# "Everything You Know is Wrong!" (London)



## JimN (Jul 28, 2011)

"Materialism does not mean an emphasis on those things in our experience that are big or heavy, such as factories and mines. It means that the mind is material. Our thoughts are not truths, they are data. We are prehistoric creatures thinking themselves gods. Our thought is developing, and has developed through history, not towards apotheosis but towards an understanding of our finity. We spend all of our time wondering what principles life is about when the only point of life is life itself. To make that a reality for ourselves the summation of those principles that say life should be about something other than the sheer living of it - Capital must be overthrown. The future, after revolution, is not a promised land, but merely life lived for the first time for its own sake - the beginning of our history as a conscious species."

Speaker: Simon Wigley

Sunday, July 31, 2011, 4:00pm

The Socialist Party of Great Britain Head Office, 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN

Free entry Refreshments Discussion period 

Full details of this and all our meetings can be found here:
http://www.meetup.com/The-Socialist-Party-of-Great-Britain/events/21905171/


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## butchersapron (Jul 28, 2011)

Fitting title for this parties intellectual vanguardism.


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## JimN (Jul 28, 2011)

You could be wrong though


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## littlebabyjesus (Jul 28, 2011)

That paragraph is appallingly written. 

This sentence is horrible in its mangled construction: 

"To make that a reality for ourselves the summation of those principles that say life should be about something other than the sheer living of it - Capital must be overthrown." 

It also appears to make a huge and unwarranted logical jump from 'life for life's sake' to 'Capital'. I think I know what they are trying to get at, but mangled language is usually a sign of mangled thinking, sad to say.


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## butchersapron (Jul 28, 2011)

JimN said:


> You could be wrong though


See, bit more of that humour on the other thread and we'd have got somewhere!


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## JimN (Jul 28, 2011)

Which other thread?


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## butchersapron (Jul 28, 2011)

http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/threads/323519-SPGB


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## JimN (Jul 28, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> That paragraph is appallingly written.
> 
> This sentence is horrible in its mangled construction:
> 
> ...


 
You did better than me. I couldn't make head or tail of it. I'm sure Simon will make everything clear on the day


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## JimN (Jul 28, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/threads/323519-SPGB



Oh yeah, the Gravediggers one. I nearly succeeded in blotting that one completely from my memory. Thanks for reminding me


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## articul8 (Jul 28, 2011)

JimN said:


> Our thoughts are not truths, they are data.



No they're not.  They're *thoughts*, they are what we count as *thoughts*


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## littlebabyjesus (Jul 28, 2011)

JimN said:


> You did better than me. I couldn't make head or tail of it. I'm sure Simon will make everything clear on the day


 
What I guess they are getting at is that by putting a price tag on human activity - by commodifying it - capitalism removes the possibility of 'living life for life's sake': you're not living for living's sake, you're living in order to produce capitalist value, some of which you will be allowed to keep in order to buy the things you need. 

I don't agree, fwiw. It's perfectly possible to function within a capitalist system in a way that enables you to consider you are living for living's sake so long as you take the attitude that you work for money only in order to get what you need/want in order to maximise your life's enjoyment. The logical leap from 'being exploited' to 'not living for living's sake' is invalid, imo. Being exploited just means that you are having to work harder, and on other people's terms, in order to get what you need. Of course, at the extreme end of exploitation, almost all of one's energies can be devoted to getting what one needs. I still don't buy the argument, though. It doesn't seem to me to be a very fruitful way of looking at it. And however just the system, individuals are still going to have to accede to the demands of the collective in some ways.


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## two sheds (Jul 28, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> That paragraph is appallingly written.


 
Tut someone offers you the elixir of life and you complain about the shape of the bottle.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jul 28, 2011)

two sheds said:


> Tut someone offers you the elixir of life and you complain about the shape of the bottle.


 
It's bright a green liquid that smells of wee. You sure it's an elixir?


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## butchersapron (Jul 28, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> What I guess they are getting at is that by putting a price tag on human activity - by commodifying it - capitalism removes the possibility of 'living life for life's sake': you're not living for living's sake, you're living in order to produce capitalist value, some of which you will be allowed to keep in order to buy the things you need.
> 
> I don't agree, fwiw. It's perfectly possible to function within a capitalist system in a way that enables you to consider you are living for living's sake so long as you take the attitude that you work for money only in order to get what you need/want in order to maximise your life's enjoyment. The logical leap from 'being exploited' to 'not living for living's sake' is invalid, imo. Being exploited just means that you are having to work harder, and on other people's terms, in order to get what you need. Of course, at the extreme end of exploitation, almost all of one's energies can be devoted to getting what one needs. I still don't buy the argument, though. It doesn't seem to me to be a very fruitful way of looking at it.



The rhetoric (not argument) in the OP in wrong in so many ways (and most certainly not marxist in any sense) but it _is_ the case that  'what you need/want in order to maximise your life's enjoyment' is itself becoming increasingly commodified, is increasingly becoming _a product of exploitation_. The net is tightening. The world market leads nowhere else.


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## articul8 (Jul 28, 2011)

yep


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## littlebabyjesus (Jul 28, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> The rhetoric (not argument) in the OP in wrong in so many ways (and most certainly not marxist in any sense) but it _is_ the case that  'what you need/want in order to maximise your life's enjoyment' is itself becoming increasingly commodified, is increasingly becoming _a product of exploitation_. The net is tightening. The world market leads nowhere else.


 
Yes, that is true.

TBH the OP reads like some kind of naive Utopian individualism. It makes no sense to me to talk of the individual without placing that individual within the collective (politically, that is).


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## JimN (Jul 28, 2011)

articul8 said:


> No they're not.  They're *thoughts*, they are what we count as *thoughts*



Sounds reasonable to me. Like I say, they're the speakers words which I'm assuming are also data. No?


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## articul8 (Jul 28, 2011)

It's like saying "unemployment isn't an experience it's data" - it can look like "data" from one point of view but totally misses what it means from another - perspectival, situated, experiential viewpoint.   It's a very mechanistic version of materialism - thoughts aren't reducible to "data" or electrical impulses in the brain - because they are *thought* by minds


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## Shippou-Sensei (Jul 28, 2011)




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## littlebabyjesus (Jul 28, 2011)

Thinking about this a bit more, the problem with this kind of naive Utopianism is that there are seven billion people in the world and counting. There is NO WAY you can organise such numbers within complex societies without at some point reducing what they are doing to numbers in order to understand it. You have to.


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## JimN (Jul 28, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> The rhetoric (not argument) in the OP in wrong in so many ways (and most certainly not marxist in any sense) but it _is_ the case that  'what you need/want in order to maximise your life's enjoyment' is itself becoming increasingly commodified, is increasingly becoming _a product of exploitation_. The net is tightening. The world market leads nowhere else.


 
That's right. I see the market as a dry rot. Sending its spores and sinews out thoughout, not only the entire globe, but also into every aspect of human life. Searching for anything free fom exploitation or underexploited, any commons that it can suck dry and lay bare to the ravages of the profit system.


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## JimN (Jul 28, 2011)

If yours is bright green you probably should bottle it.


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## Random (Jul 28, 2011)

> "Everything You Know is Wrong!"


 one of the most annoying titles ever. A friend lent me a shit smug lefty book by that name, full of untrue nonsense, ironically enough.


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## butchersapron (Jul 28, 2011)

Everything i know is right.


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## Random (Jul 28, 2011)

JimN said:


> That's right. I see the market as a dry rot. Sending its spores and sinews out thoughout, not only the entire globe, but also into every aspect of human life. Searching for anything free fom exploitation or underexploited, any commons that it can suck dry and lay bare to the ravages of the profit system.


 Are you a primitivist?


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## TruXta (Jul 28, 2011)

I thought it was gonna be some kind of nu-age nutcase stuff when I saw the thread title btw. Sounds like something out of McKenna or RAW.


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## TruXta (Jul 28, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> Everything i know is right.


 
Then again you don't know much.


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## Ranbay (Jul 28, 2011)




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## love detective (Jul 28, 2011)

> It's perfectly possible to function within a capitalist system in a way that enables you to consider you are living for living's sake so long as you take the attitude that you work for money only in order to get what you need/want in order to maximise your life's enjoyment.



This, in my opinion, is nonsense - what you are suggesting is that the material realities of capitalist exploitation can be magicked away, purely by an individual looking at the situation in a different manner.This is exactly the kind of naïve utopian individualism that you accuse the OP of - i.e. close your eyes and think away the very real social relations that dominate your very existence


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## TruXta (Jul 28, 2011)

Over-determination much, ld?


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## Random (Jul 28, 2011)

love detective said:


> This, in my opinion, is nonsense - what you are suggesting is that the material realities of capitalist exploitation can be magicked away, purely by an individual looking at the situation in a different manner.This is exactly the kind of naïve utopian individualism that you accuse the OP of - i.e. close your eyes and think away the very real social relations that dominate your very existence


 Doesn't it say that it's only possible to 'consider' that you're doing so - agreeing with you that it's just imaginary freedom.


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## love detective (Jul 28, 2011)

think it away hippies


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## TruXta (Jul 28, 2011)

All freedom is imaginary, Random, no matter your political beliefs.


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## two sheds (Jul 28, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It's bright a green liquid that smells of wee. You sure it's an elixir?


 
Bugger  they're easy to confuse.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jul 28, 2011)

love detective said:


> This, in my opinion, is nonsense - what you are suggesting is that the material realities of capitalist exploitation can be magicked away, purely by an individual looking at the situation in a different manner.This is exactly the kind of naïve utopian individualism that you accuse the OP of - i.e. close your eyes and think away the very real social relations that dominate your very existence


 
Hmmm. That comes back to my point about placing the individual within the collective, I would say. We aren't all just helpless victims. I'm not saying that the realities of exploitation can be magicked away, so much as that the realities of exploitation are not the only realities. We are more than just pawns in a capitalist game even if those in control of capital treat us as such. 

That said, I take butchers' point that capitalism will attempt to appropriate and commodify anything and everything that people find to enjoy, and that this will to an extent shape what it is that people find to enjoy in the first place. But only to an extent. Capitalism's victory is incomplete.

An example: I love cricket. The way I love cricket hasn't really been formed by capitalism as I grew up in an age when cricket was on the BBC and nobody was really trying to sell me anything while I was watching it. Now that sky have taken it over and there are advertisements all over the place, even on the umpire's hat, is the way I enjoy cricket suddenly controlled by capitalism? I would say no - except that I don't get to see live cricket on tv as I don't have sky. But I enjoy watching cricket independently of the things that those in control of cricket try to sell me.


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## butchersapron (Jul 28, 2011)

For who though?


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## love detective (Jul 28, 2011)

Random said:


> Doesn't it say that it's only possible to 'consider' that you're doing so - agreeing with you that it's just imaginary freedom.



well that's exactly my point - what kind of engaged materialist adopts a position where they purposely think in such a way which allows them to consider that they are living within a totally different set of social relation to the ones that they actually are?


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## two sheds (Jul 28, 2011)

Isn't it capitalism's promise, though, that getting enough money gives you freedom? As in freedom to do what you want with your time because you don't have to earn to eat and clothe yourself etc.


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## TruXta (Jul 28, 2011)

love detective said:


> well that's exactly my point - what kind of engaged materialist adopts a position where they purposely think in such a way which allows them to consider that they are living within a totally different set of social relation to the ones that they actually are?


 
Hmmm. I think you're in danger of making a category error here. Social relations, whilst necessarily grounded in material practices, are also dependent on more ephemeral things, like knowledge, belief, emotion and so on, things which essentially are intersubjective. In that sense social relations are IMO always under-determined by collective/social causation.


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## butchersapron (Jul 28, 2011)

But what money-based freedom not based on prior exploitation of others can there be under capitalism?


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## Random (Jul 28, 2011)

love detective said:


> well that's exactly my point - what kind of engaged materialist adopts a position where they purposely think in such a way which allows them to consider that they are living within a totally different set of social relation to the ones that they actually are?


 
Oh, now I've re-read the thread and seen it was said by LBJ and not Jim or the SPGB. LBJ is a liberal, though, not a committed materialist, though. That doesn't stop his ideas being nonsense, of course.


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## TruXta (Jul 28, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> But what money-based freedom not based on prior exploitation of others can there be under capitalism?


 
Ain't no freedom either way.


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## butchersapron (Jul 28, 2011)

TruXta said:


> Hmmm. I think you're in danger of making a category error here. Social relations, whilst necessarily grounded in material practices, are also dependent on more ephemeral things, like knowledge, belief, emotion and so on, things which essentially are intersubjective. In that sense social relations are IMO always under-determined by collective/social causation.



Enough with the 70s althusser - tell me how you're not in the world market, how the mass of people aren't.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jul 28, 2011)

Someone watching a baseball game on Cuban TV is watching it for the same reason as someone watching a baseball game on US TV, I would say. They're getting the same kind of enjoyment out of it. The adverts on US TV make it a less enjoyable experience, that's all.


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## TruXta (Jul 28, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> Enough with the 70s althusser - tell me how you're not in the world market, how the mass of people aren't.


 
Just because we are doesn't mean that market forces are the only or even the most important causal forces out there. Anyway, I've got some gardening to get back to.

btw, I didn't know Althusser argued something like that, sources?


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## Random (Jul 28, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Someone watching a baseball game on Cuban TV is watching it for the same reason as someone watching a baseball game on US TV, I would say. They're getting the same kind of enjoyment out of it.


 Someone watching it in Cuba has either got a black market connection, or is watching a game that the government allows them to see. Both are part of the world market.


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## Random (Jul 28, 2011)

TruXta said:


> Just because we are doesn't mean that market forces are the only or even the most important causal forces out there. Anyway, I've got some gardening to get back to.


 Render unto Caesar and free your mind, eh Voltaire?


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## TruXta (Jul 28, 2011)

Random said:


> Render unto Caesar and free your mind, eh Voltaire?


 
Lol. Eh, can you unpack that?


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## butchersapron (Jul 28, 2011)

TruXta said:


> Ain't no freedom either way.


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## butchersapron (Jul 28, 2011)

TruXta said:


> Just because we are doesn't mean that market forces are the only or even the most important causal forces out there. Anyway, I've got some gardening to get back to.
> 
> btw, I didn't know Althusser argued something like that, sources?


 
Your political use of under and over-determination derive from him whether you realise it or not.

I'm left with the same question.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jul 28, 2011)

Random said:


> Someone watching it in Cuba has either got a black market connection, or is watching a game that the government allows them to see. Both are part of the world market.


 
Uh, no, they're watching a game in the Cuban league.  

"Watching it because the government allows them to watch it" is a misunderstanding of how a society functions, I would say. They are watching it because baseball is a national obsession and the technology exists to allow matches to be broadcast live across the country. 'The government dare not try to stop people from watching it' would be closer to the mark.

All sports are amateur in Cuba, btw. There's a fair bit of 'shamateurism' going on, but all the same, sport in Cuba doesn't fit easily into any concept of a market, world or otherwise.


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## JimN (Jul 28, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> Everything i know is right.


 
Everything I know is wrong. I know that.


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## butchersapron (Jul 28, 2011)

When you leaving the SPGB then Jim?


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## love detective (Jul 28, 2011)

> I'm not saying that the realities of exploitation can be magicked away, so much as that the realities of exploitation are not the only realities



that’s fair enough - but as has been pointed out - those realities are increasingly becoming the most dominant ones. that's the nature & logic of capital to strive for that to be the case - it's inherent within the very concept of capital. And increasingly so, the realities of capitalist social relations will stand over & above and these other realities you speak off


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## Random (Jul 28, 2011)

TruXta said:


> Lol. Eh, can you unpack that?


 
The market may run the commanding heights of our material world, but, like the early Christians, we let Caesar run the material world while we pusue freedom due to our differing social norms.


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## Stuart Watkins (Jul 28, 2011)

In nine moons time, after the Great Revolution.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jul 28, 2011)

love detective said:


> that's the nature & logic of capital to strive for that to be the case - it's inherent within the very concept of capital.


 
Yes, and I certainly agree with this - it's what butchers was driving at, I think.


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## Random (Jul 28, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Uh, no, they're watching a game in the Cuban league.


 I assumed you meant they were watching the exact same game lol. Anyway, as I said, Cuba is also part of the world market. Although I agree that people also set their own agenda due to popular movements like in sport, the way that this is expressed is still within the framework of a market.


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## past caring (Jul 28, 2011)

Phones are working then.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jul 28, 2011)

Random said:


> I assumed you meant they were watching the exact same game lol. Anyway, as I said, Cuba is also part of the world market. Although I agree that people also set their own agenda due to popular movements like in sport, the way that this is expressed is still within the framework of a market.


 
I think that's far too simplistic. Even within capitalism, capitalist social relations are not the only social relations and plenty of things exist that really don't fit well into the framework of a market - from local football leagues to wikipedia. Familial social relations are not capitalist relations, and they are still hugely important to most people. Love is not a capitalist relation. People still find all kinds of meanings in their lives that do not owe their existence to capitalism, even if - as in sports - capitalism may wish to exploit those meanings.


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## Random (Jul 28, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I think that's far too simplistic. Even within capitalism, capitalist social relations are not the only social relations and plenty of things exist that really don't fit well into the framework of a market - from local football leagues to wikipedia. Familial social relations are not capitalist relations, and they are still hugely important to most people. Love is not a capitalist relation. People still find all kinds of meanings in their lives that do not owe their existence to capitalism, even if - as in sports - capitalism may wish to exploit those meanings.


 All of those things still exist within the context of the capitalist market, though. How much of 'love' is not affected by the market for love literature, pop music, etc that shapes the love narrative? I agree that there's a conflict there, that it's contested, but you're dreaming if you think there's no close connection between the market's rules and our social relations. Likewise there's reams of analysis about the way that the modern family has evolved as a work unit, as a part of the economy.


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## butchersapron (Jul 28, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I think that's far too simplistic. Even within capitalism, capitalist social relations are not the only social relations and plenty of things exist that really don't fit well into the framework of a market - from local football leagues to wikipedia. Familial social relations are not capitalist relations, and they are still hugely important to most people. Love is not a capitalist relation. People still find all kinds of meanings in their lives that do not owe their existence to capitalism, even if - as in sports - capitalism may wish to exploit those meanings.


 
Of course they do. They're not the dominant ones that decide how we live though.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jul 28, 2011)

None of these things exists in isolation. But, for instance, to say that the family exists in the context of the capitalist market would, imo, be no more true than saying that the capitalist market exists in the context of the family. Surely that's the heart of explanations that emphasise the dialectical relations between such things.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jul 28, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> Of course they do. They're not the dominant ones that decide how we live though.


 
That's a big question, I would say: To what extent does capitalism determine how we live? The answer isn't obvious to me.


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## JimN (Jul 28, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> When you leaving the SPGB then Jim?


 
What? And miss all this? You must be mad!


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## butchersapron (Jul 28, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> None of these things exists in isolation. But, for instance, to say that the family exists in the context of the capitalist market would, imo, be no more true than saying that the capitalist market exists in the context of the family. Surely that's the heart of explanations that emphasise the dialectical relations between such things.



The capitalist 'system' does not exist in the context of the family though. Two things existing does not mean that they both have equal power/influence etc. It';s quite clear that the capitalist system has impacted massively on the trad family over the last 300 years. In return more commodities are aimed at the channg nature of the family -->the houswife-->the househusband--the double earners--> cheap female wage labour-->labour market segmentation and so on. Who is leading who here?


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## butchersapron (Jul 28, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> That's a big question, I would say: To what extent does capitalism determine how we live? The answer isn't obvious to me.



The network of social relations we find ourselves in are pretty powerful. The form they take are determined by our resistance to them. It doesn't mean that they don't exist or can be imagined away. You're drifting into christianity here.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jul 28, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> It doesn't mean that they don't exist or can be imagined away.


 
I agree. There is no doubt that capitalism has a great bearing on how we live. But you have also to unpick factors that coincide with capitalism. Labour market segmentation, for instance, is a function of industrialisation. It would exist in any technological society. Did capitalism drive industrialisation? Certainly. Are the consequences of industrialisation thus attributable to capitalism? No. We can't know - because it's counterfactual history, which is something I'm sure you agree with me that it is best to avoid - what other ways technological societies could have developed, but equally, it is wrong to say that industrialisation = capitalism. It doesn't.


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## articul8 (Jul 28, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> The network of social relations we find ourselves in are pretty powerful. The form they take are determined by our resistance to them.


 
Wholly determined?


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## butchersapron (Jul 28, 2011)

It doesn't matter if it's a possible function of something else - it's a product for us of real lived capitalist industrialisation. _Nothing coincided with the way we live_. It all happened because that's how we organise society.


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## butchersapron (Jul 28, 2011)

articul8 said:


> Wholly determined?



Yes, absolutely. I see you never got round to my autonomist recommendations. The copernican revolution they represent?


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## littlebabyjesus (Jul 28, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> The form they take are determined by our resistance to them.


 
That's an interesting sentence. Can you explain further? I'm not sure I understand exactly what you mean by it.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jul 28, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> _Nothing coincided with the way we live_. It all happened because that's how we organise society.


 Badly phrased. You are right - coincided is the wrong word. Even there, though, did capitalism cause industrialisation, or did industrialisation cause capitalism? I would suspect that the question is invalid - all you can say is that the two developed together and nourished each other. I admit I might be wrong - is there evidence one way or the other?


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## butchersapron (Jul 28, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> That's an interesting sentence. Can you explain further? I'm not sure I understand exactly what you mean by it.



The development of the capitalist system (note: not market, repeat, not market) is determined by the movement of the working class. The historical forms that the capitalist system takes (artisan based-->fordism-->post-fordism) are responses to how the w/c acts, how the w/c has assembled itself politically and economically. In the story normally told it's the other way round. We react to them.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jul 28, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> The development of the capitalist system (note: not market, repeat, not market) is determined by the movement of the working class. The historical forms that the capitalist system takes (artisan based-->fordism-->post-fordism) are responses to how the w/c acts, how the w/c has assembled itself politically and economically. In the story normally told it's the other way round. We react to them.


 
Ah, ok. Good. I like that.


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## love detective (Jul 28, 2011)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Even there, though, did capitalism cause industrialisation, or did industrialisation cause capitalism? I would suspect that the question is invalid - all you can say is that the two developed together and nourished each other. I admit I might be wrong - is there evidence one way or the other?



the emergence of capitalist socialist relations in the english countryside in 16th-18th century put in place the social relations that ultimately allowed first british, and then world, industrialisation to take place

capitalist social relations are not a consequence of industrialisation, they are the cause of it


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## butchersapron (Jul 28, 2011)

love detective said:


> the emergence of capitalist socialist relations in the english countryside in 16th-18th century put in place the social relations that ultimately allowed first british, and then world, industrialisation to take place
> 
> capitalist social relations are not a consequence of industrialisation, they are the cause of it



Missed that edit off lbj. Yep, that's it exactly.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jul 28, 2011)

love detective said:


> the emergence of capitalist socialist relations in the english countryside in 16th-18th century put in place the social relations that ultimately allowed first british, and then world, industrialisation to take place
> 
> capitalist social relations are not a consequence of industrialisation, they are the cause of it


 
Right. Thanks. That's an area of history I am a bit lacking in, I admit.


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## TruXta (Jul 28, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> Your political use of under and over-determination derive from him whether you realise it or not.
> 
> I'm left with the same question.


 
Could well be. As for your question, what part of my answer didn't answer it?


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## butchersapron (Jul 28, 2011)

Any of it frankly.


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## TruXta (Jul 28, 2011)

Random said:


> The market may run the commanding heights of our material world, but, like the early Christians, we let Caesar run the material world while we pusue freedom due to our differing social norms.


 
Cheers. Yeah. There's some truth to that. The problem is of course how to not only dethrone Caesar, but make sure there is no throne left.


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## TruXta (Jul 28, 2011)

Random said:


> All of those things still exist within the context of the capitalist market, though. How much of 'love' is not affected by the market for love literature, pop music, etc that shapes the love narrative? I agree that there's a conflict there, that it's contested, but you're dreaming if you think there's no close connection between the market's rules and our social relations. Likewise there's reams of analysis about the way that the modern family has evolved as a work unit, as a part of the economy.


 
You could equally well say that the capitalist market exists within the context of social desires.


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## articul8 (Jul 28, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> Yes, absolutely. I see you never got round to my autonomist recommendations. The copernican revolution they represent?


 
I did - but I don't know how much of it I accept - seems like the flip side of Weberian determinism to me


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## butchersapron (Jul 28, 2011)

To people like you a semi-structuralist argument often appears as crass voluntarism.


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## Hocus Eye. (Jul 28, 2011)

This has been a most informative thread, especially since it started as another speegeebee spam. I wonder where Nomoney is these days. At least he/she attempted to enter into discussion rather than just post the spam link and leave it.


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## JimN (Jul 29, 2011)

Hocus Eye. said:


> This has been a most informative thread, especially since it started as another speegeebee spam. I wonder where Nomoney is these days. At least he/she attempted to enter into discussion rather than just post the spam link and leave it.


 
Or had to go to work?


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## Random (Jul 29, 2011)

TruXta said:


> You could equally well say that the capitalist market exists within the context of social desires.


 
As BA says above, the capitalist market does indeed exist within the context of working class action. 

But when it comes to something as fuzzy as 'social desires' we have to be more specific. And when it comes to things patterns of consumption, forms of the family, which could be seen as simple 'social desires' then you have to admit that it's capital's own logic which has had the upper hand in changing them.

You're falling into the classical economist mindset, that people have innate 'needs' that they seek to meet in the marketplace.


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## TruXta (Jul 29, 2011)

Random said:


> As BA says above, the capitalist market does indeed exist within the context of working class action.
> 
> But when it comes to something as fuzzy as 'social desires' we have to be more specific. And when it comes to things patterns of consumption, forms of the family, which could be seen as simple 'social desires' then you have to admit that it's capital's own logic which has had the upper hand in changing them.
> 
> You're falling into the classical economist mindset, that people have innate 'needs' that they seek to meet in the marketplace.


 
Well, a) I didn't say that this is what I believe, merely that it's arguably provable that the social form of desires has had an influence on the shape of the economy. Of course desire is a slippery concept, but then again so is class, market and capitalist (at least if one doesn't subscribe to a Marxist analysis of class), even value.

And b) I never mentioned "innate" or "needs". But if you wanna go there - do we have some forms of "innate needs"? Why yes, it seems that way - the need for association, the need for hierarchy (gender and age both go way further back than markets), the need for rules, the need for meaning, the need for trust etc etc.


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## love detective (Jul 29, 2011)

> do we have some forms of "innate needs"? Why yes, it seems that way - the need for association, the need for hierarchy (gender and age both go way further back than markets), the need for rules, the need for meaning, the need for trust etc etc.



it's not so much a question of whether such things exist innately or not - it's about the way these things, all of which clearly pre-exist capitalist social relations, are increasingly dominated by, and made subordinate to, the logic & needs of capital

Look at the way that trust (or love, or meaning, or association) is increasingly commodified in, and shaped by, contemporary capitalism for example

In the same way that commodities, markets, money and credit (and sexism and racism etc..) existed prior to capitalism - the relentless colonisation of these things by capital is increasingly transforming what they are, what they express, and what they exist to do - leaving less and less trace of their original formations


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## TruXta (Jul 29, 2011)

love detective said:


> it's not so much a question of whether such things exist innately or not - it's about the way these things, all of which clearly pre-exist capitalist social relations, are increasingly dominated by, and made subordinate to, the logic & needs of capital
> 
> Look at the way that trust (or love, or meaning, or association) is increasingly commodified in, and shaped by, contemporary capitalism for example
> 
> In the same way that commodities, markets, money and credit (and sexism and racism etc..) existed prior to capitalism - the relentless colonisation of these things by capital is increasingly transforming what they are, what they express, and what they exist to do - leaving less and less trace of their original formations


 
Yes, yes, that wasn't the point I was trying to make tho - Random thought I sounded like an economist talking about innate needs when I in fact wasn't. I like what you're saying up until the very last thing - there was no original formation AFAIK. Careful with that line of thought, original sin here we come.

edit - what we disagree on isn't the existence of these sorts of things, merely what causal weight they have.


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## love detective (Jul 29, 2011)

well there were original formations of money, credit, markets, commodities, etc.. - but in general what i meant was what they were like pre capitalist domination/colinisation


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## TruXta (Jul 29, 2011)

love detective said:


> well there were original formations of money, credit, markets, commodities, etc.. - but in general what i meant was what they were like pre capitalist domination/colinisation


 
Original - when and where?


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## love detective (Jul 29, 2011)

are you saying commodities and markets have always existed?


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## TruXta (Jul 29, 2011)

Nothing is forever. But both commodities and markets go back at least to the start of agriculture. I'd be surprised if primitive trade hasn't gone on for much much longer.


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## Random (Jul 29, 2011)

TruXta said:


> Nothing is forever. But both commodities and markets go back at least to the start of agriculture. I'd be surprised if primitive trade hasn't gone on for much much longer.


 
Not money, then.


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## love detective (Jul 29, 2011)

TruXta said:


> Nothing is forever. But both commodities and markets go back at least to the start of agriculture. I'd be surprised if primitive trade hasn't gone on for much much longer.



if commodities and markets have not existed for ever (i.e. they did not exist in hunter-gatherer society in the way that love, emotion, trust & hierarchy did) - then by definition there was an original formation of them at some point - something you denied a few posts above

pointing out this doesn't have anything to do with buying into original sin as you implied above - it just indicates an understanding of the historical development of these man made things/activities and the social relations of which they arose out of


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## TruXta (Jul 29, 2011)

Random said:


> Not money, then.


 
Credit and debt certainly goes a long long way back, so if you wanna call that money, yes. Graeber puts a political system of debt and credit back to at least Mesopotamia anno 2400 BC. http://canopycanopycanopy.com/10/to_have_is_to_owe


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## TruXta (Jul 29, 2011)

love detective said:


> if commodities and markets have not existed for ever (i.e. they did not exist in hunter-gatherer society in the way that love, emotion, trust & hierarchy did) - then by definition there was an original formation of them at some point - something you denied a few posts above
> 
> pointing out this doesn't have anything to do with buying into original sin as you implied above - it just indicates an understanding of the historical development of these man made things/activities and the social relations of which they arose out of


 
Ever heard of convergent evolution? In all likelihood the exchange of goods and services appeared in multiple places at different times independently, as a result of the particular form of primate social organizations, technologies and environmental affordances experienced at the time. Of course someone will have had to be first, but that's an entirely trivial point.


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## butchersapron (Jul 29, 2011)

This is all irrelevant - the point is that capital has forced pre-existing systems to develop according to its own logic. That fact doesn't contain the claim that these pre-existing systems were pure or 'original' in that sense.


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## TruXta (Jul 29, 2011)

Apols for cut and paste but Graeber is good:



> When economists speak of the origins of money, debt is always something of an afterthought. First comes barter, then money; credit develops only later. Even if one consults books on the history of money in, say, France, India, or China, what one generally gets is a history of coinage, with barely any discussion of credit arrangements at all.
> 
> For almost a century, anthropologists like myself have been pointing out that there is something very wrong with this picture. Credit system, tabs, and even expense accounts existed long before cash. These things are as old as civilization itself. History tends to move back and forth between periods dominated by bullion, when it’s assumed that gold and silver are money, and periods in which money is assumed to be an abstraction, a virtual unit of account.
> 
> ...


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## love detective (Jul 29, 2011)

> In all likelihood the exchange of goods and services appeared in multiple places at different times independently, as a result of the particular form of primate social organizations, technologies and environmental affordances experienced at the time



indeed - and taken together this can be seen as the original formation of such things, i.e. an existence separate from and prior to their domination and incorporation into capitalist logic


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## TruXta (Jul 29, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> This is all irrelevant - the point is that capital has forced pre-existing systems to develop according to its own logic. That fact doesn't contain the claim that these pre-existing systems were pure or 'original' in that sense.


 
That's exactly where the bone of contention lies indeed. I wouldn't say it's irrelevant to speak of the history of economic organization though. You, and I should think love detective and Random too put capital at the top of the causal chain. I don't.


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## TruXta (Jul 29, 2011)

love detective said:


> indeed - and taken together this can be seen as the original formation of such things, i.e. an existence separate from and prior to their domination and incorporation into capitalist logic


 
Yeah, I see what you mean. Minor point all told.


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## butchersapron (Jul 29, 2011)

TruXta said:


> That's exactly where the bone of contention lies indeed. I wouldn't say it's irrelevant to speak of the history of economic organization though. You, and I should think love detective and Random too put capital at the top of the causal chain. I don't.



The claim is that _today_ society is shaped by the logic of the capitalist system, and that this wasn't always the case - that the capitalist system imposed itself on pre-existing forms of social organisation. Implicit in that argument is the recognition that other forms of social organisation based around different logics have existed. It's not a claim that capitalism has always existed and s o caused these other forms of social or economic organisation or that these other forms were 'pure' - there is no 'top' in history.


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## TruXta (Jul 29, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> The claim is that _today_ society is shaped by the logic of the capitalist system, and that this wasn't always the case - that the capitalist system imposed itself on pre-existing forms of social organisation. Implicit in that argument is the recognition that other forms of social organisation based around different logics have existed. It's not a claim that capitalism has always existed and s o caused these other forms of social or economic organisation or that these other forms were 'pure' - there is no 'top' in history.


 
No, and neither did I say it was, although I can see how you got the idea - bad writing on my part. The bone of contention is that capitalist systems subjugate all other totalising social systems or logics. It follows since I've already argued about stuff that happened pre-capitalism that I'm referring to the modern period.

And when I say top, I mean what is seen to be the most important, relevant and forceful set of causal factors.


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## love detective (Jul 29, 2011)

TruXta said:


> Yeah, I see what you mean. Minor point all told.



Indeed - I was only responding as it was you who jumped on my usage of the word original


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## TruXta (Jul 29, 2011)

love detective said:


> Indeed - I was only responding as it was you who jumped on my usage of the word original


 
Guilty as charged.


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## love detective (Jul 29, 2011)

i hate it when that happens - this is the internet for fuck's sake - there's no room for agreement


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## nino_savatte (Jul 29, 2011)




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## TruXta (Jul 29, 2011)

love detective said:


> i hate it when that happens - this is the internet for fuck's sake - there's no room for agreement


 
_You looking at me?_


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## love detective (Jul 29, 2011)

the damage has already been done, stop trying to backtrack


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## TruXta (Jul 29, 2011)

I feel terrible now. Tewwible even. Is this liberal guilt I am experiencing?


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## love detective (Jul 29, 2011)

indubitably


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## Random (Jul 29, 2011)

love detective said:


> the damage has already been done, stop trying to backtrack


 
You show a very shallow understanding of the subject by saying this.


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## love detective (Jul 29, 2011)

indubitably


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## TruXta (Jul 29, 2011)

Fight FIGHT FIGHT!


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## JimN (Jul 30, 2011)

So that's agreed then. We're all going mob-handed down to Clapham tomorrow to tell the speaker that his title's misleading, he's a naive utopian individualist and his thoughts are nothing but pure un-marxian data.


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