Date: Fri, 06 Jun 2003 13:30:35 +1100
From: hbone <hbone-AT-optonline.net>
Subject: Globalization and Community


Eric/All,

Because I grew up on a small farm, where communities were organized around
churches, family stores in the local village, and its high school, I
remember a community life that was radically changed by the
commercialization of agriculture which, eventually, made such communities
dependent on
small factories, most of them producing, clothing - shoes, jackets etc.

Globalization sent clothing factories to other countries;  factory workers
who did not move to cities, got city jobs if possible, made long and
dangerous commutes.

My brother worked with two women to produce a history of our community, its
origin, history, brief histories and pictures of a few families.

The book was a success, and a few years later they produced another volume
updating the first and adding more family history..

I cite the above as a real story of actual events as opposed to books of
theory about globalization and community.

Many of the farmers who were technologically displaced had owned their own
farms but lost them.

A few owners of family stores survived, but Walmart or
equivalent ruined others.

If the small factories had been owned by their workers in such communities,
they
would not have survived globalization.   But if factories throughout the
U.S. had been worker-owned AND politically active they would have prevailed.

For an example of a worker-owned company that did survive go to these links:

http://www.fed.org/onlinemag/dec98/briefcase.html
http://www.lincolnelectric.com/corporate/about/history.asp

regards,
Hugh







> http://www.fed.org/onlinemag/dec98/briefcase.html
> http://www.lincolnelectric.com/corporate/about/history.asp
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>
> > Hugh,
> >
> > What I stated was a principle and not necessarily a program for specific
> > actions. In the last 50 pages of Empire, however, N&H talk about a
> > global income, elimination of borders and giving people access to
> > computer technology. These furnish some examples of movements that would
> > create a more autonomous society.
> >
> > Do you really think that China, India and Africa are free of capitalism
> > today as opposed to being merely underdeveloped?  Isn't this exactly one
> > of the definitions of globalism - everyone today must dance for the
> > benjamins.
> > You really need to clarify your position here.
> >
> > Just as the Greeks and Romans had their myths, movies and television are
> > ours.  You are right. Sex and violence are an old story. So is the need
> > for myth. I would encourage to run out and rent the video/dvd of the
> > matrix. Then you would know what we are talking about. Did you know it
> > has become the most analyzed movie of all time. An ink blot that moves.
> >
> > eric
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> > [mailto:owner-lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu] On Behalf Of hbone
> > Sent: Monday, June 02, 2003 7:15 AM
> > To: lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> > Subject: Re: The Matrix - Reloaded
> >
> >
> > Eric, Steve, All,
> >
> > I don't know how it happened, but apparently Norton Antivirus sent back
> > your
> > original message instead of the reply I was working on.  Sorry.
> >
> > Here's the message what I wrote:
> >
> > Marx and Foucault and Lyotard are all dead.  Some of their ideas apply
> > in
> > some degree to the world we live in.
> >
> > Wasn't it Lenin who said "What is to be done?"
> >
> > Can we translate the statement : "subvert the process of allopoietic
> > complexication into that of autopoietic complexification"  into possible
> > actions that would relate to living persons, actual countries, and the
> > role
> > of transnational corporations as well as the role of the politicians and
> > military forces who do their bidding?
> >
> >  Do you really think China and India, and maybe Africa, are simply
> > puppets
> > of U.S. and European corporations and the politicians who benefit by
> > enriching them?  And if so, how can we save a third of the world's
> > population  from its  folly?.
> >
> > Aren't Matrix movies made to sell violence and fantasy as entertainment
> > to
> > young and ignorant moviegoers?   How does esoteric post-modern
> > philosophy
> > creep in?
> > A new movie, but what's new about murder and sacrificial death and phony
> > heroism.  Oldest story in the world?
> >
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >
> > > Hugh, Steve, All:
> > >
> > > Ever since I first read the Inhuman, I thought Lyotard's formulation
> > of
> > > complexification was a surprising, but fruitful turn. One of the
> > > problems with Marx's analysis of capitalism in the popular mind is
> > that
> > > it appears to be limited to a kind of economic reductionism. One of
> > the
> > > problems with the popular journalistic interpretation of
> > > complexification is that it appears to be limited to a kind of
> > > naturalistic reductionism that tends towards the a-historical and
> > > a-political.
> > >
> > > What Lyotard accomplishes by joining the terms capitalism and
> > > complexification together is to state what in hindsight appears to be
> > > rather obvious. Marx was really describing under the rubric of
> > > capitalism a process of complexification which encompasses economics,
> > > technology, information, militarization and ecological devastation
> > into
> > > a world system which acts according to its own dynamic and
> > imperatives.
> > > Undeveloped nations such as India and China do not exist outside of
> > > capitalism. Rather they function as subordinate entities, subaltern
> > > nations, which provide a source of cheap labor and the promise of
> > future
> > > markets, allowing development to continue. The nature of the system
> > can
> > > be defined as a plutocracy, but this is merely a tautology since
> > > profitability and accumulation are the very drivers which allow
> > > complexification to proliferate.
> > >
> > > In the sixties Foucault made the famous analogy about the concept of
> > Man
> > > being like a vanishing footprint made in the sand and Barthes talked
> > > about the death of the author. It can be argued that the precise point
> > > at which complexification converges with postmodernity is to be found
> > in
> > > this very transition from the human into the posthuman.
> > >
> > > Lyotard's famous definition of the postmodern as "incredulity towards
> > > metanarratives" fits this equation perfectly once it is recognized
> > that
> > > by metanarratives, Lyotard didn't simply mean stories, but rather
> > > stories of human emancipation and liberation.  Postmodernism coincides
> > > with the moment when Man becomes obsolete and the posthuman arrives to
> > > take his place.  The continued development of capitalism supercedes
> > > human development. Man then becomes an also-ran.
> > >
> > > Certainly the manner in which Lyotard and others have argued for this
> > > significant change takes place at a fairly high level of abstraction,
> > > one that places it outside the orbit of ordinary social discourse.
> > What
> > > is not understood intellectually, however, is nonetheless felt at an
> > > intuitive level and it is here that popular mythology steps in to fill
> > > the void.
> > >
> > > The series of movies entitled the Matrix is just this kind of
> > mythology.
> > > It represents humans as literally a kind of coppertop battery who
> > > function merely to keep the machines running for reasons that are
> > vague
> > > and ambiguous precisely because the humans are no longer in charge.
> > Thus
> > > the movies illustrate the very concepts of complexification and
> > > posthumanism that Lyotard discusses, presenting a very melancholy
> > > dystopian future in glossy cinematic Technicolor.
> > >
> > > What hope does exist in the Matrix is presented ideologically in
> > almost
> > > Gnostic terms.  Once the mind understands the illusory nature of the
> > > Matrix, the fact that it is a simulacrum, it can practice a kind of
> > > detournement upon the virtual commodifications that the spectacle
> > > presents. This is coupled of course with Busby Berkley-Esther Williams
> > > inspired karate choreography, a kind of lonely Ghost Dance at the
> > edges
> > > of the eschatolon.
> > >
> > > The problem with this, however, is that such a weak conception of the
> > > political tends to obscure the only revolutionary practice which
> > remains
> > > viable today in contemporary terms, namely, to subvert the process of
> > > allopoietic complexication into that of autopoietic complexification.
> > >
> > > eric
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >