"Oh yeah, also, most political economists don't know squat about culture or the psychic life of power, and are often hostile to the effort of understanding it, denouncing it as mystical or decadent. And most cultural radicals, Marxist or not, don't know squat about political economy - the name Jameson comes quickly to mind. One of the reasons I started this list was to get these two groups to talk to each other, since I think this mutually reinforcing ignorance is bad for intellectual and political life."
i completely agree--if there's anything to be made of a "left" that is both culturally cosmopolitan and politically effective, neither of these kinds of questions can be ignored. your story about mattick is disheartening; i remember capital as you do, as a kind of failed--or incomplete--bildungsroman of liberal political economy.
doug again:
"What's frustrating about them is that they see no consistency across time and space among all these micromoments, how, for example, a ruling class forms and sustains itself over time - and Butler in particular shows almost no interest in money, one of our more important social institutions."
nor does she--or foucault--evince much interest in the state as either a cultural or social artifact. the reasons for this are complex, but since i know neither could have been *ignorant* of its existence and efficacity, i have to wonder what this choice means for the limits of the ways they can think about power/authority/knowledg etc.
but, i'm getting into the judyfest pre-emptively . . .
max said:
"This is going to be great."
max is going to be the daria of the judy fest. i can't wait.
merrymerry christian