Yoshie:
Marx and Marxists have often thought that religion is basically either
a ruling-class ideology to facilitate exploitation or a sigh of the
oppressed substituting heaven for an earthly kingdom or both. There
are both aspects in religion, and those aspects may disappear if
exploitation and oppression can be done away with (which doesn't seem
possible any time soon), but in all likelihood religion predates the
rise of class society and will probably outlive it, how to face death
-- one's own or others' -- being one of the questions that religion
may be better equipped to address than science.
that's what I said.
me:
> _all_ crisis theory among leftists? Yoshie, please avoid this kind of
> sweeping generalization. it's like Doug making his snide remarks about
> the opinions of pen-l without noting the existence of exceptions. Such
> stereotypes do not aid dialog within, and unity of, what's left of the
> left.
I don't intend to address all varieties of crisis theory here, but
there are a couple of trends, I think:
1. Leftists used to be more interested in crisis theory that posits
immanent limits to capital, but today they seem increasingly
interested in crisis theory that posits external limits ("peak oil"
being one of the popular ones) to it. Maybe that's a sign of
exhaustion of crisis theory.
the original Marxian crisis theory was only about the prediction that,
due to its internal contradictions, capitalism will create some of its
own problems (in addition to those coming from outside capitalism)
which would in turn create opportunities for progressive social change
(the building of the working-class movement, etc.)
"Peak oil" theory [POT] seems a return to Ricardian theory --
nature-based diminishing returns being the key idea -- which can be
interpreted in Marxian terms or in a lot of other ways, including
Malthusianism. But whereas Marx's original theory had capitalism's
success breeding failure (poverty in the midst of plenty), the POT
suggests the general impoverishment of society. Instead of the image
implied by Marx of a victorious self-organized working class
conquering a rich world, the POT suggests that if the working class
ever wins, it will conquer squalor.
Sam [Gindin] essentially
argues against the "belief in hope beyond reason," the idea of US
hegemony unraveling on its own, and proposes instead that we think
about what we can do about new openings that are emerging. But that
generated no discussion here ... Instead, people just want to follow
news about strains and
downturns of capitalism, and postings about those become threads.
I think it's a mistake to conclude much if anything about what topics
pen-l talks about or shuns. The list is dominated by a relatively
small number of personalities (including Yoshie and yours truly)
rather than being representative of the left in any way.
Further, people like to have _short_ conversations on topics that are
_easy_ to discuss. For example, I tried to have a serious discussion
of the Roemer & Skillman attacks on and alternatives to the Marxian
theory of exploitation, but people didn't like the length of my posts
and Gil said that no serious discussions were possible on e-mail
discussion lists like pen-l. That opinion seems to be held by a lot of
people. Pen-l is a place where people chat about things they can't
talk about very much with liberals or reactionaries.
--
Jim Devine / "The truth is more important than the facts." -- Frank Lloyd Wright
