[lbo-talk] The Tape of Human History

JOANNA A. 123hop at comcast.net
Fri Dec 18 02:44:53 PST 2015


If there was no difference, you could have fooled Shakespeare who noticed a distinct difference in the quality/presence of relationship in plays like Lear, Macbeth, Hamlet....all turning upon connections, relations, obligations, and what happens when these are destroyed or ignored.

No doubt tribes quarreled over scarce resource, but lets recall that scarcity under capitalism is largely manufactured as a matter or policy.

Joanna

----- Original Message ----- Ah, just noticed. Seems the referenced quote was mine, last year.

On Dec 17, 2015, at 12:01 PM, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:


> I pick up a thread from November 23-24, 2010, with the subject line, RIP
> Chalmers Johnson
>
> For all but the first post the subject line should have been "Capitalism an
> Aberration?" And underlying that topic was the question of whether Progress
> was inherent in human history. I do not think either of those questions were
> adequately explored, and perhaps my new subject line will help to a sharper
> focus.
>
> Below is the last post in the thread. My current comment will follow.
>
> ******
> Marv Gandall Wednesday, November 24, 2010 2:05 PM
>
> On 2010-11-24, at 2:16 PM, Eubulides wrote:
>
> On Wed, Nov 24, 2010 at 9:37 AM, Wojtek S wrote:
>
> The norm for humankind was the opposite - social solidarity and reciprocity
> - because it was essential for survival.
>
> =================
>
> What was so great about the forms of social solidarity and obligation in
> 13th century Europe or Yuan and Ming era China that they should be
> considered the norm on which to assert capitalism is an historical
> aberration?
>
> [MG] Wojtek and Carrol are idealizing the relations which existed between
> masters and slaves, lords and serfs, in order to make their dubious point
> that the relationship between capitalists (deemed to lack any sense of
> paternalistic obligation) and workers is incomparably worse. The classless
> hunter-gatherer societies which preceded these modes of production may have
> uniquely exhibited social solidarity within the narrow confines of the clan
> or tribe, but fighting between clans and tribes over scarce resources was as
> common as later conflicts between capitalist nation-states.

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