‘...why isn't mixing what I own with what I don't own a way of losing what I own rather than a way of gaining what I don't? If I own a can of tomato juice and spill it in the sea so its molecules... mingle evenly throughout the sea, do I thereby come to own the sea, or have I foolishly dissipated my tomato juice?’ [Robert Nozick]
On Thu, Apr 4, 2013 at 10:56 AM, Tom Walker <[email protected]> wrote: > Why does it matter? It has to do with whether the accumulation of large > holdings of wealth and extreme economic and social inequality can be > reconciled with ANY notion of political justice. The "poem" I posted a while > ago, "Sheep for Shells," was John Locke's answer to the question -- once > money takes care of the issue of "perishing" there can be no objection to > the largeness of possession (presumably). > > Locke's argument is actually a lot more ambiguous than neo-liberal ideology > presumes. The "labour" that supposedly "mixes" with "nature" to confer > property is predicated on reason. That makes it indeterminate in a world > where learning can occur. Locke claimed that he once observed "the issue of > a cat and a rat." My guess would be that he saw an opossum and perceived it > as a cross between a rodent and a feline. The accumulation of knowledge > doesn't necessarily invalidate everything Locke said but it does put it into > context. Rocks don't grow from seeds and the cat-rats don't actually exist > but the classical liberal argument for the justice of large wealth > inequality is still based on archaic, anachronistic and quasi-alchemical > assumptions about how things were in the "state of nature." > > > On Thu, Apr 4, 2013 at 9:52 AM, David Shemano <[email protected]> > wrote: >> >> Instead of debating counter-factuals, how about answering my question, >> which is why does it matter? I am serious and asking out of ignorance. I >> just don’t understand why the issue is important to Marxists. >> >> >> >> David Shemano >> >> >> >> From: [email protected] >> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Tom Walker >> Sent: Wednesday, April 03, 2013 9:06 PM >> To: Progressive Economics >> Subject: Re: [Pen-l] Capitalism and slavery >> >> >> >> No, it seems to me LESS than a parlor game. If David can produce a >> parallel case in which his counter-factual actually occurred then maybe he >> could make his argument. Just saying "if things had been different they >> could have still have been the same" is not quite a "counter-factual" it is >> simply bullshit. >> >> >> >> This is not to to gainsay bullshitting. But if one is going to bullshit, >> it seems to me that one would want to bullshit on behalf of a "moral >> principle" (or whatever you want to call it) that has some virtue to it. I >> mean virtue in some classical Roman sense of excellence. Bullshitting on >> behalf of accumulation has no moral excellence to it. It's bullshitting on >> behalf of bull shit. Bull shit all the way down. As in "I once saw a >> creature that was the issue of a cat and a rat..." >> >> >> >> On Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 8:26 PM, Michael Smith <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> >> > If, however, the point is that the rapid economic takeoff of capitalist >> > economies in the 19th century was "dependent" on its prior profitable >> > relationship with a slave economy, I just don't see it. >> >> > We can only speculate about counter-factuals, but the notion >> > that a "necessary" condition to the growth in the North in the >> > last quarter of the 19th Century was slavery in the South for >> > the prior 200 years does not ring true to me. >> >> Two quite different propositions, aren't they? On the >> one hand, a factual: 'depended on' -- this is where the >> money did in fact come from. On the other, a hypothetical: >> 'necessary condition' -- which we can translate from the >> hypostatical nominative as 'wouldn't have happened without'. >> >> Of course we will never know what would have happened without, >> so it's a best a parlor game to speculate. >> >> -- >> -- >> >> Michael J. Smith >> [email protected] >> >> http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org >> http://fakesprogress.blogspot.com >> http://cars-suck.org >> >> 'I understand that you left your University >> rather suddenly. Now -- why was that?' >> >> 'I was sent down, sir, for indecent behaviour.' >> >> 'Indeed, indeed? Well, I shall not ask for details. >> I have been in the scholastic profession long enough >> to know that nobody enters it unless he has some >> very good reason which he is anxious to conceal.' >> >> _______________________________________________ >> pen-l mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l >> >> >> >> >> >> -- >> Cheers, >> >> Tom Walker (Sandwichman) >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> pen-l mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l >> > > > > -- > Cheers, > > Tom Walker (Sandwichman) > > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
