>From: Carrol Cox > It is going to be hard for marxists and you to find common ground. Yes that seems obvious, since by marxist definition the only place where common ground may be found is within "the movement". I've asked Tony to scan my party card and send it via email. Since I have pretty much just been arguing the status quo as a way to get at a discussion of the "crash", I have no great attachment to any perceived political ideologies. Move over, Comrade, and hand me that vodka! Is there a secret handshake? Regardless of >whether the Protestant Ethic is or is not linked to capitalism, this >argument is >false because it jams together quite different things. Nah. Regardless of how you define Protestant Ethic and what you think it is, and regardless of how you define capitalism (and provide yet one more definition for it,) both of them are engines that drive US policy. Keep living in denial of it as you wish. If the only ways you can reconcile other factors than nasty old capitalism as influencing US policy is to either redefine them to suit your ideology or link them to a marxist paradigm, by all means do so. Frankly, I tire of the word games. >And I can't for the life of me grasp what you mean in this phrase by >"theory of >capitalism." Is there such a thing? No. You are correct. There never was a theory of capitalism. Go back to sleep. >Capitalism was already a triumphant system, >on the verge of conquering the earth, when someone first called it >capitalism. >Capitalism, the mode of production characterized by a huge complex set of >social >relations, came well before any "theory" of it developed. (Quesnay, Smith, >and >Ricardo didn't know they were developing capitalist theory, incidentally.) Thank you for another definition. It will go in the notebook. Does everyone agree with Carrol? >Is there such a thing as the Protestant Ethic? These >various "ethics" that go bruited about beginning in the late 19th century >(when >did "work ethic" get coined) have always seemed to me to be excellent >examples >of the tendency to mistake a description of what needs to be explained for >such >an explanation. > >Carrol Apparently Tahir thinks that Weber linked it to capitalism, so it prolly exists as some as-yet-defined part of the hated machine. But go ahead and belittle the term, Carrol, dismiss it out of hand, make it go away. Ignore it. It has nothing to do with anything important in the box that is your universe. Some people once upon a time imagined "the Protestant Ethic" was both a way to insult Americans and to describe their naive behavior upon the world stage. They were wrong. Tom _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com. _______________________________________________ Crashlist resources: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/crashlist
