Subject: BHA: Re: RTS ch3 s4
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 22:16:21 +0200


Hi Howard--

>   But what is the stuff, Tobin, of the organization of
>work?  In any labor process, remember, two things are produced:
>cotton, say, and the social relations that attend the production of
>cotton.  So as we watch a vehicle move down an assembly line, cars
>are being produced and also social relations.  I meant to focus on
>the social relations produced.

I'll agree with this, except to add that not only does labor produce a
specific product and (an array of) social relations, it also produces the
people as certain kinds of people (I'm distantly recalling a passage from
*Capital* here)--workers as "hands," intellectuals as "eggheads," etc etc.

But I'm not convinced one can treat social relations as material causes that
can be worked upon in the Aristotelean sense, partly because most social
relations are (re)produced unintentionally.  Even where there is a fairly
immediate social relation (say, a friendship), most of it arises indirectly
("it's the little things that count"); and often the times when people feel
they have to "work on a relationship" are the times when it's been allowed
to flounder or is even in crisis, i.e. the relationship is in fact lacking.
Moreover, many social relations require an element of consent in order to
exist (Person A can't become Person B's friend/teacher/employee/etc
unilaterally), which pretty well puts the kebosh on the artisanal metaphor,
unless someone wants to say that the stone consents to the sculptor's
chiseling.  (We might call that the Walt Disneyization of the universe.  But
from another perspective, I have to admit, maybe that's not such a bad
idea--there's a certain healthy respect built into the notion of having to
ask the Earth permission to use its resources.  Of course with Walt, that
permission is always already granted.)

So I'm unconvinced that the Aristotelean framework is at all suited to
analyzing the formation, reproduction and transformation of social
relations.

Yowza.

---
Tobin Nellhaus
nellhaus-AT-gwi.net *or* tobin.nellhaus-AT-helsinki.fi
"Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce









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