On Nov 15, 2011, at 10:12 AM, Eric Beck wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 8:48 AM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Nov 15, 2011, at 9:40 AM, shag carpet bomb wrote:
>>
>>> more like reinforces it by pretending as if what happens in "civil
>>> society" has nothing to do with the state/market
>>
>> On what do you base that?
>
> It's clearly based on what he wrote. Did you read it? He's got
> repressive state power on one side and repressive private power on the
> other and they don't really meet. He defines slavery as
> private/economic power, which so absurd I can't believe he's serious.
> But he appears to be. Same with chain gangs and the Klan.
Corey responds:
Your friend is mis-reading my piece.
It's bizarre to claim that I don't think what happens in civil society has anything to do with the market. The two major examples I give of civil society are slavery and the workplace. Perhaps he thinks those institutions have nothing to do with the market; I don't, and nowhere do I suggest they don't. Nor do I believe that slavery and the workplace have nothing to do with the state. Again, that's a dichotomy he's imputing.
There's a major difference between saying that individuals experience repression not at the hands of the state but at the hands of their employer, their master, their husband, and so on -- which is my claim -- and the claim that the state and the non-state sector have nothing to do with each other. That's your friends claim (or his description of my claim).
What's more, I argue that the repression people experience at the hands of their employers, etc., is often wielded for explicitly political purposes. So, in the instance of McCarthyism that I cite, those thousands of men and women who were fired for their political beliefs -- and the millions more who were investigated or subject to investigation for their beliefs -- what institution of the "political," other than the government/employer nexus, does your friend think their beliefs were being investigated for?
As the neutrality claim, that's just pure fantasy on his part.