> > What do today's advocates of "conscious social reproduction" propose
>> to do with the market -- the primary medium of "unconscious social
>> reproduction" under capitalism? Abolish it? If so, how? If not,
>> why not, & what's the alternative?
>>
>> Yoshie
>=======
>Excellent questions. I think we should try to speak of markets, rather
>than 'the market', because we get into the one/many problem in the
>realm of political economy and that presents problems of motivating
>collective action.
The logic of capitalism has & will continue to move us (from markets) into the direction of The Market that has the power to discipline us all, though there have been short-term reversals in the long-term process of integration.
>Diane Elson suggests that we should socialize markets via knowledge
>practices that make 'firms' more porous, that citizens have greater
>voice in markets rather than mere exit from one type of dog food or
>can of chicken soup to another. A certain Doug Henwood suggests
>something along the same lines, if I recall. This means hyper-educated
>consumers that are as finicky as cats with regards to how stuff is
>made and how the makers treat one another and the non-human realm that
>is transformed in production. It also means more 'rights' for workers
>in enterprises to speak up without fear of reprisal when hierarchical
>power relations are used to hide law breaking etc. We know the litany
>of abuses of hierarchy, but until we come up with better models of
>knowledge diffusion and power sharing in enterprises and share them
>with fellow citizens, lots of workers will be soporifically
>acquiescent to exploitation/domination.
I'm not against the above, but consumer & trade union activisms are powerless when & where goods & jobs are so scarce that consumers & workers are not in a position to quibble about their quality. Greater voices of citizens for better products, safer & environmentally friendlier labor processes, etc. come up against the limits placed by the fact that capitalists don't invest unless & until expected returns on investment are promising.
Yoshie