the new common sense

[Rakesh Bhandari]

>Of course both the focus "cognitive ability" and on education are varients
>on "information society" ideas.

Fine point, Joe. There are so many questions about how the division of
labor is being reinforced or transformed in informational or tech-driven
capitalism: the division between intellectual and manual labor within
computer mediated workplaces; the possible dissolution of the recent
division between the unit of work and the unit of reproduction with
homeworking, telecommuting; the effects that information technology will
have on the boundaries of firms; the possible dissolution of the old
colonial division of labor of core control of mfg and periphery
specialisation in agriculture/raw materials (see McMichael in special MR
issue on food)

This is indeed  one of the great questions in Marxist social science: the
historic development and cross cultural variation in the division of labor.
And it seems that the intellectual/manual labor split has been given a new
lease on life in the information age with all this talk about the
increasing informational content or demands of information processing in
new jobs. Pryor makes that argument in his last book on Economic Evolution.


And now to digress:

One of the other great questions that comes to mind is the (ir)relevance of
modern conceptions of the economy to the ancient world (Max Weber, Karl
Polanyi, Moses Finely, Ellen Wood). There is no other way to understand the
specificity of capitalism as a social form.

So as Marxists we find ourselves interested in the nature of the division
of labor and the historical specificity of capitalism. Those are big
questions on which our interest remains focused. In short, the social form
of labor remains the chief object of focus.

yours, rakesh