Dear List members,
Greetings and well wishes.
> The cross-posts between Ed and Jack Cole have arrived a a sort of
> consensus about capitalism in the two (2) snips below:
> =====From Ed
> Dictionary definitions of capitalism highlight two essential features
of the
> capitalist system. They are: Firstly that the factors (means and
modes of production)
>necessary for the production of the necessities for human life, are in
private ownership; (an
historical development),
>and secondly; That these means and modes of production - privately
owned - are used for
>the production of a private benefit (defined, in modern economic terms,
as private profit) - a contemporary fact).
> ======from Jack
> Maybe a new formulation (is required (my addition)), starting from
scratch, or somewhere less convoluted than the outcomes of two centuries
of
tortured philosophy. Start with the concept of value and a concept of
value transaction.
>Commerce, capital, common good, public and private, the information
> environment, and purposes of human interaction. See what you can
build from those building blocks.
========fromWilliam
> I've been carrying around this statement about - society - since it
seems
that we need to define the matrix in order to understand those parts
which
> Jack has referred to as 'building blocks':
> ...snip...
> "What is society, whatever its form may be? Nothing more in conscious
terms than
>the product of men and women's reciprocal action.
>But are men and women free to choose this or
>that form of society? I think not. Assume a particular state of
>development in the productive faculties of humankind and you will get a
>particular form of commerce and consumption. Assume particular stages
of
>development in production, commerce, and consumption, and you will have
>a corresponding social Constitution, a corresponding organisation of
>the family, of particular social orders (regulation etc), and of
classes.
>In a word: a corresponding civil society.
>Assume a particular civil society and you will get
>particular political conditions which are only the offical expression
of those
>class efforts exherted in the production of cohesion of a civil
society
>at a particular stage of the evolution of what has
>become that particular idea of the modern democratic state (in modern
times).
>In no less a way did Greek civil society believe that they were, then,
>the founders of a civil democracy."
> ===
If anyone can source this for me I would greatly appreciate it!
Regards, William
