What books should everyone read?

[Jonti]

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Capitalism isn't "natural", it evolved naturally, ie, it wasn't an abstract theory dreamed up in advance and imposed. Theory followed practise.
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I wouldn't read too much into this myself. There have been all sorts of very different societies, so appealing to "evolution" to justify any particular one doesn't really fly.

There's plenty of room to argue that american society (host to the dominant form of capitalism at the moment) is the result of abstract theories that underpin the american constitution.

And anyway, the american constitution itself was "dreamt up in advance" in some sense, wouldn't you say?

 

[Blagsta]

I didn't imagine you'd respect it, but the fact remains that using the suppression of anarchism in specific and lawless circumstances as a general precedent is sloppy.

Look at other times when the state has been threatened. Miner's strike, the treatment of anarchists in the US in the late 19th, early 20th Century, Battle of the Beanfield etc.

Capitalism isn't "natural", it evolved naturally, ie, it wasn't an abstract theory dreamed up in advance and imposed. Theory followed practise.

So you're saying that capitalism had nothing to do with human agency? In that case, you eitehr have to appeal to teleology or an abstract conception of human beings.

I agree that capitalism is rooted in human relations; I asked why instinctive entrepreneurs will abandon capitalist relations. How exactly is this question claiming that capitalism is abstract?

You haven't thought this through have you? You're claiming that entrepeneurship is "instinctive". You're also claiming that I've said "capitalism is abstract" - I haven't said anything of the sort. Please do me the courtesy of reading my posts accurately!

Capitalism is a product of a certain set of social relations. These relations produce desires, needs etc. Unless you want to claim that human beings have needs and desires etc when considered apart from their social relations (abstract individualism), then you have to accept that if social relations are different then different needs and desires will arise.

Let's see if we can get a reply that doesn't rely on accusations of abstraction and ignoring human relations to dodge straightforward questions. I confess that I'm not optimistic, but feel free to surprise me.

I'm answering all the points you make - you're choosing to ignore my answers. Very rude of you really.

 

[Jonti]

Back to the books (for now!)

The Hite Report
The Hite Report on Male Sexuality

Essential reading for those who wonder just how weird humans really are.
Hint: a lot weirder, and far more diverse than the puritans can bear

 

[Azrael]

There have been all sorts of very different societies, so appealing to "evolution" to justify any particular one doesn't really fly.

Firstly, I wasn't treating economics and society as synonymous. Secondly, it depends why a given system evolved. Capitalism's predecessors, feudalism and mercantilism, fell by the wayside through economic necessity. Its main rival in the 20th century, "state capitalism", went bust. The mixed-economy could go either way; it's too early to tell.

The American constitution wasn't dreamt up: it was common law precedent codified. Certain amendments are nicked word-for-word from earlier documents. (Notably the Eighth Amendment, pinched from the Bill of Rights Act 1689.) That's why it's so good, and why it's inherently different from idealistic enterprises such as the Declaration of the Rights of Man.

Intellectual evolution can be good and bad (I'm no Richard "zeitgeist" Dawkins), but pragmatism is always best. Capitalism, for all its many flaws, is pragmatic, and goes seriously wrong when it's treated as an abstract imperative.

You haven't thought this through have you? You're claiming that entrepeneurship is "instinctive". You're also claiming that I've said "capitalism is abstract" - I haven't said anything of the sort. Please do me the courtesy of reading my posts accurately!

Right back at ya. I said some people are instinctive entrepreneurs, not that entrepreneurship is everyone's natural state. As for the second one …

Capitalism is a product of a certain set of social relations.

This is so vague it's meaningless. If "social relations" are determinative, then how did relations conducive to capitalism begin? What role do you assign human agency in engineering relations? Where's the chicken? People's motives have a spectrum of inspiration: it's not "abstract individualism" to argue that on occasion they're inspired by ideas. (I suspect you'll say that ideas are "formed by social relations", but again, I'm happy to be surprised.)

You've singularly failed to explain what causes the social relations you dislike, and how they're to be consensually eliminated. Capitalism began under a different system, and dominates the economic sphere because it's more effective than past and current opposition. Maybe a better system will come along and replace it: if libertarian socialism can't begin until capitalism is gone, then it never will.

Or put it like this: did the first shareholders in the Dutch East India Company say, "There's no point trying capitalism until we get rid of mercantilism"?

 

[Blagsta]

Right back at ya. I said some people are instinctive entrepreneurs, not that entrepreneurship is everyone's natural state.

Come on, this is just idiotic. You're claiming that it's instinctive to make money in a society based on private property? LOL!

As for the second one …


This is so vague it's meaningless. If "social relations" are determinative, then how did relations conducive to capitalism begin? What role do you assign human agency in engineering relations? Where's the chicken? People's motives have a spectrum of inspiration: it's not "abstract individualism" to argue that on occasion they're inspired by ideas. (I suspect you'll say that ideas are "formed by social relations", but again, I'm happy to be surprised.)

So where do you think ideas come from?

You've singularly failed to explain what causes the social relations you dislike, and how they're to be consensually eliminated. Capitalism began under a different system, and dominates the economic sphere because it's more effective than past and current opposition. Maybe a better system will come along and replace it: if libertarian socialism can't begin until capitalism is gone, then it never will.

I haven't said that "libertarian socialism can't begin until capitalism is gone".

I'm out of here. You've had your arse whupped and are resorting to making stuff up that I haven't said and attacking that. Classic straw man.

See ya

 

[Jonti]

I certainly agree with your comments about the English contribution to the american constitution. I like to tease USians that we were into "americanism" even before there was a USA.

What I was getting at, is that I don't really agree with Locke's implicit view (as explicitly stated in paragraph 1 of my pastiche). People don't "band together" in that way -- we live naturally in troops, just as do chimpanzees or gorillas. We are social primates. There is a real sense that for us, society is a given, and we derive our being from it, not the other way round.

Well, it's something of a dialectic, but I'm not sure even one-nation tories allow themselves to use the term!

 

[Azrael]

Come on, this is just idiotic. You're claiming that it's instinctive to make money in a society based on private property? LOL!

Erm, no, I'm claiming that some people will be instinctive profit-hounds who won't be persuaded to stop by their own accord.

So where do you think ideas come from?

A variety of sources, including, but not confined to, "social relations".

I haven't said that "libertarian socialism can't begin until capitalism is gone".

"You think that socialism can exist within capitalism? That's your problem, which is why I suggested doing some reading."

And:-

"You're assuming that 'natural selection' … would lead to socialism. You're ignoring all the power and social relations that would resist this."

Amsterdam, circa. 1600: "No point buying VOC shares, Mr. Rotmensen! You're assuming that 'natural selection' would lead to capitalism. You're ignoring all the power and social relations that would resist this."

I'm out of here. You've had your arse whupped and are resorting to making stuff up that I haven't said and attacking that. Classic straw man.

See ya

As I said to Mr. Apron: ever head of "show, don't tell"?

I suspected you'd bolt when you got called on your vague assertions, which is why I held off. Disappointed to see I was right.

Oh well. It'll pass.

 

[Azrael]

What I was getting at, is that I don't really agree with Locke's implicit view (as explicitly stated in paragraph 1 of my pastiche). People don't "band together" in that way -- we live naturally in troops, just as do chimpanzees or gorillas. We are social primates. There is a real sense that for us, society is a given, and we derive our being from it, not the other way round.

I agree.

Locke and his contemporaries were without the benefit of modern science, but even they probably didn't believe it actually happened that way. Mythical "states of nature" were of course a common thought-exercise at the time Locke wrote. More metaphor than anthropology.

Well, it's something of a dialectic, but I'm not sure even one-nation tories allow themselves to use the term!

Don't think the handbook forbids it.

Anyhow, if a old elitist like Plato can employ it, anyone can!

 

[Blagsta]

Azrael - if you can start addressing my points and stop making shit up that I didn't say, then we can carry on.

 

[Azrael]

You can't address a point that hasn't been made. So far we have "capitalism is a product of a certain set of social relations" and "if social relations are different then different needs and desires will arise". It's so vague that I mostly addressed it with questions, which remain unanswered.

Unless you can respond I suggest we allow the thread to return to book recommendations.

 

[Blagsta]

You're not going to then, you're going to continue with the straw men.

Suit yourself.

 

[Azrael]

How exactly is a direct quote a straw man?

 

[Blagsta]

You're partially quoting and quoting out of context. Until you can engage properly, this is pointless.

ttfn

 

[Azrael]

The context of those quoetes is self-evident, and if anyone isn't sure, the original is a few posts up.

You can't engage with someone who refuses to elaborate upon their claims, so indeed, TTFN.

 

[Blagsta]

I have elaborated - you've ignored me.

Your problem mate.

 

[Azrael]

You answered my questions in # 334? Where, exactly?

 

[Blagsta]

Again, you're ignoring my response.

When you can debate in an honest manner, please let me know

Ta

 

[kyser_soze]

Back to the books (for now!)

The Hite Report
The Hite Report on Male Sexuality

Essential reading for those who wonder just how weird humans really are.
Hint: a lot weirder, and far more diverse than the puritans can bear

And not just cos of the comedy name, Sheer Hite.

What was it with 60s and 70s US feminists and their names?

Shulasmith Firestone
Sheer Hite
Andrea Dworkin

I mean they're all towering intellects, but I can never get away from the idea their passion and fire was in part due to being picked on for having *different* names...

 

[Azrael]

Again, you're ignoring my response.

When you can debate in an honest manner, please let me know

Ta

So we're back to stonewalling, are we?

Provide a link to the post where you explain how the social relations that you claim produce capitalism came into being, and how they'll change to those that cause lib. socialism, and I'll address it.

 

[Blagsta]

So your reasons for not responding to me is to pretend that I haven't responded to you. I see.

Have a nice day.

 

[Azrael]

I must have forgotten, excuse me.

Provide a link to the post, and I'll address it.

 

[Azrael]

While the wait for the post you think elaborates on your position continues, I'll answer this one.

Look at other times when the state has been threatened. Miner's strike, the treatment of anarchists in the US in the late 19th, early 20th Century, Battle of the Beanfield etc.

Your examples just back up my point that in times of war the law falls silent: all occurred in conditions of civil strife, and are of questionable legality.

How does a national power struggle between the mining unions and the Conservative Party, which ended up with a ruck in a field, bear comparison with a bunch of altruistic shareholders clubbing together to open a profit-free shop? I doubt "the state" (who exactly: the local police, central government, the spooks?) would notice or care, and it's hard to see what they're going to do about it if they do.

 

[Jonti]

To add some sauce, Mr. Thomas Hobbes, the chappie often credited with creating the notion of negative liberty, and reconstructing the theory of a state of nature, was an atheist and materialist. (Although he did spend half of Leviathan constructing a bizarre theory of Atheist Christianity that need not concern us here.)

I'm ploughing through the works of John Locke at the moment: although a devout Christian, his property rights are rooted not in divine fiat or abstract individualism but the notion of people "mixing their labour" with a given object.

Rights grow from necessity and are given retroactive weight with claims of divine origin. I judge rights by their utility; a position that is perhaps less radical than honest.

Can't find anything to disagree with in your post. Capitalism isn't an end in itself and can't be absolute. As I said a page or so back, I'm no doctrinaire market liberal. I enjoy saying rude things about monopolies. (To be fair, so do proper liberals.) I support nationalising natural monopolies, or areas where competition would be socially destructive. Making shareholders accountable for their company's misdeeds fits entirely with my passion for personal responsibility.

My one caveat would be that liablity should be contingent on knowledge of an organisation's wrongdoing.

The issue is the ills or damage caused by corporates, not culpability. Accidents happen, even to the gods.