Gordon:
> >But how do we know what's _feasible_? Anthro does not teach
> >us the choice is narrow; on the other hand those with an
> >affection for the established order are forever telling us
> >to face the reality they have helped to create.
Justin Schwartz:
> Obviously we cannot be sure. This is not a matter that can be decided a
> priori or in the abstract. You have to took at the arguments in each
> case--maybe look at the very hard, for the reasons you suggest. People will
> come to different conclusions. These matters will be discussed. As is
> notorious here, I have come to the conclusion that the theoretical and
> empirical arguments based on the last century's experuence show that a
> nonmarket society that is also modern and prosperous is not feasible. I
> don't want to start that debate again here, but just to offer it as example
> of the sort of concrete, specific, detailed, and exhaustive argument that is
> necessary. It will not do to say that because scientific arguments about
> what might be feasible can be and often are misused to argue that only the
> present order is feasible, that therefore we must abandon all such inquiry,
> and simply strive to achieve what would be nice regardless of whether it
> makes sense to suppose that we could get it. I do not say that you say any
> such thing, but some around here do, or say the equivalent, which is that
> because we cannot be sure about what is feasible, we can know and say
> nothing about it. The future is a matter for inquiry, just as is the past.
> All knowledge is fallible, and all conclusions tentative. That does not mean
> we should go at it blind.
Well, I wish you luck. I have found that the most unimpeachable and cogent evidence, the most irrefutable logic, when it does not fall upon deaf ears, is met mostly with gibes and asseverations of true faith. Even the kindly, familiar ministrations of common sense are spurned. War is peace, and so on.
Not, of course, in lbo-talk.
I fear that science could make progress only as long as it meddled with odd particles nobody cared about. The science of society deals with which side of one's bread is buttered, and indeed with whether one gets any butter or bread at all; and thus the answers it gives can only be the answers that power allows it to give.
-- Gordon