Why in the hell are leftists so averse to advocating freedom of choice?
----- Original Message ----- From: "Yoshie Furuhashi" <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>; <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> Sent: Friday, March 12, 2004 12:34 PM Subject: [lbo-talk] The Paradox of Choice: Competition and Monopoly
> [lbo-talk] the gains from variety
> Michael Dawson -PSU mdawson at pdx.edu, Thu Mar 11 14:00:40 PST 2004
>
> >No, what I'm saying is that human consciousness would mean nothing
> >if it didn't contain a degree of freedom. That degree of freedom is
> >the power of choice.
>
> Freedom should not be equated with "the power of choice" of an
> individual The equation of freedom with "the power of choice" of an
> individual is an ideological trick used by those who want to keep
> health care privatized, to preserve right-to-work legislations, and
> to privatize utilities, Social Security, public schools, etc.
>
> (A) Where the power of choice is a source of pleasure, choices in
> question are trivial and whimsical: which color shoes to wear, which
> book to read, which way to cook an egg.
>
> (B) When choices in question are either/or and consequences of the
> choices are irreversible and morally difficult -- to live or not to
> live, to kill or not to kill, etc. -- the power of choice may be
> thought of as moral freedom, but the moments when we are confronted
> with such consequential either/or choices, we are less free than at
> the moments when we do not have to make such choices at all.
>
> >At the practical level, the ability to choose between competing
> >offerings of goods and services and institutions is the best way
> >possible of discovering new and improved ways of living.
>
> There are markets in goods and services, but are there markets in
> "institutions"? Can we sell and buy "institutions" in a way that we
> do goods and services?
>
> As for "competing offerings," another paradox of choice is that
> "[c]ompetition begets monopoly and monopoly begets competition--but
> in an historically evolving pattern" (John Bellamy Foster, "Monopoly
> Capital at the Turn of the Millennium," _Monthly Review_ 51.11, April
> 2000, <http://www.monthlyreview.org/400jbf.htm>). More choices now
> may lead to fewer choices later.
>
> >As to the idea, promoted by professional cranks like Miles, that
> >this is all just ethnocentric prejudice -- well, I guess that's why
> >Miles is living his alternative pre-modern lifestyle -- oops, he
> >isn't, is he?
>
> The transition from a wide variety of pre-capitalist modes of
> production to the hegemony of the single capitalist mode of
> production in an increasingly integrated world market was not a
> matter of "lifestyle choice." Nor will be the transition from the
> capitalist mode of production to a better future.
>
> In any case, the word "lifestyle," an upstart in the English language
> (its first usage recorded by the OED to be 1929), is more offensive
> than the word "sublation" (whose first documented usage in the OED
> dates back to 1533: "1533 ELYOT Cast. Helth (1541) 88b, If lyke
> thynges be sene in the myddell of the urynall, they be called
> sublations," <http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/00240770>). :-)
> Students in freshman composition courses often love to use
> "lifestyle" or "lifestyles" where "life" or "lives" is appropriate.
> For conservatives, poverty, unemployment, homelessness, etc. are all
> "lifestyle choices."
>
> >All those who don't think modernity has bestowed many genuine gifts
> >upon the race should be completely free to go live in some other
> >way, of course.
>
> Are they?
>
> Lilian Friedberg writes: "More recent and more honest studies
> estimate the precontact civilization to have been between nine and
> eighteen million. This standard of measure puts the rate of
> attrition of indigenous populations at between 98 and 99 percent --
> that is, near total extermination. The rate of attrition of Jewish
> populations in Europe is commonly calculated at between 60 and 65
> percent" ("Dare to Compare: Americanizing the Holocaust," _American
> Indian Quarterly_ 24.3, Summer 2000, pp. 367-8,
>
<http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_indian_quarterly/v024/24.3friedberg.h
tml>).
>
> The 98 and 99 percent of indigenous populations who were exterminated
> in the name of Progress were not allowed to "go live in some other
> way." Nor are we as individuals today.
> --
> Yoshie
>
> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/>
> * Calendars of Events in Columbus:
> <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>,
> <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/>
> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/>
> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/>
> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio>
> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk