Date: Tue, 16 Apr 1996 17:15:57 -0600
Subject:  Re: Group or individual -Reply -Reply -Reply


Justin, I suspect that we agree more than you seem to think.

>>> Justin Schwartz <jschwart-AT-freenet.columbus.oh.us>  4/16/96 
Lisa wants to reduce class struggle to conflicts of interest between
individuals. 

Lisa:  Coming from you, I know that "reduce" is not a curse-word. OK.

JS: I don't think this will do. The "similarly situated" is covering
up the structural aspect of class. [snip] No one has the interests of
a proletarian or is a member of that class outside the network of
social relations. 

Lisa:  "Those with similar/ compatible interests" is at a level of
generality that is intended to refer to something that is not
confined to capitalism, it applies much more broadly.  You have
explained very well the specifics of capitalism, but I don't see a
conflict between these two views.  Of course many needs, benefits
desired, interests are specific to classes as defined by social
relations, especially in a _class_ society.  I don't disagree with
that.  [I also see all such specific interests as related to / within
a bio/evol/ecology context of bottom-line self-interest, but I don't
see this as contradictory either.]

"Similar or over-lapping interests" is not intended to hide anything.
 It does include some specific situations where there are no
"classes" as typically defined.


JS:  I think rational choice theory has a lot more to tell us about
why class consciousness is hard to develop than it does about why
classes exist and struggle. 

Lisa:  Tell me more!  What does it say about that?


JS:  So I would say that so far, we have no good RCT account of how
classes develop de novo or why they exist, rather than perhaps of the
circumstances in which one set gives way to another. 

Lisa:  The Method. Individ. I was taught takes it as legit to start
with any set of existing specific circumstances, in order to make
sense of what people do next.  After all, nobody ever lived without
living _within_ some kind of situation.  So I'm surprised to see you
call that "semi"-individualistic.

To ask where those circumstances came from is also a perfectly legit
question, and I expect there is a good MI answer [in addition to
other kinds of answers.]  But the "circumstances" of the change are
not enough are they?  Or why does Brenner [or anybody] think that
people react _in a particular way_ to _those specific circumstances_
?

On the local educational channel right now there is a course on
prehistory taught by one of my favorite MI archeologists, which is
specifically addressing the issues of the origin of agriculture and
the origin of cities.  It includes a film series produced by some
Penn State project, which focuses a lot on irrigation, and rightly
so, I believe.  I hope to get some transcripts of O'Connell's
lectures, I think his stuff is exactly what would fit into this spot
in the conversation.  

I don't know a lot about non-MI theories of the origins of classes,
but what little I have seen has not been very inviting to further
study.  I read Engels' Origins and found it rather unsatisfying.  I
once took a sociology class on Social Evolution and found it both
unsatisfying and downright insulting to intelligence - no
'microfoundations' for _anything_ just general invocations of social
progress which made no sense to me at all.  Sweeping generalizations
about rituals and rites of passage all 'stabilizing' the social
structure and thus 'keeping the group together' are vastly
unconvincing to me, and don't offer any understanding of social
change, either.

Lisa
[still not a sociologist]



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