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On March 06 2013 05:07 oneofthem wrote:
teehee. self reference meets marxism.
Exactly :D
"self reference meets marxism" is pretty much the story of my academic career, and is why I can't have a normal life like normal people...
An aesthetic of cognitive mapping - a pedagogical political culture which seeks to endow the individual subject with some new heightened sense of its place in the global system - will necessarily have to respect this now enormously complex representational dialectic and invent radically new forms in order to do it justice. This is not then, clearly, a call for a return to some older kind of machinery, some older and more transparent national space, or some more traditional and reassuring perspectival or mimetic enclave: the new political art (if it is possible at all) will have to hold to the truth of postmodernism, that is to say, to its fundamental object - the world space of multinational capital - at the same time at which it achieves a breakthrough to some as yet unimaginable new mode of representing this last, in which we may again begin to grasp our positioning as individual and collective subjects and regain a capacity to act and struggle which is at present neutralized by our spatial as well as our social confusion. The political form of postmodernism, if there ever is any, will have as its vocation the invention and projection of a global cognitive mapping, on a social as well as a spatial scale.
jameson
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
the orthodox marxist would say marxism is necessary for raising class consciousness etc. something like that. should call lenin to make sure
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Well, I've got The Lenin Anthology at the bottom of this stack of books, someday I'll read it.
My understanding is that Lenin is pretty hobbled by the notion of the proletariat as the "universal class." That's pretty obviously a non-operative concept today.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
eh, it's probably ideology giving way and in turn being made use of by the urgency of taking action. lenin probably just wanted to kick some ass. justifying the bolshevik 'intrusion' into the pristine landscape of scientific progress of society was just to keep the whole structure intact.
kind of like how paul did a number on the gospel
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On March 06 2013 05:23 oneofthem wrote:
eh, it's probably ideology giving way and in turn being made use of by the urgency of taking action.
Which is why, since Althusser, we tend to take it as a point of dogma that it is impossible to ever escape ideology.
lenin probably just wanted to kick some ass.
indubitably
justifying the bolshevik 'intrusion' into the pristine landscape of scientific progress of society was just to keep the whole structure intact.
people tend to overlook that the fetishization of scientific progress was a key component of ideology on both sides of the iron curtain. this is why the frankfurt school critique is directed as much at the bolsheviks as at the bourgeoisie.
kind of like how paul did a number on the gospel
Ha! I don't quite know what to think about Paul yet. Every time I want to hate him, I like him, and then every time I kinda like him, I find something to hate.
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Paul's letter to the Ephesians 5:3-6
"But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a person is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient."
Good thing I know better than to heed his "empty words", lest God strike me down! 
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In November, organizers with Occupy Wall Street had an idea: buy up people’s personal debt — like student debt and debt resulting from health care bills — and simply forgive it.
They called their program a “bailout of the people by the people” and named it Rolling Jubilee — based on the Biblical parable of the Jubilee year, where debts would be forgiven.
Since they launched their effort, they have raised $561,587 to abolish $11,236,570 of personal debt.
Source
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The Jubilee is not a "parable."
Jubilees and general decrees of debt-forgiveness were very common in the ancient world - they had no other way to stabilize the financial system. Every once in a while everybody would become debt-peons and they would have to wipe the slates and start over. In ancient mesopotamia, in particular, this was an institutionalized custom.
edit: luckily, I'm much more confident about this than about nineteenth century military history! :D
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On March 06 2013 04:57 sam!zdat wrote:
WhiteDog: Isn't "Marxism" part of the superstructure? What would be the point of having "Marxism" if things in the superstructure couldn't change anything? Isn't this kinda what is meant by a "unity of theory and practice"?
For Marx or orthodoxe no that s the point. (It s complicated because marx himslf said he was not marxist, let s agree that marx is more complicated than orthodoxe marxism).
Marx defined his work as "scientific socialism" in opposition with "utopian socialism" (fourrier, owens...) and it is not an ideology (or belong to the superstructure) because it is true - historic materialism, he is only describing evolutions of the infrastrcture.
Also there are a lot of work that shows some kind of autonomy of the superstructure - Weber, Durkheim, Mauss, almost all the sociology is based around that. Even in economy - the regulation or any historical theory of the market. I cited Pierre Clastres who famously proposed reversed marxism : the infrastructure is entirly determined by the superstructure.
I will make a better post tonight when I m back home. A work typing on an iphone.
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I think we're just talking past each other. I'm pretty much exclusively interested in "Marxism" meaning "post-Frankfurt School," so also post-Weber and post-Freud. "Orthodox Marxism" is a bit silly and I don't have much use for it outside of historical interest. I'm interested in reappropriating Marxism for the 21st century more than anything else - I'm more of a bricoleur who accepts Marx than a "Marxist," really. But idk. Maybe I'm just a Hegelian.
edit: so when I make claims of the type "Marxism means X", what I really mean is that "For us, here and now in the 21st century, Marxism can and should mean X!", and not "For historical Marxists in previous epochs, Marxism meant X".
edit: if you can't turn your own tradition on its head when the situation demands, then what's the point, after all, of being a Hegelian??
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I don't understand the large emphasis on the amounts that executives get paid. The focus should be on the correlation of pay and performance. Personally I don't give a shit if a CEO is getting paid a thousand times higher than the average worker if he has improved cashflows and the size of the company to a reasonable amount. I could be the best analyst in the whole fucking world and I would never effect the firms financials more than a basis point, the CEO however can swing massive amounts of percentage points and that to me justifies how much a firm is prepared to pay them.
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On March 08 2013 08:27 yandere991 wrote:
I don't understand the large emphasis on the amounts that executives get paid. The focus should be on the correlation of pay and performance. Personally I don't give a shit if a CEO is getting paid a thousand times higher than the average worker if he has improved cashflows and the size of the company to a reasonable amount. I could be the best analyst in the whole fucking world and I would never effect the firms financials more than a basis point, the CEO however can swing massive amounts of percentage points and that to me justifies how much a firm is prepared to pay them.
I would go even further. A CEO can get paid whatever the board decides he should be paid. Who do we think we are that we should set other people's salaries. If you don't like how much the upper level management of an organization is being compensated, don't purchase their stock. The idea that people feel justified in deciding how much someone else should be getting paid is just absurd to me.
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On March 08 2013 11:27 Tewks44 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 08 2013 08:27 yandere991 wrote:
I don't understand the large emphasis on the amounts that executives get paid. The focus should be on the correlation of pay and performance. Personally I don't give a shit if a CEO is getting paid a thousand times higher than the average worker if he has improved cashflows and the size of the company to a reasonable amount. I could be the best analyst in the whole fucking world and I would never effect the firms financials more than a basis point, the CEO however can swing massive amounts of percentage points and that to me justifies how much a firm is prepared to pay them. I would go even further. A CEO can get paid whatever the board decides he should be paid. Who do we think we are that we should set other people's salaries. If you don't like how much the upper level management of an organization is being compensated, don't purchase their stock. The idea that people feel justified in deciding how much someone else should be getting paid is just absurd to me.
Who would set salaries if no one could set salaries?
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On March 08 2013 11:30 Roe wrote:Show nested quote +On March 08 2013 11:27 Tewks44 wrote:On March 08 2013 08:27 yandere991 wrote:
I don't understand the large emphasis on the amounts that executives get paid. The focus should be on the correlation of pay and performance. Personally I don't give a shit if a CEO is getting paid a thousand times higher than the average worker if he has improved cashflows and the size of the company to a reasonable amount. I could be the best analyst in the whole fucking world and I would never effect the firms financials more than a basis point, the CEO however can swing massive amounts of percentage points and that to me justifies how much a firm is prepared to pay them. I would go even further. A CEO can get paid whatever the board decides he should be paid. Who do we think we are that we should set other people's salaries. If you don't like how much the upper level management of an organization is being compensated, don't purchase their stock. The idea that people feel justified in deciding how much someone else should be getting paid is just absurd to me. Who would set salaries if no one could set salaries?
an independent board of directors sets the salaries of the CEO in publicly traded companies. If no one could set the salaries I suppose no one would set the salaries. You phrased your question in a way that answers itself.
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On March 08 2013 11:36 Tewks44 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 08 2013 11:30 Roe wrote:On March 08 2013 11:27 Tewks44 wrote:On March 08 2013 08:27 yandere991 wrote:
I don't understand the large emphasis on the amounts that executives get paid. The focus should be on the correlation of pay and performance. Personally I don't give a shit if a CEO is getting paid a thousand times higher than the average worker if he has improved cashflows and the size of the company to a reasonable amount. I could be the best analyst in the whole fucking world and I would never effect the firms financials more than a basis point, the CEO however can swing massive amounts of percentage points and that to me justifies how much a firm is prepared to pay them. I would go even further. A CEO can get paid whatever the board decides he should be paid. Who do we think we are that we should set other people's salaries. If you don't like how much the upper level management of an organization is being compensated, don't purchase their stock. The idea that people feel justified in deciding how much someone else should be getting paid is just absurd to me. Who would set salaries if no one could set salaries? an independent board of directors sets the salaries of the CEO in publicly traded companies. If no one could set the salaries I suppose no one would set the salaries. You phrased your question in a way that answers itself.
If they were independent of the company how would they know how well they worked, and thus how much they deserve the money?
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Also, what is the marginal value of labour of a CEO?
For me the problem is that bigwigs are unlikely to create an environment where bigwigs aren't automatically paid huge amounts of money. It's not in their interests.
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On March 08 2013 11:42 Roe wrote:Show nested quote +On March 08 2013 11:36 Tewks44 wrote:On March 08 2013 11:30 Roe wrote:On March 08 2013 11:27 Tewks44 wrote:On March 08 2013 08:27 yandere991 wrote:
I don't understand the large emphasis on the amounts that executives get paid. The focus should be on the correlation of pay and performance. Personally I don't give a shit if a CEO is getting paid a thousand times higher than the average worker if he has improved cashflows and the size of the company to a reasonable amount. I could be the best analyst in the whole fucking world and I would never effect the firms financials more than a basis point, the CEO however can swing massive amounts of percentage points and that to me justifies how much a firm is prepared to pay them. I would go even further. A CEO can get paid whatever the board decides he should be paid. Who do we think we are that we should set other people's salaries. If you don't like how much the upper level management of an organization is being compensated, don't purchase their stock. The idea that people feel justified in deciding how much someone else should be getting paid is just absurd to me. Who would set salaries if no one could set salaries? an independent board of directors sets the salaries of the CEO in publicly traded companies. If no one could set the salaries I suppose no one would set the salaries. You phrased your question in a way that answers itself. If they were independent of the company how would they know how well they worked, and thus how much they deserve the money?
Independent as I use it mean they have no vested interest in what the CEO's salary is. They are, of course, very familiar with the operations of the company, and are typically veterans in the world of finance/accounting/management. They have access to the company's internal records and evaluate the performance of upper management. They make judgement calls on how much the CEO should be paid and whether or not the CEO's salary should be adjusted.
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On March 08 2013 11:54 ControlMonkey wrote:
Also, what is the marginal value of labour of a CEO?
For me the problem is that bigwigs are unlikely to create an environment where bigwigs aren't automatically paid huge amounts of money. It's not in their interests.
You seem to be suggesting that board members have something to gain from overpaying their CEO. I would press you to explain further. Board member's pay is not effected by the CEO's pay, and in fact they only stand to lose if they over pay the company's CEO. The marginal value of a CEO varies and subject to subjective means of measurement, but to suggest there's no value in a CEO and that there is some kind of international agreement among bigwigs is purely speculative.
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On March 08 2013 12:06 Tewks44 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 08 2013 11:54 ControlMonkey wrote:
Also, what is the marginal value of labour of a CEO?
For me the problem is that bigwigs are unlikely to create an environment where bigwigs aren't automatically paid huge amounts of money. It's not in their interests. You seem to be suggesting that board members have something to gain from overpaying their CEO. I would press you to explain further. Board member's pay is not effected by the CEO's pay, and in fact they only stand to lose if they over pay the company's CEO. The marginal value of a CEO varies and subject to subjective means of measurement, but to suggest there's no value in a CEO and that there is some kind of international agreement among bigwigs is purely speculative.
How do they have anything to lose by overpaying the CEO? Aren't most boards partially or entirely appointed by the CEO? It's a symbiotic system if I'm not mistaken.
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On March 08 2013 12:23 aksfjh wrote:Show nested quote +On March 08 2013 12:06 Tewks44 wrote:On March 08 2013 11:54 ControlMonkey wrote:
Also, what is the marginal value of labour of a CEO?
For me the problem is that bigwigs are unlikely to create an environment where bigwigs aren't automatically paid huge amounts of money. It's not in their interests. You seem to be suggesting that board members have something to gain from overpaying their CEO. I would press you to explain further. Board member's pay is not effected by the CEO's pay, and in fact they only stand to lose if they over pay the company's CEO. The marginal value of a CEO varies and subject to subjective means of measurement, but to suggest there's no value in a CEO and that there is some kind of international agreement among bigwigs is purely speculative. How do they have anything to lose by overpaying the CEO? Aren't most boards partially or entirely appointed by the CEO? It's a symbiotic system if I'm not mistaken.
Boards are elected by the shareholders, who's interest is maximizing profit. Therefore if the board is overpaying the CEO, the board is going to have some angry members to deal with, and they gain nothing.
EDIT: by members I mean shareholders
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EPT
