On Jul 9, 2013, at 4:03 PM, Eric Beck <ersatzdog at gmail.com> wrote:
> Aaaand here is where I get confused. I thought Marx spent most of his life
> showing how abstract, agentless, uh, things and processes dominate under
> capitalism. If you are going avoid abstractions that have no agency, why
> not just go all liberal: racism exists because of racists, accumulation
> exists because people are greedy, etc.
Huh? Marx investigated how work was organized and how physical, human, and financial resources were deployed and transformed at great length. The abstractions are a way of talking about that world, but it's not "capitalism" that makes capitalists do things, it's competition and the search for profit. Saying "racism" did something is meaningless. Showing the ways that "race" is materialized, like differences in inherited wealth, is something else. Racists do things, they don't just exist, also.
Doug