[lbo-talk] Firesale of the Empire

Eric Beck ersatzdog at gmail.com
Fri Dec 11 14:47:32 PST 2009


On 12/11/09, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Dec 11, 2009, at 3:53 PM, Eric Beck wrote:
>
>> More generally, the left really needs to get over its
>> accumulation-by-dispossession kick.
>
> Thank you. My complaint is that it treats as new something that's been
> around forever, and minimizes the role of production in favor of
> appropriation - and exchanges analysis for moralizing.

I thought maybe my comment was too oblique, but you got it exactly. Though "minimizes" is probably generous; I would say "disappears completely" is closer. Critiques like Taibbi's seem to assume that value just appears, is not produced by labor. We're all citizen-taxpayers, and none of us are workers. This wouldn't be that remarkable if it were just Taibbi and progressive types thinking this, but that it also infects Marxists like Harvey is kind of alarming.



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