<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><HTML><FONT SIZE=2 PTSIZE=10>In a message dated 5/8/05 6:48:05 PM Eastern Daylight Time, lbo-talk-request@lbo-talk.org writes:<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">The ways in which we know society affect society. There's no<BR>
substantive evidence that people in KM's time thought of themselves as<BR>
isolated monads, chances are the vast majority of them still thought<BR>
of themselves as sons and daughters of god. See Castoriadis contra<BR>
Engels as well as Arthur Ripstein's work for the skinny on agency,<BR>
unintended consequences and narratives of description/self-description<BR>
as I'm too lazy/chilling to scan in the relevant bits on a Sunday.<BR>
<BR>
</BLOCKQUOTE><BR>
<BR>
The ways in which we know society affect society. There's no<BR>
substantive evidence that people in KM's time thought of themselves as<BR>
isolated monads, chances are the vast majority of them still thought<BR>
of themselves as sons and daughters of god. See Castoriadis contra<BR>
Engels as well as Arthur Ripstein's work for the skinny on agency,<BR>
unintended consequences and narratives of description/self-description<BR>
as I'm too lazy/chilling to scan in the relevant bits on a Sunday.<BR>
<BR>
Autoplectic<BR>
<BR>
******************<BR>
<BR>
Have you ever heard of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Adam Smith, James Mill, Jeremy Bentham, Herbert Spencer? They all based themselves upon a philosophy of social atomism, according to which individuals in society are principally isolated calculators of self-interest, attempting to maximize material gain. This kind of thinking may not have been universal in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but it was a social philosophy distinctive of the rising bourgeoisie, especially of the Anglo-Saxon variety, and was deeply ingrained in what had become "common-sense" notions about society. It still is. Does the phrase, "ownership society" ring any bells? </FONT></HTML>