February 2012
35 posts
“But for another group - the fundamentalists of all religions - modernity has...”
– Frank Schaeffer (via azspot)
2 tags
2 tags
“Advocates for unemployed workers suspect that conservatives who would require...”
– Legislating Under the Influence (via azspot)
“I don’t want to fuck up someone’s drive to work. I want to fuck up...”
– Lawrence Weiner
“If you end up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your mom,...”
– Frank Zappa
“I want something that I do not yet know.”
– John Cage
Observations of a Global Nomad: Sometimes I wonder... →
uncdan:
There’s the old historical term, typified by the American revolution, the French revolution and the Russian revolution.
In a lot of ways, this pattern was consistent with Cuba, Vietnam, and others. Motivated idealists galvanize a population into action and overthrow the status quo.
But I’m…
“Brancusi said that when an artist stopped being a child, he would stop being an...”
– Isamo Noguchi
Capitalism, the infernal machine
Aaron Leonard: You write, "Capital is not a book about politics, and not even a book about labour: it is a book about unemployment." Could you talk about why you think that is true?
Frederic Jameson: I know this is probably surprising for people who always think of Marx in political terms, but there is really very little mention of any political action in Capital. There is certainly the implication of the kind of society that could come out of capitalism and also of the contradictions that could lead to the end of capitalism and I am not saying that Marx was not political or didn't constantly think of political strategies, but Capital is not a book about that. It is a book about this infernal machine that is capitalism.
It is a book about unemployment in the sense that the absolute general law of capitalism, as he enunciates it, is to increase productivity -- as a result, as he writes, "The relative mass of the industrial reserve army [the unemployed] increases therefore with the potential energy of wealth." I think this corresponds very much to what is happening in the present. I heard the most revealing thing recently from a venture capitalist, obviously annoyed by the constant talk of both Republicans and Democrats about supporting business so it can ‘create jobs.'
He said look, "Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, I wanted to increase my payroll because I think it's good for the American economy." This is a pretty direct way of saying business does not exist to create jobs; it is there to make money. That is exactly what Marx lays out in Capital. There is no direct connection between productivity and creating jobs.
This was not so clear as long as Keynesian economics were being applied in certain countries -- Keynes understood there had to be workers with enough money to buy all these goods being produced. Since Reagan and Thatcher, however, we get something more like the fundamental logic of capital Marx described. It is not just job flight to other countries; this is part of a worldwide process.
You want to bring factories back to the United States but on the other hand you want them to be productive? Well that means more and more automation and less and less workers, it is obvious. So I think there really is a profound contradiction between employment and what the system does. In that sense it seems to me, a political demand of the kind that there used for full employment is a demand for something the system can't possibly provide.
“If I read this sentence, this story, or this word with pleasure, it is because...”
– Roland Barthes
My testimony at the Colorado Senate Judiciary... →
Much of the early church were convinced that gentiles could only become Christians if they changed into being Jews first (which, for the record, involved a rather unpleasant process), and much like our first century brothers and sisters there is a segment of the church today who thinks that if we extend the roof of the tent to include “the gays” then the whole thing will come crashing down...
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we...”
– Albert Einstein
“As far as I’m concerned, states have no rights. Only people have...”
– George Romney, campaigning in North Carolina in 1967 (via ilyagerner)
“I think he was created by the government. I mean, is there anything at all wrong...”
– Erin Hansen
Technoccult: Timeline of the Far Future →
technoccult:
Wikipedia entry of the day: Timeline of the Far Future. Excerpt:
>50 billion: Assuming both survive the Sun’s expansion, by this time the Earth and the Moon become tidelocked, with each showing only one face to the other. 100 billion: The Universe’s expansion causes all evidence of…
“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round...”
– Jack Keruack
“Theirs is the customary human reaction when confronted with innovation: to...”
– Marshall McLuhan
“You were in my dream last night. You blew up my car.”
– Allie Riley
“Here, hold my unicorn.”
– Brad Jirka
“Resolved, to live with all my might while I do live.
Resolved, never to lose...”
– Jonathan Edwards
Stanford grad continues fight for removal from... →
ageofperil:
My story today on the nation’s terrorist no-fly list …
The federal appeals court ruling last week on gay marriage in California overshadowed other potentially big news in the legal community. A quieter decision Wednesday by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has enabled Stanford…
