Marvin:
> Why, thank you for your little homily, Wojtek. Part of your charm is that
> you are not at all reluctant to express the strongest opinions on anything
> and everything that passes across your field of vision. However, I think
it
> is unfair to ascribe to me and other English speakers a genetic defect -
no
> less! - which renders us "simply incapable of understanding" the concept
of
> "social solidarity." I don't think so.
This was tongue-in-cheek, Marvin. I am surprised you took it seriously - especially than in the next paragraph I mentioned about the US version of the same solidarity feeling - church membership.
The fact the French literally beheaded the churchly beast in the French Revolution led to more secular expressions of social solidarity sentiments - especially the mutualist movement (big in the Fraknophone and Iberian countries). In the US, by contrast, the churchly beast found a fertile breeding ground and literally swallowed the whole society. That is all that is to it, if you asked me. I really do not think that religiosity is genetic, albeit I think that the need for religiosity is (I think it is rooted in an affective disorder, and most affective disorders have a genetic component). But again, the distribution of that affective disorder does not follow country lines.
> himself on being hard-headed, you sound quaintly utopian.
Social solidarity economy (coops, mutuals, nonprofits etc) are really a big thing in the Francophone world - so it is not utopian at all - albeit you will not read about in NYT or WSJ.
>Unions, like other
> organizations, operate on earth rather than in heaven, which is why an
> historic demand of the international movement has always been the closed
> shop where everyone HAS to belong and pay dues to the organization to
ensure
> its longer-term survival.
No doubt, but they - as well as the rest of the economy - need social glue to make them function. Without that glue they will fall apart. The spread of the neo-classical ideology focusing on individual choice caused it to disappear from the public discourse - but sociologists and virtuous economists did not forget that.
Ravi:
> utilitarianism. suffice to note that if my misunderstanding of
> retributivism is a vicious and misleading caricature, i wonder what can
> be said about the [much bandied about] claim that utilitarianism compels
> condoning genocide, exxon, etc.
WS:
Had you read my posting a bit more carefully, you would have undoubtedly noted that I use the form of argument known as "reductio ad absurdum." I start with saying that utilitarianism needs a tacit non-utilitarian assumption to work, I then suspend that assumption and draw "absurd" i.e. unacceptable conclusions from the utilitarian part of the argument and conclude the argument is a bunch of crock. This is a legitimate form of argument, not a caricature, albeit it would have been a caricature had simply stated that utilitarianism justifies genocide, because it does not (albeit for non-utilitarian reasons).
Ravi:
> correct me if i am wrong, but isn't the answer simple and well known?
> drug laws. aren't 50+% of those in US prisons there due to non-violent
> drug related offences?
WS: One thing that I find annoying about upper or middle class radicals is that they view their own experiences as universally valid and use it as a prism to judge all world events. Another annoying thing is their propensity to romanticize what the see as 'exotic" without really looking into its true nature.
Santa Cruz and Berkeley potheads may be non-violent - but drug trade is an extremely violent business. People die every day in turf wars, enforcement of drug debt, revenge for bad drug deals - and that does not even take into account the ravaging effect drug trade has on households and entire communities. That does not even get into international drug traffic that is infinitely more violent. So only Berkeley dopeheads can utter the phrase "non-violent drug offenders" with a straight face.
As far as the prison population is concerned, the data, easily available form the Bureau of Justice Statistics http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/ show that in 2001, 49% inmates in state prisons were violent offenders, while drug offenders (i.e. dealers for one does not end up in the big house for mere possession) are 20% (down 2% from 1995). Property crimes accounted for 19%.
Amadeus:
> "Real," as in objective, as in affecting one's daily
> existence. And in that respect it matters tremendously
> to those actual people living in the real world, which
WS: My problem with this kind of analysis (class or otherwise) is that it selectively takes one aspect of reality ("objective" - to be sure) and claims that this is the entire reality or at least the only aspect that really matters. It is called the pars-pro-toto fallacy or taking a part for the whole.
Most bona fide analyses of class (as oppose to propagandistic diatribes) acknowledge the multidimensionality of class - economic, educational, cultural, social, ethnic, religious and what not. Most rational people agree that there are many possible ways of arranging multidimensional reality, depending on the perceived salience and importance of individual dimensions or pieces.
While it is true that most people derive their income from selling their labor - this but one, and not very salient dimension of class identification. Even income alone is not that salient. Most Johns Hopkins employees are probably making less money than drug dealers who operate a few blocks away from that august institution - but one would need to have his head examined if he claimed that drug dealers are of the same or higher class as JHU employees - or even the owners of grease spoon joints that serve the lunch needs of JHU employees.
Using blunt instruments, such as broad and vaguely defined concepts of class, serves little analytical purposes, all it does is creates more confusion and stirs emotions.
Wojtek