[lbo-talk] Corey Robin on AJE on Bluestocking panel

[shag carpet bomb]

more like reinforces it by pretending as if what happens in "civil
society" has nothing to do with the state/market - that the
relationship is more complicated than he lets on, not that he actually
lets on. e.g., that the cops regularly used to turn away over domestic
violence issues, but today use domestic violence violations as a
pretext to get inside homes and arrest people for other illegalities.
that they use the courts to ensure their power in their workplace.
that they hire private security guards and, when they fail, hire cops
to protect order. sure, the national guard also gets sent in to
enforce SC rulings and put down private goons. but that is nearly
always about an internal rift within the ruling class playing itself
out in terms of who's willing to use the "monopoly on the means of
violence" to win its war against the other faction.

On Nov 15, 2011, at 12:10 AM, Eric Beck wrote:


> I thought Robin's piece was unbearably smug. "I think you are shit,
> but I'll heroically defend your right to be shit" is not my favorite
> genre, with its disavowal of any sort of actual position. And then
> what he proceeds to say about "private" repression vs. "public"
> repression is a masterpiece in liberal hair-splitting.

Oh please. I think Lennard is full of shit - which is not the same as
saying she is shit - but I tried to get her some work after the Times
canned her. Solidarity, you know. That's not a disavowal of any
position. I had a screaming argument with her but I still thought she
was worth defending.

And what's with "liberal hair-splitting"? Corey's point is that the
"private sector" does plenty of repression on its own - in our
delightful capitalist democracy, the state isn't the only repressive
agent. That's anything but a liberal point. It challenges the standard
bourgeois splitting of the economic and the political.

Doug