Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Soviet Cultural Psychology
On Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:40:14 -0500 c b writes: > On his return to activity, the group began to work their way through > all the theories of psychology which were contesting the field on > the > world stage: Freud, Piaget, James, ... critiquing them and > appropriating the insights each had to offer. The group worked > collaboratively, discussing the problems in a group while one of > them > took notes. To this day it is not possible to be certain about the > authorship of much of what the group produced in this period. Even > graduate students were invited to experiment on their own > initiative > and sometimes made key breakthroughs. > > In a 1929 manuscript known as The Crisis in Psychology (1997a) > they > critically appropriated the insights of many contending schools of > psychology, just as Marx had laboriously worked his way through > everything that had been written about political economy. > > Back in Janauary, I wrote a little a bit about the "crisis in psychology" as seen by Soviet psychologists back in the 1920s and 1930s. See: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism-thaxis/2009-January/023554.h tml As I pointed the Soviet psychologists drew upon both American behaviorism, as represented by John B. Watson and the Gestalt school. Watson was seen as offering a materialist psychology, which suffered from the defect of being mechanistic and undialectical. The Gestalt school offered a dialectical psychology, but which was idealist. The Soviet psychologists were attempting to develop a psychology that was both materialist and dialectical. As Andy Blunden piece notes, the psychology of Lev Vygotsky was suppressed by Stalin's regime. In fact psychology as an independent discipline was suppressed in the Soviet Union for at least a couple of decades. This, in part at least, was a consequence of Stalin's regime opting to support the 'reflexology' of Ivan Pavlov and Vladimir Bekhterev. While we in the West tend to think of Pavlov as having been a psychologist, he did not view himself as such. He was trained as a physiologist and he always saw himself as a physiologist. He described his famous work on conditioned reflexes as part of the physiology of the higher nervous system. He was generally dismissive of psychology which he tended to view as a kind of pseudo-science. Jim Farmelant Top Psychology Degrees Find schools offering psychology programs online. 3 easy steps! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/c?cp=hH8quBryO3AsEJpOxV1lpgAAJ1AP8ttsZd_TbiVxkZxsC3mBAAQFADiYjT4AAAMlAAZmkwA= ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] The SWP and underconsumptionism
>>CB: How are the big bourgeoisie making their money , as I assume they are ? I guess a minority of stocks and bonds could be doing well, while the majority suck. Or maybe I just don't understand that the real money is made in uhhh hedge funds and exotic financial instruments that aren't stocks and bonds ?<< I assume they get most of their money by inheriting it. How do they protect and invest that wealth? Looks like a lot of them have bet on Buffet to invest it for them. I don't know how 'protective' that is going to be in the next 5 years. Active investors seem to be caught up in leveraging and bubbles. First, they have cheap access to credit, which allows them to leverage/gear their bets. Second, they have advanced access to bubbles before the bubbles get too big, and they have adanced access to knowledge that allows them to exit early. Third, many have access to inside information--such as when a contract is going to be awarded, when an arm of a government somewhere is going to be privatized or float on a stock market, etc. It seems many right now are happy to get about 0% on their accumulated wealth because, hey, that's better than negative 'returns'. If you get deflation, that actually means you can make money (that has been the situation for the wealthiest of investors here in Japan). OTOH, if we see signs of inflation, there is going to be a 9-11 of bonds, just you wait and see. One class of active investor has all that I listed going for them plus this: they extract their share because they run funds. You know, guys like Bernie Madoff. CJ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] The SWP and underconsumptionism
CB:>>Just a general observation on Obama and the Obama administration doing things: Notice that a President has to get Congress to pass stuff to do any major move, and that there are enough rightwing Dems to thwart any major progressive moves. I know the left Obama skeptics/haters love to ignore this in order to blame Obama for betraying/failing the left and say I told you so , but...<< You mean like start WW III? No, actually he doesn't need Congress to do that. He needs Congress for an official declaration of war, I think. But de facto war, all it takes is a prez who embraces the imperium, and this one clearly has. You mean like send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan? No, he doesn't need Congressional approval for that either. He needs to go to Congress periodically to get the required funding, whether regular, supplementary or covert budgets. What major piece of legislation has Obama gone to Congress with anyway? The Health Care bill(s) where he made statements that basically undercut any stance for universal coverage even before the process began? You mean close Gitmo? Well, he could order it closed and tell Gates to take money from the defense budgetS to get it done. He doesn't need Congress to close it. He could turn over all the detainees to the Hague, but the Amurkins wouldn't like them turning loose almost all of them for lack of evidence and lack of official charges. And Obama needs the Amurkins on his side. Hey Amurkins, don't leave all that good work undone--SUPPORT OBAMA FOR PRESIDENT IN 2012! CJ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
