[lbo-talk] Capitalism RE: catastrophe

[Miles Jackson]

On 03/16/2011 06:07 PM, Carrol Cox wrote:
> Mike Beggs: This seems like a very liberal conception of freedom - Berlin's
> negative liberty.
>
> -------
>
> It is _not_ a "conception" of freedom; it is an observation that freedom
> must _include_ the absence of some kinds of internal relations. And I was
> referring specifically to the pressure put on all corporations to control
> costs. _External_ relations do not create this form of unacceptable
> constraint. Consider two hypothetical Palace Economies: that of Ithaca and
> that of Sparta (see the Odyssey). The relationship of Menelaus of Sparta to
> _his_ subordinate peasantry is not affected by the relationship of Odysseus
> to _his_ subordinate peasantry. One or the other of these two may decided to
> emulate the other in this respect, but that is a "free" decision, quite
> radically separate from the decisions of (say) two manufacturers of (say)
> memory chips, one in France, the other in India. They mutually constrain
> each other _regardless_ of any decisions either makes or desires to make.
> And when an entire global society is _dominated_ by this kind of internal
> relations, it is simply incompatible with the needs of human life. It has
> nothing whatever to do with the distinction between negative and positive
> freedom -- except, perhaps, that without this freedom positive freedom
> becomes pointless.
>
> Carrol

This kind of mare's nest of logical paradoxes leads me to the conclusion 
that freedom is best understood as an ideological precipitate of 
capitalism.   Rather than assuming there is some true, uncorrupted core 
of freedom once we tear away capitalist social relations, I offer the 
admittedly disconcerning suggestion that talking about freedom can only 
reinforce capitalism.  I recognize that this is one place where I 
substantively disagree with ol' Whiskers, but I do have to ask: why is 
it politically important to engage in the millenia-old determinism vs. 
free will debate?

MIles