More generally, do you contend that the answer to capitalist hyper-individualism is to snuff out all consideration of individuals? Pretty weird position for a psychologist... Does "capitalist hyper-individualism" (which I suspect to be mostly an ideological packaging of collectivist automatism) exhaust the universe of all possible individualism? If so, why bother with anything like politics?
And saying that people should get paid for making useful items is not the essence of capitalist ideology. The essence of capitalist ideology is the claim that capitalists are just workers like everybody else, that their incomes are simply a consequence of their labor. The getting paid for what you make thing is just the cover story for that essence. And it works because people immediately recognize that it's an important aspect of ethics in a modern industrial world.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
> On Behalf Of Miles Jackson
> Sent: Thursday, December 23, 2004 10:51 AM
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Subject: RE: [lbo-talk] Re: plagarism watch
>
>
>
> On Thu, 23 Dec 2004, Michael Dawson wrote:
>
> > It's amazing to watch these guys who think they're ultra-cutting-edge
> excise
> > the individual from the world. I'd give their arguments a "C+" in my
> intro
> > to sociology class. No society; no individuals. No individuals, no
> society
> > or conscious social change.
> >
> > Don't let them fluster you. Your playwright deserves to get paid, if
> his
> > play proves worthy.
>
> Whaa--? The notion that people should be paid for their individual work
> by producing "worthy" commodities is a bulwark of capitalist ideology.
> I got the distinct impression you dislike capitalism--
>
> Miles
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk