Eric Beck wrote:
>
> On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 1:21 PM, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>
> > Not capitalist markets. Capitalism cannot ever vecome _all_ of society,
> > though it continously strives to commodify all human relations, it
> > cannot do so.
>
> Ever? How do you know? Is it because of necessity or because
> resistance is always present?
The family (though essential to capitalism) can't be turned into a
commodity, though there are probably ways to try to. There are
continuous efforts made to commodify education, and with some success,
but much of it still remains 'outside' capitalism. And the state. Note
that capitalism has florished under an amazing variety of types of
state, thoug it requires _a_ state.
>
> More generally, the genius of capitalism is that it doesn't need to
> "overcome" or "commodify" things to use them. It doesn't need to take
> possession of or mark things to profit from them.
Absolutely. But in using various non-capitalist activities/instituions it does threaten their usefulness to it. If and when the whole of education is wholly tailored to serve capitalism it would probably fail precisely to serve capitalism very well.
Carrol