[lbo-talk] Apple conspired to raise e-book prices

Wojtek S wsoko52 at gmail.com
Thu Jul 11 07:40:00 PDT 2013


Martin: "Isn't that what you're doing with Apple and Apple users?"

[WS:] I am not talking to "Apple users" - I am talking to a few people on a left listserv about capitalist firms and I have no idea what computing devices they are using. Nor do I think it matters. If someone told me that Windows PC or Android, or for that matter, Prius and DocMartin shoes are pieces of shit, it would not affect me in any way, even though I have been using these products for quite a while. But I do not identify with them any more than I identify, say, with a commuter train that I take to work or toilet paper I use to wipe my ass. The very fact that you speak of "Apple users" as a group of people who may take offence from other berating that computer product is prima facie evidence that it is all about cult and commodity fetishism - as I argued. And since cults and fetishes are not rational forms of behavior, you can expose them for what they are (which I am trying to do), but you cannot expect that rational argument will persuade their adherents to change their preference. In the same way, many religious beliefs are a bunch of nonsense from a logical pov and should be exposed as such by rational discourse, but it is naive to expect that it is going to persuade the believers to change their beliefs.

-- Wojtek

"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."



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