[lbo-talk] neoliberal prosperity trickles down -- NOT

Julio Huato juliohuato at gmail.com
Mon Aug 8 11:17:20 PDT 2011


Shane Mage wrote:


> (ad 2) "Consciousness of necessity--of cause and effect" is equally
> impossible.
> To have such consciousness means awareness of the whole chain of
> cause and effect--ie., of everything that exists and ever has
> existed in the universe.

Nowhere do I say that there is (or even that there will be) an absolute identity between subject and object. Like Carrol, who is clearly not saying that we live already in a free society, I'm also talking about what that free (or more free) society would be like. So, implicit is the notion of a *process* -- the development of society (which I view essentially as the development human productive powers and, along with it, cognition).


> I don't know which of these two viewpoints is more nonsensical.

My viewpoint is fine. Carrol's is nonsensical:


> Freedom is the ability to act without considering the future results of
> the action.

Again, Carrol is not saying that we already live in a free society. He is characterizing what the freedom in such society would be like -- ignorance of causality. That is exactly upside down.

Of course, it's a process, a dialectical interplay, all that... but is it towards building a "free" society where people will be mindless about causality? Is that the way to produce free people?



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