[lbo-talk] Fw: Can Politics Be Liberated from the von Neumann Style?

[Lenin's Tomb]

On 10/15/07, Robert Wrubel <bobwrubel at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Marvin's summary of this thread should end the debate,
> but it wont.  In my first academic job, I learned
> there is nothing so viscious as an intellectual
> argument.  The reason is that there is so little at
> stake in them, other than pride and self-regard.
> Business people rarely argue like this; they negotiate
> and maneuvre.  That's because their strengths are
> plain for all to see, right there on the balance
> sheet.  The intellectual has no such balance sheet,
> other than his/her imaginary intellectual capital.

This is an unnecessarily condescending attitude, and I am unimpressed by the
valorisation of the businessman as a model of good argument: as if political
activists should treat any discussion as a means to effectively exploit
someone else.  The reason the debate continues, if it does, is because there
remain disagreements or misunderstandings to clarify.  Suppose, for example,
that Marvin misconstrued the arguments being made (as indeed he did,
grievously)?  One political purview from which it is acceptable to issue a
thundering misrepresentation and then consider the debate closed is known as
Stalinism.  There are others that are more amenable to the business ethic,
but I don't think we need to go through the list.