[lbo-talk] ruling class

[andie nachgeborenen]

I was actually thinking about the ruling classes of
Europe whose conduct lead to their own destruction.
This kind of phenomenon is noted in jared Diamond;'s
Collapse and versions of it are familiar from game
theory with n-person prisoner's dilemmas, where
rational action by each leads to worse outcomes for
all. The nuclear arms race looked to be heading that
way before the collpase of the USSR, the the threat to
rgew environment has that structure too.  Moreover it
is nor always easy to know one's class interest even
apart from paradoxes of rationality.  One thinks of
the US govt response to the stock market crash of '29,
Hitler's gratuitious declaration of war on the US, and
the US ruling class; neoimperialist project under
Bush. 

--- Miles Jackson <cqmv at pdx.edu> wrote:


> Doug Henwood wrote:
> > andie nachgeborenen wrote:
> > 
> >> I'm not sure that the existence of the ruling
> class
> >> requires agreement on common interests (much less
> >> being right about them), as opposed to, e.g.,
> common
> >> culture, solidarity, broadly shared values,
> simialr
> >> positions wrt to productivea ssets, and the
> like.,
> >> After all, the pre-WWI ruling class had no clue
> and
> >> fairly little agreement aboyr what was in their
> common
> >> interests, but surely constituted a class.
> > 
> > 
> > The pre-WW I ruling class agitated to created the
> Federal Reserve. It 
> > was maybe their formative experience.
> > 
> > Doug
> > ___________________________________
> >
>
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> > 
> 
> But Justin has a good point here: whether or not
> they consciously 
> share interests, the ruling class is the ruling
> class, due to their 
> position in the social structure.  The only interest
> the ruling class 
> must share is accumulating capital.  If we're trying
> to understand 
> capitalism as a social system, the psychology
> doesn't have to get more 
> complicated than that.  --Now, if we're interested
> in the psychology 
> of members of the ruling class (say, as a person
> might be fascinated 
> with cases of obsessive-compulsive disorder or
> dissociative identity 
> disorder), that's a quite distinct and different
> research topic.
> 
> Miles
> 
> Miles
> ___________________________________
>
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> 

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