Brian Milani wrote,
>The occasion was a big lecture
>here in Toronto last week by Anthony Giddens of the LSE on "the
>globalization debate".
What I wouldn't have given to be there in full sandwich regalia! See my post
a couple of weeks ago to Pen-l on Giddens' "Runaway World Debate" and the
disconnect between "rights and responsibilities" for the LSE experts
orchestrating it.
>First, I think it's important to see class in civilization as one
>form of domination, but always related to and generally
>reinforcing other forms of domination: humans over nature,
>nation over nation, men over women, and even certain aspects
>of the individual human psyche over others.
Brian, I think it is a big mistake to address the issue at the
transhistorical level of "civilization". We are in a historically specific,
dynamic and totalizing structure of domination -- capitalism and if we can't
get out of that box, it ain't no good pining about getting out of all the
other boxes. Period.
> Sometimes I think it's counterproductive to
>try definitively isolate whether one form of oppression or
>exploitation was the determinant one, rather than working to
>see how the different forms interacted.
It may well be counterproductive to try to isolate forms of oppression or
exploitation. However, if there is a determinant STRUCTURE within which
various forms operate it is not counterproductive to try to identify that
structure. The problem that we may be mistaken about that structure or our
own position within it is contingent. If you are lost in the woods and you
come across a road, you don't ask whether it is the shortest route to your
destination.
>I do not believe truly qualitative production
>can be implemented by capitalism, which is intrinsically a system of
>quantitative development. Real human development and ecological
>regeneration can not be produced as a by-product, a side-effect or a
>trickle down of accumulation.
I think this is entirely correct and I would add that the traditional left
focus on matters of distribution leave this matter of accumulation untouched
or in some respects imply an even more productivist turn "once the forces of
production (misunderstood as modern industry) are freed from the fetter of
the relations of production (misunderstood as the market and private property).
As you are no doubt aware, your fellow Torontonian, Anders Hayden, has
addressed these issues beautifully and in an popularly accessible way in
_Sharing the Work, Saving the Planet_. A more theoretical (and ultimately, I
would say, decisive) analysis is presented by Moishe Postone in _Time, Labor
and Social Domination_. To sum it up in a few phrases: value, based on labor
time, is a misleading and distorting measure of material wealth but it
stands as both the driving force and the ultimate contradiction of
capitalism and thus of the society that we are in. Civilization can wait.
