>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 11/11/03 03:07PM >>> >Michael Hoover wrote: > b)emergence of "new needs" under capitalism are - in part - >expression of both more fully developed individual *and* >increased capacity for enjoyment;
I assume that new needs are enclosed in scare quotes for obvious reasons. <<<>>> i placed words in quotation marks although marx doesn't in _grundrisse_ (nicolaus, ed., pp. 409-410) '...the discovery, creation, and satisfaction of new needs arising from society itself; the cultivation of all the qualities of a social human being, production of the same in a form as rich as possible in needs, because rich in qualities and relations - production of this being as the most total and universal social product, for in order to take gratification in a many-sided way, he must be capable of many pleasures, hence cultured to a high degree - is likewise a condition of production founded on capital...' km goes on to discuss capital's 'civilizing influence' which he states breaks down (among other things) '...all traditional, confined, complacent, encrusted satisfactions of present needs...' >c) individuality as comprehensive development of human > capacities presupposes society based on market relations... Fuck individuality, if by this you mean shopping at Bloomingdales. There was more individuality in a Blackfoot village where everybody made their own clothing, decorated their tipis and made music and dance without regard for whether they were "professionals" or not. <<<<>>>> don't think marx was thinking of either shopping or professionals (and i most definitely wasn't), perhaps 'universality' would have been better word choice than 'individuality' (also though km himself uses latter term), when he writes in _capital, vol. 1, (fowkes ed., p. 772) that: 'universally developed individuals, whose social relations, as their own communal relations, are hence also subordinated to their own communal control, are no product of nature, but of history. the degree and universality of the development of wealth where this individuality becomes possible supposed production on the basis of exchange value a a prior condition, whose universality produces not only the alienation of the individual from himself and from others, but also the universality and the comprehensiveness of his relations and capacities...' in other words, the conditions under which every person can explore full range of potential human capacities for creativity and enjoyment...in effect, capitalism 'teaches' folks to be dissatisfied with subsistence level needs satisfaction *and* it creates "need" to transcend that level... i prefaced my earlier post with reference to marx's 'positive' theory of market relations...there is, of course, a 'negative' side to all of this... michael hoover
