Desire under the Elms (Was Marx and Equality)

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Thu Jan 27 22:40:52 PST 2000


JKSCHW at aol.com wrote:


>Has it occurred to you that the only other bunch of academics other than the
>pomists to talk about Desire are the neoclassical economists and rational
>choice theorists?

Um, uh, what about poets, psychoanalysts, and lovers, not to mention Iggy Pop? Who said anything about limiting the universe to academics?


>If, however, we want to discuss the concept of Desire, rather than lust or
>greed, though I am not sure why we would want to or why someone would think
>it was fun, we should look to the analytical literature on the belief-desire
>thesis. Arthur Ripstein has some nice papers demolishing the concept of
>desire as a useful notion for explaining human behavior.

I may have to put "No Fun" on a tape loop, just like Michael Hoover's done with "Too Many Creeps."


>There was a good
>book, I have it somewhere, on pathologies of rational choice theory, that
>covers some of the same ground. It was a medium sized splash in the social
>science literature a few years back. I could dig it up and try to summarize a
>few of the main points.

Please do.


>Who possesses the Phallus? Oh, baby, it's too hard for me,
>don't stop.

Justin, I didn't know you had it in you.

Doug



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