how that would work. You could call it a "disconnect", then, in a double way (the two sides of the economics question, and that between the newspapers and reality) but at any rate I am saying that it is a disconnect between what is said in our culture or public consumption, or what "everyone" is saying, and ---- what can only be called the truth.
There is not any other way to put the concept of such a divide: between what everyone is saying, on the one hand, and what you would say if you actually looked and thought and paid attention, on the other. Certain parties have made their choice. We don't want to pay attention. This is the deliberate choice to not pay attention to some other view. We do not pay attention, but what we do is that we import "received wisdom" from outside the realm of our own sincere investigation. Why would we do that? Who knows? Gore Vidal calls it "RW" -- received wisdom All of this also seems to me related to the post I just now saw on naked capitalism. The title of a talk by one William Reese is, "on [the] dangerous disconnect between economics and ecology." (07/07/2011 naked capitalism)
This is consonant with what I am saying. It's a dangerous disconnect. But how about reading that as "economics and reality," not "economics and ecology" --- that is the way I was reading it anyway! Ecology is just reality ---- the animals and plants and such. The ideologist isn't inventing that. So, I suggest we frame this disconnect or this divide so that the word "economics" is changed to "ideology" and the word "ecology" gets to become reality. This is the contrast I have already discussed what we say reality is and what it is. Those are the two elements: what is the case and what ideology says it is. Ideology and reality.
In the example of the title of the Yves Smith blogpost, "ecology" represents the element of the truth (the real plants and animals is the truth, and what Reese says will happen to the earth is also the truth, for example what will happen if these persons do not abandon their practice of holding up the concept of what is called "economic growth"), and the science -- if that is what we call it -- of "economics" represents ideology. If reality is given the name "ecology" and economics the name "ideology," then it fits my scheme here.
This is all rather loopy -- is "loopy" a good word? What is actually going on in economics is no longer (related/connected) to our discussions of economics. Economists who do not agree with the RW or newspaper wisdom are intentionally ignored. It is intentional. That is all that can be said about it, but, we have to say that. This is based on their choice. This is their intentional choice. I am thinking that a person makes a choice about what to believe. But I think that we we do not ---- and perhaps cannot ---- know why. We can't ask why an individual makes the choice. He or she just does it. He makes that choice, to, for example, say something that is not true. "Why" is not really our business. It doesn't open itself to our knowledge. We can say that they are doing it intentionally.
That we can say and we are in the area of madness, of disconnect with reality, of state propaganda, but I have not used those kinds of analogies in making my point because I am seeing it fresh and trying to file a report on my insights. At any rate, I will use one literary reference here, to point out that it is very much something out of Kafka. (Ooooo...scary...) I think we need to be aware of it, just on basic moral and ethical grounds.
With this situation there is a disconnect with reality, and, also, the subject matter itself of economics, in which latter would represent another activity entirely, that of actually paying attention. So, again, why is society uninterested in the truth? We see that it is a difficult topic. You cannot just have an opinion about it so easily. You cannot have an opinion on this one right out of the gate or right off the bat. It is not something you can respond to so easily and quickly. But we need to say what is ---- what the situation really is.
Our two areas of enquiry are now economics itself, and, the human thought process itself. On the one hand, most of our ideas on economics are wrong. But that is solvable. We could try to think deeper thoughts. Someone could have stumbled onto some original insights, as I myself have. And there are other means (but all reality-based). But there is that "other hand." It seems that as a society, we like the wrong view more than the right one. That is a question of how our minds work, not an economic question. It has to do, I would suggest, with ideology or something, but it is not a question of economics.
It is also a question of choice. In saying we "like" the wrong view more I mean that we are involved in choosing ---- something I already said, above. We are making an active choice in that direction. I do not know why, and it is very hard to know what to say about this.
What we have here then, in summation, is an observation of a divide between what persons believe or say they believe, and what can only be called "the truth." We have to tell it like it is, baby!
the link below was obliquely referenced:
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2006/04/john_kenneth_ga.html
Of course I could have said "historical" instead of "social," but what I do is I call the oncoming change those persons faced a social change. Why not? I cannot take it out. I wouldn't make any sense. In my universe of economic thought I cannot proceed at all unless I use the word "social." It has to be there at some point. I have tried to take it out. It doesn't make any difference. In the long run I have to say "social" or use some substitute, such as "historical," in the example above. This is the only way it works, and I do not think I am the one who is wrong. If I took that social language out, I would be pretending to views I just do not hold. That would not work; and it wouldn't make sense. It is the assumption that everything takes place on the individual level that does not work for me anymore. I would be writing fiction; but I can't say what does not make any sense to me -- it's impossible.
But that means I disagree with a lot of people. Where do these extreme disagreements come from? I think we are dealing with two things now. We are not dealing with only economics, anymore. We move on to another topic. Now we are not dealing with economics. We are dealing with ideology, and that means with thought -- it means I am talking about human thought processes as regards how we choose what we believe.
It is a conflict between truth on the one hand and ideology on the other. The problem as I would frame it is that there are persons who don't want to deal with the truth. On one side of this conflict is the ideological view; and on the other side is what can only be called the truth. Following after a blogpost I read today, there is what can be termed a "disconnect." There is a disconnect with reality. Now, my personal experience is that "everyone," or "society," in one (slightly different!) sense of the word, seems to hold to some consensus that equates economic explanations which concepts about "the individual," blabbity-blabbity-bla. My views are unique, so it is not a conspiracy against me personally, but at any rate I am saying that to me, this doesn't even make sense; it is not comprehensible. I am seeing a different world than these guys in the newspapers and mostly in the universities are, although there are many great dissident voices in economics that the newspaper wisdom simply ignores (including Adam Smith). This is what we are seeing over and over again. So, you've got to discuss it finally. I could not exist in a university. They would put me on a sedan chair, carry me across the border - or across the street from campus - and dump me on a front lawn.
I can generalize by moving from my own personal experiences to what is going on in the economics discussion in general. Since there is a general choice in favor of unreality, at some point the person who wants to be active in the world (a world that has an exceptionally important economic aspect) has to shift over to the question of ideology; this is the case even though, then, you are not even talking about economics anymore. Rather you are on to a second subject area here. The point is that you have to deal with the question of ideology in order to get at the matter of a choice in favor of an "other" or an other-worldly version of reality. But that is the version the public culture in general, as exemplified by public or press utterances, is attached to, and which they claim they believe in, despite the contrary views of many economist (they are not as extreme as I am but they do seem to be my fellow dissidents ---- I just looked at what was said about Galbraith, [ft.note below] and his view is strongly dissenting from the standard or publicly disseminated or newspaper-ordained view, which is to say the standard ideology).
What, by the way, is "reality"? Reality is what comes up when persons actually think things out. That would be a reality that is the result of persons actually thinking. Then, they are not actually thinking. And that indeed sounds like what I am saying here. These sources of cultural materials like magazines and newspapers and or course the business pronouncements, financial magazines, "The Economist," etc. prefer the other version ---- even if it is disconnected ---- even if it does not represent truth.
This is what is strange and this is what one needs to account for. And of course it is a strong position I am taking, one that seems to me impossible to take in the context of a university culture -- although I am not at one so I don't know, for sure, how that would work. You could call it a "disconnect", then, in a double way (the two sides of the economics question, and that between the newspapers and reality) but at any rate I am saying that it is a disconnect between what is said in our culture or public consumption, or what "everyone" is saying, and ---- what can only be called the truth.
There is not any other way to put the concept of such a divide: between what everyone is saying, on the one hand, and what you would say if you actually looked and thought and paid attention, on the other. Certain parties have made their choice. We don't want to pay attention. This is the deliberate choice to not pay attention to some other view. We do not pay attention, but what we do is that we import "received wisdom" from outside the realm of our own sincere investigation. Why would we do that? Who knows? Gore Vidal calls it "RW" -- received wisdom All of this also seems to me related to the post I just now saw on naked capitalism. The title of a talk by one William Reese is, "on [the] dangerous disconnect between economics and ecology." (07/07/2011 naked capitalism)
This is consonant with what I am saying. It's a dangerous disconnect. But how about reading that as "economics and reality," not "economics and ecology" --- that is the way I was reading it anyway! Ecology is just reality ---- the animals and plants and such. The ideologist isn't inventing that. So, I suggest we frame this disconnect or this divide so that the word "economics" is changed to "ideology" and the word "ecology" gets to become reality. This is the contrast I have already discussed what we say reality is and what it is. Those are the two elements: what is the case and what ideology says it is. Ideology and reality.
In the example of the title of the Yves Smith blogpost, "ecology" represents the element of the truth (the real plants and animals is the truth, and what Reese says will happen to the earth is also the truth, for example what will happen if these persons do not abandon their practice of holding up the concept of what is called "economic growth"), and the science -- if that is what we call it -- of "economics" represents ideology. If reality is given the name "ecology" and economics the name "ideology," then it fits my scheme here.
This is all rather loopy -- is "loopy" a good word? What is actually going on in economics is no longer (related/connected) to our discussions of economics. Economists who do not agree with the RW or newspaper wisdom are intentionally ignored. It is intentional. That is all that can be said about it, but, we have to say that. This is based on their choice. This is their intentional choice. I am thinking that a person makes a choice about what to believe. But I think that we we do not ---- and perhaps cannot ---- know why. We can't ask why an individual makes the choice. He or she just does it. He makes that choice, to, for example, say something that is not true. "Why" is not really our business. It doesn't open itself to our knowledge. We can say that they are doing it intentionally.
That we can say and we are in the area of madness, of disconnect with reality, of state propaganda, but I have not used those kinds of analogies in making my point because I am seeing it fresh and trying to file a report on my insights. At any rate, I will use one literary reference here, to point out that it is very much something out of Kafka. (Ooooo...scary...) I think we need to be aware of it, just on basic moral and ethical grounds.
With this situation there is a disconnect with reality, and, also, the subject matter itself of economics, in which latter would represent another activity entirely, that of actually paying attention. So, again, why is society uninterested in the truth? We see that it is a difficult topic. You cannot just have an opinion about it so easily. You cannot have an opinion on this one right out of the gate or right off the bat. It is not something you can respond to so easily and quickly. But we need to say what is ---- what the situation really is.
Our two areas of enquiry are now economics itself, and, the human thought process itself. On the one hand, most of our ideas on economics are wrong. But that is solvable. We could try to think deeper thoughts. Someone could have stumbled onto some original insights, as I myself have. And there are other means (but all reality-based). But there is that "other hand." It seems that as a society, we like the wrong view more than the right one. That is a question of how our minds work, not an economic question. It has to do, I would suggest, with ideology or something, but it is not a question of economics.
It is also a question of choice. In saying we "like" the wrong view more I mean that we are involved in choosing ---- something I already said, above. We are making an active choice in that direction. I do not know why, and it is very hard to know what to say about this.
What we have here then, in summation, is an observation of a divide between what persons believe or say they believe, and what can only be called "the truth." We have to tell it like it is, baby!
the link below was obliquely referenced:
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2006/04/john_kenneth_ga.html
Saturday, July 2, 2011
A Social Phenomenon, Not an Individual One
___
There was a time before capitalism (before capitalism was the dominant system it was just a minor, regional tendency in a few places). Today, everything seems oriented to capitalism, but, as Ha Joon Chang probably knows, capitalism came from somewhere. It is no sin to be historical in one's approach.
And there were people back then, too. It would be extermely foolish to regard those who were facing the oncoming social change of capitalism not as people but as somehow only individuals. Did this historical capitalist penetration take place on an individual level? I am not aware that anybody does think so, but it helps us understand that there is a dominant ideology going on.
It seems clear to me that capitalistic penetration of life did not take place, necessarily, on an individual level. Rather I think it is a social phenomenon, and I think it is social from start to finish. All social ---- not individual. That capitalism is "individual" is best understood as the tale that they are telling, or the lie that they are telling. How in fact could any historical phenomenon be called individual rather than social? That does not seem to make any sense but their reaction is to take the history out. Therefore, much economics today is not historical. (Notice that in the last sentence "Economics" means the field, not the thing.)
That is why someone notes of the body of workd that economist Ha Joon Chang has created that it is historical, whereas most other economics today (again: as a discipline, not as a thing) is not historical. Chang, naturally enough, is the one exception.
In my opinion capitalist penetration did not take place on an individual level, which you would expect me to say, since I think what we have always missed is that economics/capitalism is social. Even the sentence "capitalism is social" sounds funny, doesn't it? I wonder why. This is what we need to understand. Whenever capitalism is on its way to becoming a real force, for example, we can see that it always shares the wealth. Alright, it might take a while sometimes (Sandra Halperin speaks about this) but it does spread out -- the wealth -- into the entire society. The rule, then, is that wherever capitalism works, it shares wealth in general. So, that must have something to do with the nature of capitalism itself.
Capitalism is a social phenomenon, but they needed to frame it as individual. They create a whole philosophy for that. In my view? I don't see capitalism as just something that just happened to a few individuals here or there.
There was a time before capitalism (before capitalism was the dominant system it was just a minor, regional tendency in a few places). Today, everything seems oriented to capitalism, but, as Ha Joon Chang probably knows, capitalism came from somewhere. It is no sin to be historical in one's approach.
And there were people back then, too. It would be extermely foolish to regard those who were facing the oncoming social change of capitalism not as people but as somehow only individuals. Did this historical capitalist penetration take place on an individual level? I am not aware that anybody does think so, but it helps us understand that there is a dominant ideology going on.
It seems clear to me that capitalistic penetration of life did not take place, necessarily, on an individual level. Rather I think it is a social phenomenon, and I think it is social from start to finish. All social ---- not individual. That capitalism is "individual" is best understood as the tale that they are telling, or the lie that they are telling. How in fact could any historical phenomenon be called individual rather than social? That does not seem to make any sense but their reaction is to take the history out. Therefore, much economics today is not historical. (Notice that in the last sentence "Economics" means the field, not the thing.)
That is why someone notes of the body of workd that economist Ha Joon Chang has created that it is historical, whereas most other economics today (again: as a discipline, not as a thing) is not historical. Chang, naturally enough, is the one exception.
In my opinion capitalist penetration did not take place on an individual level, which you would expect me to say, since I think what we have always missed is that economics/capitalism is social. Even the sentence "capitalism is social" sounds funny, doesn't it? I wonder why. This is what we need to understand. Whenever capitalism is on its way to becoming a real force, for example, we can see that it always shares the wealth. Alright, it might take a while sometimes (Sandra Halperin speaks about this) but it does spread out -- the wealth -- into the entire society. The rule, then, is that wherever capitalism works, it shares wealth in general. So, that must have something to do with the nature of capitalism itself.
Capitalism is a social phenomenon, but they needed to frame it as individual. They create a whole philosophy for that. In my view? I don't see capitalism as just something that just happened to a few individuals here or there.
Capitalism in the Afternoon (the Sunset of Western Civilization)
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Although today we have 120 channels on the television in addition to the right - thank the gods - to turn it off, persons didn't always get to choose their reality. In the 16th or 17th century, 40% or so had no choice but to die before twenty and war, too, robbed, stole the essential force of life. Death was no stranger to these people and I do not believe that being a small or even a big businessman was a bulwark against that fundamental lack of right to choose all things. They were closer to things that are inevitable, like death. And so reminders of basic impermanence were there for them. Life always contains these challenges, even for us, and no one could wish them away; but the social systems that come along are a way of overcoming them.
Were these people individualistic? Sure. They were. For maintaining a rich, diverse, social life, whites have the greater difficulty. They have difficulty maintaining these social ties, social links. That is where capitalism or markets or "choice" comes in. It helps them. I won't get into the difficulties of conceptualizing "choice," but this development, which is to say that of capitalism, helps whites out with their social problem. There is nevertheless a problem with all of this, which is that not all of them want to be helped. So, even though capitalism comes along, I am not saying it just has the power to just fix everything.
So, the story up 'til now: white people have great difficulties with "communion" or sociality. So, they are going to have difficulty establishing coherent social organizational systems, social institutions. Natch --- but capitalism takes them up, guides 'em by the hand. Whites are individualistic, and cantankerous. My view is that cruelty and hatred are lurking around every corner and behind every bush. Or maybe that is just my poor attitude?
Capitalism just comes along. It is not intentionally created. I think it just happens. These persons had no choice about participating in the building of capitalism. It was a social development that just happened. When it did evolve, they did not want to admit the social aspect of the thing, or that in this system their selfish (private) interest was not the only thing being taken into account. They would have feared and hated this sociality component.
I'm sure of it: they had to accept capitalism, since it was a development that just came along by itself. They had no real control over that, but, as one thing lead to the other, they desperately had to frame capitalism - their new living space - as individualistic and as "private." Which is all rubbish.
Although today we have 120 channels on the television in addition to the right - thank the gods - to turn it off, persons didn't always get to choose their reality. In the 16th or 17th century, 40% or so had no choice but to die before twenty and war, too, robbed, stole the essential force of life. Death was no stranger to these people and I do not believe that being a small or even a big businessman was a bulwark against that fundamental lack of right to choose all things. They were closer to things that are inevitable, like death. And so reminders of basic impermanence were there for them. Life always contains these challenges, even for us, and no one could wish them away; but the social systems that come along are a way of overcoming them.
Were these people individualistic? Sure. They were. For maintaining a rich, diverse, social life, whites have the greater difficulty. They have difficulty maintaining these social ties, social links. That is where capitalism or markets or "choice" comes in. It helps them. I won't get into the difficulties of conceptualizing "choice," but this development, which is to say that of capitalism, helps whites out with their social problem. There is nevertheless a problem with all of this, which is that not all of them want to be helped. So, even though capitalism comes along, I am not saying it just has the power to just fix everything.
So, the story up 'til now: white people have great difficulties with "communion" or sociality. So, they are going to have difficulty establishing coherent social organizational systems, social institutions. Natch --- but capitalism takes them up, guides 'em by the hand. Whites are individualistic, and cantankerous. My view is that cruelty and hatred are lurking around every corner and behind every bush. Or maybe that is just my poor attitude?
Capitalism just comes along. It is not intentionally created. I think it just happens. These persons had no choice about participating in the building of capitalism. It was a social development that just happened. When it did evolve, they did not want to admit the social aspect of the thing, or that in this system their selfish (private) interest was not the only thing being taken into account. They would have feared and hated this sociality component.
I'm sure of it: they had to accept capitalism, since it was a development that just came along by itself. They had no real control over that, but, as one thing lead to the other, they desperately had to frame capitalism - their new living space - as individualistic and as "private." Which is all rubbish.
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