EPTOccupy Wall Street - Page 213
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
edit: can we say it about 1814-1854 and then 1871-1914? Those were largely peaceful periods, yeah? (http://isanet.ccit.arizona.edu/noarchive/vayrynen.html) edit: how about this thesis: Polanyi’s key argument is that the finance capital has nothing against small wars, but they abhor big ones. edit: hah! A curious feature in Polanyi’s analysis is the biased role of Great Britain. | ||
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WhiteDog
France8650 Posts
On March 05 2013 09:21 sam!zdat wrote: It's a heuristic reduction for the sake of analysis. The only way to study a complex system is to perform a heuristic reduction - you cannot study it all at once. you have to pick a window, look at it through that window, then back up again and pick another window. If Marx were committed to a economic reductionist view of history, there would be no point in his writing a book about it! I really don't want to get into it, though. you can wait for my published work on the topic  edit: regardless of the question of Marx's own views, which remains at the very least an open question, Marxism is certainly not committed to any such economic reductionism. Nobody thinks about ideology anymore with the old notion of "false consciousness", it's rather more complicated than that. edit: And can I point out that nobody else has solved the mind-body problem either? So there!  It's not entirely heuristic, it's political. There are letter between Engels and Marx about the subject, and a ton of work on the subject. I myself almost made a phD on utopian project (in sociology) and was heavily invested into utopies and ideologies and everything that is around the subject. A lot of people still argue that value and ideologies are a reflection of the living conditions. Also, you are seeing it through a philosophical point of view. See someone like Viktor Klemperer gives an explanation on the birth of the 3rd reich ideologies through the romanticism and the weight it has on germany at the time. It's as simple as watching in which institutions people are born in, and how it made them. | ||
KwarK
United States43203 Posts
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
On March 05 2013 15:58 WhiteDog wrote: It's not entirely heuristic, it's political. Fair enough, I'm fine with that. His political is my heuristic. There are letter between Engels and Marx about the subject, and a ton of work on the subject. I myself almost made a phD on utopian project (in sociology) and was heavily invested into utopies and ideologies and everything that is around the subject. A lot of people still argue that value and ideologies are a reflection of the living conditions. yeah but what is meant by a "reflection"? I feel like there is a lot of room in there. I don't know if I can really say what I mean though. You can have a base-superstructure theory that is not a reductionism, is my point. I'm mostly interested in Benjamin and some other Frankfurt School, Jameson, Harvey and Zizek. | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
On March 05 2013 16:04 KwarK wrote: Finance capital doesn't know at the start of a war whether it's going to be a long one or not, the system was stable right up until it wasn't, the wars were short right up until they were long. It's a meaningless statement. can't finance exert influence over the duration of a war? don't you want to ask questions about why the system behaves like it does? why is it meaningless to say? edit: also, I'm mostly interested in the economic history of this period, in terms of overall accumulation of capital. What was happening with that during this period? Was this a period in which capital accumulation could go largely undisturbed by large-scale warfare, compared to other periods in European history? | ||
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WhiteDog
France8650 Posts
I agree that Marxism heavily discussed it afterward, the frankfurt school being a good exemple of that. | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
I'm hardly a classical Marxist  I'm sure the "real" Marxists in Europe would not approve of me.edit: I'll cede to you any question about what Marx thought. | ||
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
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KwarK
United States43203 Posts
On March 05 2013 16:08 sam!zdat wrote: can't finance exert influence over the duration of a war? don't you want to ask questions about why the system behaves like it does? why is it meaningless to say? Not when two great powers are engaged in a contest of "who can sacrifice the lives of the people for longer". That game lasts until the politicians are themselves in danger of catching some bullets or the game stops being fun anymore. In 1870 the former happened when the French military collapsed. In 1918 the latter happened although it had to be combined with the former because it was too embarrassing to admit the whole exercise had been a silly idea until the war was already decisively going against them. Hence my initial argument, the Great War happened because the people in power were stupid enough to think the Great War was a good idea. | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
On March 05 2013 16:21 oneofthem wrote: in the uchicago area unfortunately not  tragedy of my life | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
On March 05 2013 16:21 KwarK wrote: Not when two great powers are engaged in a contest of "who can sacrifice the lives of the people for longer". That game lasts until the politicians are themselves in danger of catching some bullets or the game stops being fun anymore. In 1870 the former happened when the French military collapsed. In 1918 the latter happened although it had to be combined with the former because it was too embarrassing to admit the whole exercise had been a silly idea until the war was already decisively going against them. Hence my initial argument, the Great War happened because the people in power were stupid enough to think the Great War was a good idea. Well, I guess if you find that explanation satisfying... edit: well, right now I'm reading a much more recent text on financial history by Arrighi. We'll see what he has to say about it and take it up again then, how's about that? edit: here's an interesting paper: http://www.academia.edu/1053370/The_Myth_of_the_Hundred_Years_Peace_War_in_the_Nineteenth_Century Ultimately, the transnational capitalist class was interested in the preservation of the core international markets. Significant disruptions of economic activity within Western countries would jeopardize long term investments, like railroads, while a decline of commerce between warring nations could amount tosubstantial economic losses. Even the threat of war could impact bond marketsreflecting the credit-worthiness of European governments. Though Polanyi overestimated the “intimate contact between finance and diplomacy,” for, as we have seen, the old regime still ruled the day in inter-state politics, the effect of financial variables was a real and novel factor in 19th century considerations of war and peace. Polanyi, however, was wrong to suggest that economics was the sole and primary cause of peace during this period. Cultural, political, racial, and pure military considerations were just as important at various times in deflecting Great Power statesmen away from war with each other. And, in any case, the option to go to war with weaker peoples overseas was the road most frequently travelled. The pacification of the core of the emerging world economic systemwas an important step in the spread of the Western financial system, but more importantly, the spread of Western civilization. As we consider the instability and fragility of this financial system today, we must recall that one hundred years ago a world war was considered both impossible and probable, as Henri Bergson pointed out. We must not take our Fifty-Seven Years’ Peace (and counting) for granted, and neither should we ignore the violence within and without our ‘advanced’ societies. edit: on the bright side, there's still a lot of interesting analysis in the Polanyi book even if he's a little out of touch with military history. | ||
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KwarK
United States43203 Posts
On March 05 2013 16:23 sam!zdat wrote: Well, I guess if you find that explanation satisfying... Got a better explanation for why the solution to systematic instability in central Europe due to the emergence of a new German superpower was to create two big power blocs to make a potential war incredibly bloody? Everyone knew the war was coming, the French had been fortifying the frontier for decades, the British and Germans were engaged in a naval arms race. A lack of comprehension of exactly what the coming war meant is the only explanation for why they would have had it over the death of an Archduke in Serbia. All that had changed in the decades preceding it was that it was no longer possible for one side to quickly overwhelm another because both had been preparing for the war, there was no sudden change in international finance which made it possible in 1914 but not in 1870. The underlying factors were that the political system was detatched from the reality of what a modern war involved and military thinking hadn't caught up with the technological advances leading to people in power thinking a war was something that they wouldn't regret. The why isn't especially important, because Germany/England was there was enough, the lack of a why not was the problem. | ||
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WhiteDog
France8650 Posts
On March 05 2013 16:17 sam!zdat wrote: I'm not sure I grasp your point about education. Is your point that your ideological lens is so complete that you cannot gain any perspective from education? I wouldn't think I'd be committed that... I think there's room for there to be emergent behavior in the superstructure, particularly when you are encountering written traces from another situation. I'm hardly a classical Marxist I'm sure the "real" Marxists in Europe would not approve of me.edit: I'll cede to you any question about what Marx thought. For Marx, any ideology is made by the conditions of living in a way that the "ideology" of the labor class reflect their poor situation, and that the ideology of the capitalists is designed around the idea that they are in this dominant position for good reasons. In the end, even through ideologies are interesting, they only act as a veil that hide the cold hard truth of class struggle. The only political topic that really matter is the accumulation process, the distribution of the "plus-value" (capital gain ?) and the question of salaries. In this perspective, there is no possibility for ideals, value or anything that belong to the "superstructure" (as the world produced due to the activity of men) to solidify itself and act on the political events as its own - without any influence from the "infrastructure" (the activity of men). For exemple, the nazi germany in this regard is only a product of the economical evolution that occured during the XIXth century up to the end of Weimar republic. When I'm saying "education", I'm referring to one of the medium by which our "institutions" gets the possibility to act on society by themselves. Like for exemple, how the 3rd Republic in France solidified itself through school and nationalism, or how nationalism according to someone like Benedict Anderson built itself through specific medium (development of printing and emmigration) as a way for nations to go beyond class struggles (that suppose a certain rupture within the society). In this perspective, value or ideologies are not only independant (to a certain extent) from the "infrastructure", but they also act on society as they structure the way people apprehend reality and thus determine the political evolutions of our society (and the evolution of the economy in a sense, everything is linked but keeps a certain marge of independance). You cannot explain the event of the World War if you don't put it into perspective with german "culture" (altho the world culture is never a good idea) or "history" in the broad sense. How Goethe's (or Wagner or even Nietzsche, not saying he was antisemite at all, just searching for a higher form of humanity) work influenced and gave birth, to a certain extent (!), to nazi germany. You must also look closely at the relation between France and Germany (especially 1871 and the event around it) and the Great War (who was mainly a war between France and its colonies versus Germany for the first part, as the great britain had its hands full with Ireland and Russia was going on its revolution). There is also a lot to say about why facism or nationalism didn't blow out in France like it did in Germany before WW2. Marxism never considered that class programs, or teachers formation was a political matter, as it all reflected the economy: the school was "capitalist" (Capitalist School is a french book) as it only served as a way for society to handpick the future capitalists and the future worker class. In today society, where almost the entire young population goes through the education system, Marxism ("european" marxist party should I say) don't understand that discussing not only the idea of meritocracy, but the content of school programs and the goal the institution give itself by studying these specific topic is one of the most important political matter. As English is not my first language, I tend to become lazy when discussing such matter and rarely structure enough my thought nor explain my concept, I hope I'm not too hard to understand. | ||
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
On March 05 2013 21:46 WhiteDog wrote: In this perspective, there is no possibility for ideals, value or anything that belong to the "superstructure" (as the world produced due to the activity of men) to solidify itself and act on the political events as its own - without any influence from the "infrastructure" (the activity of men). Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality. It's been a long time since I encountered anybody who tried to claim that there could not be any sort of (to some extent) autonomous dynamics in the superstructure. Even thinking about the base as an "ultimately determining instance" leaves a lot of room to theorize all of these things we've been talking about. On March 05 2013 18:40 KwarK wrote: there was no sudden change in international finance which made it possible in 1914 but not in 1870. That's not his thesis, I don't believe. I think it's pretty clear I can't trust Polanyi, though. But his point is that the political imperative to maintain the integrity of the gold standard was part of what built up the geopolitical tensions that led to the war. I'll need to investigate this further. He mentions specifically that a "general conflagration" was avoided which would have upset the monetary system. edit: I guess what Polanyi is trying to say is that the financial crisis which led to WW2 was already immanent in the tensions leading up to WW1. This is what you want to deny, right? edit: I hear what you're saying, Kwark. I understand the whole "didn't understand the reality of modern warfare" angle (read The Great War and Modern Memory a few years ago) But when you want to say "it had nothing to do with economics," that makes me extremely skeptical, even if it's clear that Polanyi's account is off-base. I don't really believe that anything has NOTHING to do with economics. | ||
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
On March 06 2013 04:07 oneofthem wrote: google hobsbawm thanks, will do. I'm super curious to hear what Arrighi has to say about it, but I have to get through four centuries first before I get there edit: thanks for the reality check Kwark | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
without marxism, would the revolutions still have happened? | ||
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