>>> Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 05/08/00 04:11PM >>>
At 01:06 PM 5/8/00 -0700, you wrote:
>Yes, baseball is like craft-based capitalism;
I think that the phrase "craft-based capitalism" is somewhat contradictory.
I think a better phrase would be "craft-based commodity exchange." Even
though professional baseball clearly reflects the class system it thrives
in (though in surprising ways), the game itself is much more egalitarian
than say, football. Baseball is egalitarian -- but also individualistic,
because of the batter vs. pitcher battle which dominates the game.
Football reminds me more of the army -- or of simple cooperation-based
capitalism, with its hierarchy and its production process, which works more
in parallel (everyone doing a different task, all at the same time) rather
than in sequence (like an assembly line or a bucket-brigade).
____________
CB: Who says we can't do semiotic analysis ?
How about baseball is a combination of proletarians ( the batter with the bat as a
tool makes runs by hitting the ball) and peasants who are out in the field. But
contradictorily the pitcher is also the capitalist who sets the process in motion with
the pitch. The batter and the pitcher are in class conflict.
Baseball relative to football is competitive era capitalism, and football is
capitalism in the era of imperialism with trench warfare and taking territory like
WWI.
CB
