culture & poverty again

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 02:55 PM 7/14/99 -0400, Rakesh wrote:
>Harrison thinks that that "the cultural roots of Appalachina poverty can
>be traced back to the British borderlands. Most of the Appalachia settlers
>come from that poverty striken Scottish Irish region. Its culture of
>violence, distate for work, and disdain of education starkly contrasts
>with the literate, pacific, communitiaran settlers from East Anglia, who
>settled Mass."
>
>So not only must Harrison invent a tradition or culture that is do all
>this exlanatory work, he must then imply that it is passed on as if each
>generation were nothing but a vessel for the transmission thereof. It's
>not hard heredity,  it's hard culturalism: Culture is no less destiny than
>race was held to be. 
>
>He then feebly grants: "It's true cultures change, sometimes
>dramatically."  But the inertial force with which he invests his invented
>culture makes this most interesting aspect of the human condition a mere
>after thought. 
>
>By the way, the latest *Telos* has an article by Benoist on "WHat is
>Racism?" Haven't read it. There is also a probing discussion of the
>transition from hard racism to hard culturalism, as I am terming it here,
>in  Richard M Lerner's  Final Solutions: Biology, Prejudice, and Genocide.
>

Rakesh: I do not understand your problems with the "culture of poverty"
argument.  First it is perfectly consistent with a marxist view of
culture/religion as an institutional ballast on human progress, false
consciousness taht prevents th eoppressed of becoming fully aware of its
class interests etc.  But even more importantly, if you reject the view of
culture as an inhibitor of progress - then all you are left with is
sociobiology (or so-so-biology) in explaining social economic inequalities.

IMHO, the "culture of poverty" aka "false consciousness" argument,
implicitly espoused among other by Michael Burawoy in is "Manufacturing
Consent" - is the only explantion how capitalist oppression can reproduce
itself without the use of overt force.  If your reject that, how do you
explain the reproduction of capitalist system?

wojtek