> At 1:14 AM +1100 27/1/03, Catherine Driscoll wrote:
>
> >For eg, it is possible for me to, in a whole range of ways,
> >negotiate myself out of (b) and to variously reconfigure what (a) is or
> >implies. I have to say, any version of Marxism that wanted to pretend my
> >current work had the same relation to "capital" or "profit" as making
> >sandwiches for a living would be a pretty useless political perspective.
>
> I don't see how you can reasonably arrive at that conclusion. Your
> relationship to capital is that you don't own it.
It's not, "capital" isn't, that simple. There are kinds of capital I now do command -- I take it with me, regardless of who employs me, or even if I was not empoyed -- they just aren't defined expressly by "profit".
> Are you saying that you
> profit from capital in some sense, because your conditions of employment
> afford you the privilege of some control over how you can best make money for
> your employer?
Yes, ok. It can partly be put that way. But there's also what adheres to me, now, rather than the position I hold.
> To me, that seems merely to be a necessary element of the job. Obviously if
> you made sandwiches for a living, the same degree of flexibility would not be
> necessary to maximise your efficiency. Presumably there is something about
> your job that makes it useful to arrange it thus?
Well I can't see how it works that way. Sure, the possibility of forms of cultural capital is one of the appeals of academic work. It's a way the job is sold and a way I can sell me for that job. But not only are those (despite the deceptive parallelism) not at all the same thing, I cannot see how that's actually very useful to my employer. All this is messy, I agree -- the university system needs to hype and enforce the freedom of some academic positions in order to make it an attractive thing to do, including the way more exploitative junior positions -- but it doesn't change the fact that right now, as is, I have not only some personal power over my work but everything I do 'for my employer' accumulates a kind of capital to me which does not belong to them and which I can move with me as I choose.
> But to assert that it changes your relationship to capital goes a bit far.
Why? I guarantee it's not the same as sandwiches, avon, or banking services.
> >Last week my train was cut four times by fire, and the skies are orange
> most
> >every night. The ocean, right now, looks and feels so good. I have the fan
> on,
> >but am too hot to sleep. Have to be in Sydney by 10 to see a real estate
> agent.
> >That's not much motivation for a sleepless night. I'm animal-free right
> now,
> >except for a cat (they're people any way), so I don't have to negotiate
> that
> >kind of mute distress. Unless it's immanent in the cockroaches or something
> (ah
> >NSW).
>
> I'm afraid I don't regard cats as people.
This is a character flaw which you should address.
> I have a cat-trap set up out back,
> trying to catch another one of the little killers. When I catch it, it will
> be history. I don't mind the owls and the quolls and what-not killing my
> guinea pigs, but cats are a menace. I used to have wild quail out in the side
> paddock, but people's damn cats have eliminated them.
What? You're killing cats? OK, I know that's what you're saying, it wasn't really a question. This is: by what right?
> >See, there's a thing. My houses have had airconditioning for some years
> now.
> >Right now I'm in my mother's house and no such thing has ever been on the
> >cards. Airconditioning is an alien thing in these suburbs. I could say
> that
> >kind of thing is just an element of class mobility, yes, but if there is
> no
> >class stratification then how the hell do I explain mobility between them?
>
> Sounds like a riddle. Not very good at riddles. Air-conditioning in a new
> fangled idea. It probably doesn't occur to your mother to install it.
Ah, no. That's definitely not it. It's nothing so mysterious. She doesn't have A/C because she couldn't possibly afford it. I think I thought that was part of the point. Maybe chinotto is some kind of hallucinogen.
>....
Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think your work conditions would have to
> be somewhat related to the necessities of the work. Maybe ordinary market
> forces play some part too. You tell me.
Market demand, sure. And everything that goes with that. My point is that I have a starkly different relation to the market now than I had years ago in *other kinds of class positions*.
> But as I see it, relationship to the
> means of production might sound very complex, but is really simple. How many
> different kinds of relationship can there be, in an objective sense? You
> either own it or you don't. Can you think of any other possibilities?
Oh come on. Shares make that crazy just even without trying to think of it. And I don't just mean the buying microsoft kind of shares either. Eery increase right now in the rep of USyd is an increase in my own, and the other way around -- and there are material senses in which those accretions belong to me not just to my employer.
> Of course there are all sorts of possibilities in the subjective sense of how
> you relate to the means of production. How it impacts on you emotionally,
> socially, etc. But that's another story. Stop feeling guilty because you
> enjoy your work, if that's where you're coming from.
Oh please. I never said that. I love that I love what I do. There are things I feel guilty about, sure, regarding my personal privileges, social and other wise, but -- a) wouldn't trade those for freedom from said guilt b) feel extra qualified to be good at guilt and therefore happy to enjoy it as an added skill c) in the end, less guilty than probably angry.
Catherine
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