The "tyranny of the future" is vividly embodied in a key term for economists: Investment! Consider also that for workers (even high-paid workers) "savings" are only postponed consumption. It is only a bit extravagant to say that a worker's whole life, his/her every action, is dominated by the needs of that worker after retirement. The core of the current "Austerity" drive (an extension of an attack on workers' conditions of lie that began in the mid-70s) seems precisely aimed at intensifying that threat. Or let's take an example that should make every Ph.D. holder tremble in his/her memory. From the moment you entered grad school, there was never a second of any day in which it would not have been possible to read something that would be useful in the looming preliminary exams. And when you passed those exams, not a second that could not be spent in doing _something_ towards your dissertation. And when you finished that and got your first tenure-track job, not a second that could not be spent on that first article or book or on the next semester's course or.... This tyranny of the future exists to some extent from the neolithic revolution on. (Who digs up dirt to plant barley for the fun of it?) But it is only under capitalism that it becomes all-powerful. Those chains of the future are the chains referred to in the slogan, "You have nothing to lose but your chains."
I think that if you explored your suggested definition you would find that it presupposes the definition I have offered. How free are your choices during a summer if you must teach a new course in the fall? Every minute you spend loafing and inviting your soul that first day of classes lurks in your thought. When Marx calls for abolition of the Wages System, he calls for the throwing of these chains which make the worker's "leisure time" such a mockery. Carrol On 8/7/2011 9:47 AM, Jim Devine wrote: > I guess I'm pedestrian: I see "freedom" as simply the availability of choices. > > I don't know what the "tyranny of the future" is. I usually think of a > person or people as tyrants, not a period of time. > > On Sat, Aug 6, 2011 at 9:10 PM, David B. Shemano<[email protected]> wrote: >> Carroll Cox writes: >> >>>> Freedom is the ability to act without considering the future results of >>>> the action. >>>> >>>> And the central tyranny of capitalism is that it subjects _all_ action >>>> to the tyranny of the future. This definition is conpatible with my >>>> other ffavorite definition of freedom: Freedom is free time. >> >> Sounds like the life lived in "On The Road" by Kerouac. Fair? >> > > > _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
