Category: Uncategorized

Elaine Coburn – Economics as Ideology: Challenging Expert Political Power

Link to an article by Elaine Coburn:

“Economics as Ideology: Challenging Expert Political Power”

Bonus Links: Economists and the Powerful and The Social Structures of the Economy and “Darwin and the Body Politic: Schäffle, Veblen, and the Shift of Biological Metaphor in Economics”

Jeffrey St. Clair & James Ridgeway – Articles on New West Vigilantes

Links to articles by Jeffrey St. Clair & James Ridgeway:

“On the Firing Line: Bullies in Stetsons”

“The War to Claim the New West”

Bonus Links: “Cattle, Guns, Birds and Boredom: Inside the Oregon Occupation” and  “9th Circuit Blasts Judge Who Ruled for Rancher”

Slavoj Žižek – The Cologne Attacks Were an Obscene Version of Carnival

Link to an article by Slavoj Žižek:

“The Cologne Attacks Were an Obscene Version of Carnival”

Selected quotes:

  • “being a victim at the bottom of the social ladder does not make you some kind of privileged voice of morality and justice.”
  • “This destructive potential of envy is the base of Rousseau’s well-known distinction between egotism, amour-de-soi (that love of the self which is natural), and amour-propre, the perverted preferring of oneself to others in which a person focuses not on achieving a goal, but on destroying the obstacle to it [quoting Rousseau, juge de Jean-Jacques, first dialog] . . . An evil person is thus not an egotist, ‘thinking only about his own interests’. A true egotist is too busy taking care of his own good to have time to cause misfortune to others. The primary vice of a bad person is that he is more preoccupied with others than with himself.”
  • “The difficult lesson of this entire affair is thus that it is not enough to simply give voice to the underdogs the way they are: in order to enact actual emancipation, they have to be educated (by others and by themselves) into their freedom.”

Death Penalty

The death penalty should apply only to those who claim power in the name of others, like world leaders, military and police commanders, and even (sometimes) business executives.  Serial killers and minor criminals are usually pressed by mental health concerns and poverty in a way that makes prison or commitment more appropriate.

A Critique of Michael Schwalbe’s “Brief for Equality”

Professor Michael Schwalbe wrote an essay entitled “A Brief for Equality.”  The basic thrust of his argument is a good one: liberal insistence that egalitarianism is too extreme is really about maintaining certain inequalities, which are not morally justified.  However, there is a curious flaw in his argument.  He writes:

“equality would produce a flourishing of creativity and constructive diversity. The cultivation of talent that is possible now for only the privileged few would be possible for all. What’s more, an equal sharing of resources would by no means hinder the appreciation of virtuosity. There would in fact be more virtuosity and accomplishment to appreciate.”

Why is this a logical flaw?  Well, there are different types of capital (as a sociologist, Schwalbe should be well aware of these concepts; though they appear in fiction too).  Yet his brief is written only in regard to economic capital.  He asserts that a better society flows from equality of economic capital.  But he then praises an inequality of cultural capital (virtuosity, accomplishment).  Why is it that the liberal position that relies on a core of (economic) inequality is wrong but Schwalbe’s reliance on a core of (cultural) inequality is better?  He does not address this point about second level (cultural) hierarchies.  This seems to be a flaw in his underlying theory — by failing to account for different types of capital, and associated hierarchies, his argument lacks persuasiveness.  Really, this is perhaps a pure expression of ideology, revealing the disavowed assumptions behind his argument.  It is somewhat customary for academics to have more cultural capital than economic capital.  So does Schwalbe’s argument really amount to self-interested promotion of the type of capital that he possesses over that which he does not possess?  And will inequality of cultural capital simply reproduce inequalities of economic capital over time?  These are the lingering doubts clouding his argument, which is far more self-interested than it admits.