Date: Sat, 22 Nov 1997 12:06:24 -0500
From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood-AT-panix.com>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Foucault et amis


Russell Pearson wrote:

>The 'market' is the usual sticking
>point where any attempt to think beyond capitalist exchange relations is
>seen as a royal road to the gulag.

Butler argues that "identity" is typically conferred by the state: laws,
cops, teachers, and the other agents of the ISA bring the categories of
race, nationality, queerness, and sex into existence. Though she doesn't
say this, it's easy to see that class doesn't isn't brought into existence
in the same way; in fact, everything about market relations, with their
illusions of freedom and equality, conspires to hide the nature of class.

>And more to the point, are
>contemporary philosophers more important nowadays than modern economists?

Which economists? Paul Krugman? Merton Miller? Economics has gotten lost in
fantasies of its own scientific rigor - and this is true for lots of
Marxists as well as the mainstream neoclassicals. Most economists have
nothing to say about politics, sociology, or culture. An important
exception are those feminist economists who've been studying things like
households and labor markets with a richness that eludes your average
nonfeminist economist.

Doug





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