Doug Henwood:
On Apr 26, 2012, at 2:40 PM, Carrol Cox wrote: > I'm less interested in debating anarchists than in working out ways in which > cooperation in particular struggles is possible. I agree. But really, all you people who don't believe that some anarchists are anti-school, have you heard of Paul Goodman and unschooling and all that stuff? ===== Actually, I'm not "one of those people"; I would like to see his full statement (if it exists) of it. I agree it is an unacceptable perspective, but that doesn't necessarily poison other things he has to say. And I think he doesn't understand either Marx or capitalism, but that doesn't necessarily poison other things he has to say. And I do think we should all be grateful for his role in initiating OWS. Also, even if it turns out that his economic history is defective: a friend has noted off list that the role of debt in current exploitation _and_ political oppression is huge, which (my friend suggests) may be why so many people are finding his book of interest. Some students may indeed be facing something rather analogous to peonage for many years. What bothers me about the passage on Lou's blog is, in a way, that it is badly written. It wasn't footnotes that I missed, but any sense at all in the writing that he had encountered much Marxist writing or for that matter had considered very carefully just what the hell he means by unfree labor. Your lecture at Berkeley had no footnotes, but it did have the 'thickness' I miss in the Graeber selection. (Sorry but the FHP article has the same weakness as Graeber has here.) Consider this short passage: " All those millions of slaves and serfs and coolies and debt peons disappear, or if we must speak of them, we write them off as temporary bumps along the road. Like sweatshops, this is assumed to be a stage that industrializing nations had to pass through, just as it is still assumed that all those millions of debt peons and contract laborers and sweatshop workers who still exist, often in the same places, will surely live to see their children become regular wage laborers with health insurance and pensions, and their children, doctors and lawyers and entrepreneurs." Note just two points in this horrible bit of prose: the sloppy use of "we" and the suspicious passive constructions. I would call attention to those matters in a freshman theme. It would take more than footnotes to justify such prose. Carrol _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
