> I'm going to sound like I'm channeling James Heartfield here,
> but Carrol's post is an example of the exhaustion and fundamental
> conservatism that has taken over much of the left ... . I thought we
> were supposed to be about criticizing the quality of things and
> social relations under capitalism - not criticizing growth and change
> in themselves.<<
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There is a materialist explanation for the shift from materialism to
idealism in socialist thought, corresponding to the shift from a mass
socialist movement based on a relatively deprived working class to a greatly
reduced scattering of relatively privileged students and intellectuals based
in an around the universities. Perry Anderson in Considerations on Western
Marxism is very good on tracing this ideological metamorphosis of the
Western left.
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Jim Devine:
> Yoshie: >Isn't 99.99% of growth and change in the present stage of
> capitalism unnecessary, only selling disposable goods to disposable
> people who are compelled to work harder to buy more disposable goods,
> simply because fixing things doesn't make profits?<
>
> there's no disagreement here, since Yoshie is criticiaize the quality
> of things -- and social relations under capitalism.
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Yeah, maybe just some quibbles about the percentage of unnecessary goods and
services. When you have an education, a home, a car, a laptop, good medical
care, and ample opportunity for travel, culture, and entertainment, it's
often easy to overlook and even ridicule "disposible people" wanting
"disposible goods" like the "ticky-tacky little boxes on the hillside which
look just the same" which working people nevertheless craved.