[WS:] You seem to be missing the point. It is not about some generic "capitalist social relations" which seems a pretty meaningless concept, but about norms and values that develop in social networks and subcultures. The capitalist class is a rather tightly knit network of a relatively small number of individuals that developed deviant subculture - just like street gangs do. The main difference is that street gang subculture is not legitimized by the media and economic theories as "rational behavior" while capitalist class deviance is.
Beyond that -there is no such thing as capitalist social relations. The so-called -economic rationality is limited to the deviant capitalist subculture and it glamorized images in the media and some academic literature. Most people in this country and elsewhere live in communities that have very different values and social relations than the deviant capitalist subculture. They form social ties, solidarity networks, religious communities, neighborhoods etc in which maximizing profits in blatant disregard of social connection is considered deviant. In other words - most people see it as quite natural to leave tips in roadside restaurants because it is the right thing to do - only economists are baffled by this. This is quite remarkable given the barrage of propaganda that glamorize the norms and values of the deviant capitalist subculture (the "bottom line" spiel.)
In sum, different social groups and networks develop different value systems, which in turn affect the behavior of members of these groups and networks. Some of these value systems are considered deviant by general population, but most of them are not. This is Sociology 101. What makes the deviant value systems of the capitalist subculture different than those of "ordinary" deviant subcultures is the immense propaganda effort undertaken by the media and the academia to legitimate it. This creates a highly deceptive illusion that these deviant norms are "natural" and prevail in every human society. In reality, however, they are limited to a narrow group of capitalists and their mouthpieces. It follows that fighting the deviant norms and behavior of the capitalist class is much easier than the noise machine that glamorizes it claims - it is fundamentally no different from controlling (if not eliminating) other forms of deviance that all human societies do.
Wojtek
On Sat, Oct 30, 2010 at 4:35 PM, Miles Jackson <cqmv at pdx.edu> wrote:
> On 10/30/2010 11:03 AM, Barry Brooks wrote:
>>
>> We need a war on selfishness. If that war had the level of impact that the
>> war
>> on drugs has had then greed would no longer be socially acceptable.
>>
>
> I think this is confusing cause and effect. Selfishness is not the cause of
> capitalist social relations; capitalist social relations produce and
> intensify selfishness. Conducting a "war on selfishness" in a capitalist
> society is pointless as long as capitalism thrives as a socioeconomic
> system. (LBO old-timers know I've asserted this repeatedly over the years
> here: psychological characteristics are primarily a product of social
> relations, not vice versa.)
>
> Miles
>
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>