>>With capitalist agriculture, all things are possible: steam
>>engines, fish and chips, Rudyard Kipling, BBC, Wilkinson razor blades and
>>Boy George.
>
>I've already said that neither Brenner nor Wood ever makes the case
>for the above.
>
>Yoshie
Then how do you explain this communication from Robert?
X-From_: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wed Oct 13 23:05:24 1999
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From: "Robert Brenner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Louis Proyect" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Where's the Beef?
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1999 20:07:03 -0700
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Louis, nice to hear from you again. Am feeling a little anxious over the
bull market as it tends to undermine my NLR piece, but sooner or later the
system will come crashing down. You can tell Henwood that I bet him a case
of Glenlivet that NASDAQ will be fifty percent of its current value by the
end of 2000.
Sorry we can't seem to come to an understanding on the Capital and Class
stuff. The best way to think of it is as a dialectical unfolding of a
process that began in the countryside and which diffused outward into the
cities, like a pebble thrown into the water. By analogy, think of places
like modern-day Levittown. Without the emergence of the GI bill,
split-level housing and the Interstate, you never would have had the
emergence of urban-based television. When you are at home in the suburbs,
there is nothing else to do in the evening except watch TV. Right?
My argument is particularly relevant with respect to the razor blade
industry which enable Great Britain to achieve mastery over the rest of
Europe in the 18th century. Prior to the invention of the Wilkinson blade,
sailors were always getting their beards caught in the rigging. John
Frebbinger points out in "Industrial Accidents on the High Seas 1400-1900"
that at least up to 30 percent of European sailors died from broken necks
incurred during beard mishaps. All that changed after the British invented
the safety razor. This, plus the invention of the scarecrow in the 13th
century, accounts for the rise of Great Britain into the foremost
industrial power of the 20th century.
Louis Proyect
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