- Capitalism and Alternatives -

*Groan* We need a new repetoire...

Posted by: Red Deathy ( Socialist Party, Uk ) on June 23, 1999 at 18:55:45:

In Reply to: dare I say fabuluous posted by Gee on June 23, 1999 at 18:08:00:

: You mean the indivisible (thus whole) entities that are individuals constitute, via their interactions, a secondary (and divisible) phenonoma described as society.

Correct, as in atoms within a lump of coal.

: You need, simply, to exist. Hence individual - un divided. To examine the individual is to exam facets of the whole. To examin society is to examin the interactions of individuals.

Sorry, to *know* yourself as an individual, instead of simply as an *is* you need an Other to know that individuality by, to know that you are *not* them.

: Which would be the basis for individualism. Jut because you are not readily subjugating self to others does not mean you have to. Stranded alone the individual still forms identity via interaction with environment and via thought upon environment and those influences naturally occuring within himself.

Yes, but said individual, if they have ever lived in human society, they will have to refer back to that as the consituting base of their indentity- the shock discovery that we are not our Mothers, etc. to attempt, though, to escape scoeity within society, is to bring about an authoritarian state, that gaurantees the indentity of teh atomised individuals within that society.

: Or, by contrast, choose social networking according to individuated values - which does not require isolation. This is how most people operate. 'using' bits wich suit them, rejecting or ignoring others.

Indeed, and to remain within the whole, as an Individual in the Liberal sense, requires a state in order to do that. Rights and actions are navigated as personal property between each abstracted atomic self, rather than as teh free and full interaction of parts within a whole.

: My precise point is that majority acceptance of any number of norms which act against individuality (ie the quashing of "'that is not me", the subjugation of self to others) are illegitimate both philosophically, and in consequence morally.

Agreed, that would be to inhibit freedom with the society. However, the precise mode of the Liberal subject requires such impediements in order to function within society, and so in creating one model of teh self, it also creates a model of repression.

:You agree with this with the exception that you see the existence of money (as a store of value and exchange) and private ownership as necessitating the quashing of "'that is not me", which I do not.

No, I prefer to stand for the recognition 'that is me', and therein that people may act freely, enabling themselves through the Law (ideological/moral) rather than against.

:The reason - that being "me" requires that "me" generates productive effort to survive and that others do not have to undertake such for you, nor spare you their previous efforts in the form of a right to something.

1:I would suggest that the money form requires no such effort, merely the aquisition of money.
2:That by privatising property, and privatising self we become alien to ourselves and our world, and experience it only ever as inhibition.

: Do "we", I do not. I can readily perceive 'the market' in how I am interacting with others in just about every area of life. If people are perceiving it as alien then it is not the misinterpreted that is in error, but the misinterpretation.

No, because you cannot control the market, can you? When it crashes, when the price of your commodity goes down through no-action of your own, the market exists without us, and exerts a power over us- the Invisble hand will see us right, we pray...

: The Totality cannot be the full and free choices of its individuals where reality is the arbiter. I cannot choose to run 100m in 2 seconds and Mr Poor cannot choose to own a car. The dynamic is the same. For one to be a 'mad god' the other must be. Only some unreal place where will=outcome could qualify for a 'united Totality within out Wills'

No, because Mr. Poor's condition comes about exacvtly as a result of human will (whether or not it is inentional is irrelevent)- this is exactly what i mean by an alienation of the Market, it becomes a force of nature, beyond our control. We can make our wills our-own within the constraints of reality, however, at the moment we are not, because we reify the market.

: Because people have a specific nature, as something which is real (Aristotle) and are *not* infinately malleable. Reality being what it is a race which develops a norm of dancing for the purpose of collecting food would die out quickly (but might at least look cool meanwhile).

yes, we have a 'nature', we have a potentiality, I think socialism is imminant (potential) within human nature, and has shown itself so throughout history.



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