Date: Thu, 24 Oct 1996 23:45:58 +1000 From: rws-AT-comserver.canberra.edu.au (Rob Schaap) Subject: M-I: Re: Beneath the surface ... A scribble before bed. I've never heard of James O'Connor (thanks Louis), but his 2nd contradiction thesis is interesting. A decade of contractionary budgets must strike at the reliability and capacity of the infrastructure (human and otherwise). Privatisation, to my mind, makes more direct capital's relationship with the infrastructure. I'm no business economist, but obviously capital has decided its power over prices (in the new 'user pays' world) is enough to compensate for the money it saved by getting taxpayers to fund education and utilities. Everyday experience leads me to suspect this is short-term thinking (but then there are annual reports to be submitted to stock holders). They've folgged water and electricity in the state of Victoria, and there's already evidence of infrastructural decline. Similarly, my job gives me daily cause for suspicion that education is not benefitting from its budget cuts. A deliberate attempt to create a wage-controlling/inflation-controlling lumpen-proletariat? Adam comments on Zeynep's ideas are relevant here, but I would add that transnational capital has plenty of options, and apparently needs only to hint at a possible relocation to cop a lump of taxpayers' money and a few less irksome regulations. BTW, A local Green Left paper argues for the need for income tax hikes on the grounds that capital will simply leave if corporate tax goes up (and if it doesn't, I guess it passes on the extra to the punters). Its theme is, 'spread the unfairness' among the workers. I think a bit of arithmetic would be handy - surely relocation costs are a significant factor? Anyway, there's a popular/accessible line of socialist-leaning rhetoric just waiting to be used if and when a government is forced to such a regime (I should add Aussie doesn't have a value added tax yet). And lastly, Adam argues that residual cultural components can be appropriated or excised by capitalism. And so they can. But remember, while they're about, residuals are interacting with the rest of the superstructure. In the US, religion plus communication technology equals, to my mind, an obscene affirmation/exploitation of capitalism (Bakker, Humbard et al) - yet in Egypt, religion plus communication technologies equals, I'm given to believe, an unprecedented spread of Islam (cassettes taking the faith beyond the physical reach of the mosque). Communitarianism has so many variants because residual culture is being appropriated by the religious right in Alabama, the 'decent' among old 'noblesse oblige' Tories in the Home Counties, the filial in (I'm guessing) Anatolia, and so on. Some such incidental compounds benefit the order, and some are downright counter-hegemonic. As I read him, that's why Williams denied the logical possibility of complete hegemony. Good night, Rob. --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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