Joanna
----- Original Message ----- As far as I know, the first major work in which total strangers meet in a strange context is Paradise lost: The Encounter of the Cherub and Uriel. They must start from scratch, as it were, to establish an abstract principle upon which they can relate to each other. (And the 'real' identity of the Cherub is irrelevant: Milton sticks in the observation that hypocrisy is the one sin that is recognizable by God alone: not even the highest angels can see through it. Hence the Cherub is a Cherub, not Satan.) In Hamlet & Lear everyone knows everyone.
Carrol
-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of JOANNA A. Sent: Friday, December 18, 2015 4:45 AM To: lbo-talk Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] The Tape of Human History
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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