From: "bob scheetz" <rscheetz-AT-cboss.com>
Subject: HAB: Re: "socialism 101"
Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2001 11:51:04 -0400


gary,
...got yer clinton joke...very good...touch a ribaldry always
helps...thanks...
but the succeeding elaboration?...can't make out at all.

the thesis is that merkan governance (bourgeois democracy) is modeled
(base-superstructure) on the joint-stock corporation;
... that  government is a function of a handful of competing economic elites
...not the naive notion that  it is a direct function of corporate merka (as
formerly in the old company towns...like mine)...that it is a travesty of
the word "democracy"...same as my few msft shares
empower me to fire gates in favor of a team that knows something about
programming... as opposed to old-fashioned bidness thuggery.

... surely the recent  Gore-Bush campaing spending exceeding half trillion
competing for CEO is so gross and transparent an example... perhaps even
exceeding yer ability at muddling,  puts the thing past quibble.  And for a
negative proof, there's the pellucid fact of merkan political existence that
populism (true "democracy"... for better or worse...if you will)  within the
merkan electoral system is a total non-starter... biggest suckers' game of
all.

thanks,
bob



----- Original Message -----
From: Gary E Davis <gedavis1-AT-yahoo.com>
To: <habermas-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: Friday, August 03, 2001 1:09 AM
Subject: HAB: Re: re: "socialism 101"


> Bob,
>
> It occurs to me that someone might miss my point, if not you.
> Granted, I was being as "clear" as you were.
>
> Of course, there's no clarity provided by your statement. I could as
> easily argue (I venture) that "the" sociological model for the
> publicly held corporation is democracy. In fact, though, the notion
> of publicly held corporate and the notion of democracy (in the
> ordinary sense of participatory-representative government) are very
> different, while having various laudable features in commone:
> "sunshine" accountability expectations, in-principle openness to
> broad-based participation (especially in organizational structure of
> its operations and labor-management issues, which vary widely among
> corporations, but is often idealized by management, e.g., in "Silicon
> Valley" which is commonly idealized in the American corporate world),
> sensitivity to public criticism (especially from the investment
> advisory community) and other factors I could mention (e.g., the
> educational model of leadership that is common in business schools).
> But, generally, unconditional association between democracy and the
> corporation is self-serving, since it promotes the focus that it
> criticizes. Empirically, your claim is untenable. For example,
> democracy in the U.S. is a chronic headache for corporate life. The
> fact that money often buys influence is dangerously (for the
> corporation) haunted by the prospect that public knowledge of this
> dissolves the influence, which points up the fact that democratic
> politics works against "democratic" politics. It is easy to show that
> democracy is not tolerant of "democracy". In the U.S., one only has
> to open any day's large-circulation newspaper.
>
> So, to my mind, the confusion of the two is an important critical
> theme, but reduction of democracy of "democracy", in your sense, is
> not credible. I don't want to say that it's naive to assert their
> sameness--to expect such over-generalized claims about sameness to be
> taken seriously--so I won't (I invoke the distinction between use and
> mention); but the prospect "seems" credible.
>
> Best regards (and advising against consumption of butter),
>
> Gary
>
>
>
>
> --- Gary E Davis <gedavis1-AT-yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > --- bob scheetz <rscheetz-AT-cboss.com> wrote:
> > > ...just to clarify the babbittry butter a little :
> > > the sociological model for Western "democracy" is the publicly
> > held
> > > corporation...
> >
> > What do you mean by "is"?
> >
> > G
> >
> > __________________________________________________
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