----- Original Message ----- From: "Nathan Newman" <nathan at newman.org> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Tuesday, March 12, 2002 9:45 PM Subject: Re: Ace on The Jews
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ian Murray" <seamus2001 at attbi.com>
> >Yes and when we say "capitalist," what happens to all those
> >antinomies/aporias of methodological individualism?
>
> "Capitalist" is a description of those wielding economic power--
it is a
> functional description of hierarchy. "Jew" is not a functional
category, but
> a scapegoated group which is imagined to be a functional group
by those
> needing that scapegoat -- even if historically Jews had been
forced into
> certain functional roles that created the stereotype.
>
> But to speak of capitalists as a group is no different from
speaking of
> politicians as a group in the political realm. To say that
politicians run
> the Congress s not pejorative, it is definitional (if possibly
simplistic in
> a capitalist system where politics is not autonomous from the
capitalist
> hierarchy).
>
> -- Nathan Newman
======================
So it's an apriori that 'functional description' is not a group? We're back to all the pitfalls of epistemology/ontology of collectivities and their 'identities', 'functions' and 'powers' no? Are capitalists not a group? Pejoratives aside? That we're both asking about the politics of definitions is healthy, imo and I'm happy to be wrong.....
Ian