----- Original Message ----- From: "Justin Schwartz" <jkschw at hotmail.com>
> Sigh. To say that something is an accident is to deny teleogy.
Incidentally,
> intentionality is only one kind of teleology. It's true that to
say that
> darwinina evolution is accidental involves a contrast class,
namely
> teleological explanation. But it makes perfect sense to do that.
We
> communicate. We even agree. So, you can continue to play
language cop, but
> it's a bore, eh? Anyway, we were talking about capitalism. To
say that that
> was accidental doesn't even raise the issue posed by Darwinian
evolution,
> since it's human behavior that we are discussing.
===============
Please don't equate my statements as police behavior. Ever. BTW Carrol was talking about the emergence of homo ignoramus ignoramus indirectly analogizing that to the emergence of capitalism. I was simply pointing out the limits of applying some concepts to nature.
> >
> >
> >
> >Nor does it makes sense to say capitalism was
> > >an aberration-compared to what?
> >
> > >
> >Feudalism. Brenner argues that cap emerged in England and not
> >France or
> >Poland because of a special concatenation of historical
> >circumastances
>
> >
> >This is like saying Keynesianism is an aberration of
Marshallian
> >economics or art is an aberration of engineering or atheism is
an
> >aberration of theism. If everything is an aberration of
everything
> >else, nothing is an aberration.
>
> It's not to say that at all. Brenner's point is that SOMETHING
happened in
> England around 1500 that was historically special. Feudal-type
societies
> were the norm around the world, stable and long-lasting. Then
the English
> did something--quite accidentally--that created an anomalous but
very
> dynamic alternative that has, in 500 years, swept all before it.
You know
> this. You are being deliberately perverse.
===================
Oh please. To say that feudalism ended is not the same as raising the issue as to the misuse of the term aberration. Lighten up already. Some people in England did some things *intentionally* in order to secure advantages, powers, riches, vis a vis others and some other people who held power within various institutions enabled them. Just because they didn't say "lets invent capitalism" doesn't mean what happened is analogizable to what happens when cars collide or you fall off a ladder. To say that a "dynamical alternative" which differentiates itself from some political-economic status quo via acts of intentionality shall be deemed an aberration is to privilege that status quo as aberration serves as a term of normative/moral judgement.
Ian