[lbo-talk] To each according to work

Miles Jackson cqmv at pdx.edu
Wed Apr 23 19:46:16 PDT 2008


andie nachgeborenen wrote:


> Our biology gives us certain dispositions that can be manifested in
> different ways in different circumstances. We can be competitive
> under capitalism, deferential under feudalism, maybe cooperative
> under communism.

This is granting too much priority to biology. It is not accurate to state that a biological substrate creates dispositions; rather, social relations and biological features are mutually determinative. For instance, brain development shapes and is shaped by social interactions in early childhood. I know that andie has made this very point in LBO posts in the past, but the phrasing above could be easily misconstrued as the claim that biology is the precedent.

A minor point, perhaps, but I take every opportunity to undermine the pernicious and misleading notion that there is some biological substrate modified by a sociocultural veneer.

Miles



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