[p2p-research] p2presearch Digest, Vol 19, Issue 150

Wed May 20 08:16:04 CEST 2009

Anyways, this list can be a part of a common mind or a part of a
common nervous system. I don't think we want the latter, although its
hard to have a pure mind of our own, nevermind a pure common mind...

This duality of the list as a common mind and the list as a common
nervous system is going to be there no matter what contraption we put
on top of it to discipline it. It will always have this duality
because the list is made of us and we, as human beings, have that
duality. Sometimes we react and other times we respond from a place of
higher consciousness.

So regardless of volume of messages and the method of viewing the list
will always have that duality or else it is as good as a dead list,
like Stefan's list right now which is restricted to his pure mind.

On 5/19/09, marc fawzi <marc.fawzi at gmail.com> wrote:
> Economics as a field of inquiry is not an exact science unless you
> consider sociology and psychology to be exact sciences, which they are
> not.
>
> But even the exact sciences are just stories that we tell about what
> we observe visually and in mentally. These stories are in constant
> flux. Science does not sit still; it revises itself over time and that
> applies also to the most mammoth of human constructions: mathematics,
> but unlike physics over relatively large periods, and that is
> coincidentally why mathematics is a good foundation for the exact
> sciences, and now being slowly challenged by self emergent
> computation, or nature's own maths.
> Anyway, to think of the economic theories of today (exact
> thermoeconomic and evolutionary economic theories exempted)  as an
> exact science is a very dustrubing thought. Its like saying that we
> see all the immoral game playing that is prevalent in today's economy
> but we would rather cover our reta and ears and believe in some made
> up story about some economic theory that doesn't even have any axioms
> (or logical legs) to stand on. The assumptions are often circular and
> when not they gravely simplify reality. And you (the hypothetical you)
> call that a theory, and then you use it to measure other people's
> reality.
>
> It is true that when trying to hack the system you mucy understand its
> sociological and psychological interfaces or the existing norms of
> inter-action, but yoi can't say that those interfaces are based on an
> exact science. So I can't see why Franz can't have his own
> definitions! Everyone should hack the system but some do it by
> imagining a better interface rather than hacking it thru the existing
> one, and their imagined way may be better and superior so we should be
> open, but also recognize Ryan's implicit argument that in order to
> effect change directly we need to understand the existing interfaces,
> the exiting definitions, yet what I'm asserting is that those existing
> definitions are misused and abused all the time to the point where the
> given definition loses its storybook  meaning and gains a very
> troubling meaning.
>
> Marc
>
>
>
> On 5/19/09, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi Ryan,
>>
>> I'm not a particular fan of LTV, which by the way is also rejected by a
>> number of (post)Marxists such as Castoriadis, Negri, etc ... Since it is
>> impossible to operationalize in practical economics, it is indeed of
>> little
>> value in that context.
>>
>> Yet, I would also caution against an attitude that takes the mainstream
>> approach at face value.
>>
>> Many people have argued that contemporary economics is an ideology, not a
>> science. For example, almost none (less than a handful) predicted the
>> current crisis and in fact, if you read Dean Baker, you will see that the
>> economics profession has consistently been wrong over real economics.
>> It's
>> not a science, but a profession that serves particular social interests,
>> and
>> that continuously purges dissent from its ranks (well documentated by the
>> post-autistic economics and the heterodox economics movements) Marx may
>> have
>> been off, but they have been way way off.
>>
>> See for example the toxic textbooks initiative I mentioned yesterday.
>>
>> None other than Alan Greenspan declared:
>>
>> “This modern paradigm held sway for decades. The whole intellectual
>> edifice,
>> however, collapsed in the summer of last year."
>> Alan Greenspan, 2008
>>
>> So, whatever the value of the LTV,  I would caution any reliance on the
>> mainstream consensus.
>>
>> Similarly for Freud, of course the system is flawed, but whether that
>> means
>> I should rely on the opinions of the pharma-complex, would again be an
>> altogether different matter,
>>
>> It seems to me that the mainstream consensus, almost invariably ideology
>> in
>> social science matters, is not a reliable guide to think something is
>> 'outdated',
>>
>> Michel
>>
>> On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 6:01 AM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Franz:
>>>
>>> Based on your response, I am not sure I am any less in misunderstanding
>>> of
>>> what you are trying to say.
>>>
>>> I trust you are interested in social justice.  I trust you see the
>>> current
>>> system as unfair and believe that a fairer system is possible.
>>>
>>> Your approach to describing value, money and even labour are
>>> non-standard
>>> and, for me, esoteric in a quasi-theological sense of the term--they
>>> seem
>>> to
>>> be highly influenced by Marxian lines of thought.  I am reminded of the
>>> Frankfurt Schoo, Zizek, etc, who I will admit I find of little value.
>>>
>>> I remember little of my own reading of lengthy sections of Das Kapital,
>>> but
>>> I do remember the extensive reliance on a labor theory of value which
>>> is,
>>> to
>>> most who now review it in broader contexts, inaccurate as economics or
>>> sociology.
>>>
>>> Commodity fetishism is a social critique by Marx I have less familiarity
>>> with.  As I understand the point, Marx did not believe people were
>>> logical
>>> in their assignment of monetary values. Rather, he believed people were
>>> effectively blinded by social constructions of value.  I have not doubt
>>> both
>>> of those things are true.  Whether he could see past these things more
>>> than
>>> most, I have no idea.
>>>
>>> Different values and yet a relatively standard economic value (price) is
>>> inherently true and part of any economic analysis.  We all make
>>> different
>>> choices.  I believe Marx was of the opinion that choices could be
>>> logical
>>> and standard--along lines of the classical economists who followed him
>>> like
>>> Marshall.  As I read him once, Marx perhaps seemed headed toward a
>>> utility
>>> theory, but he did not have that insight.  He was obviously not a
>>> quantitative thinker given to insights of that sort.  Marginal utility
>>> theory followed relatively soon after his own work historically, though
>>> I
>>> do
>>> not think his work contributed to the development of marginal utility
>>> theory
>>> directly.
>>>
>>> At the level of literary criticism or Frankfurt School-styled
>>> philosophy,
>>> I
>>> find them best suited to discussions of texts rather than any practical
>>> application, but that may well be ignorance on my part.
>>>
>>> Ryan
>>>
>>>
>>> Ryan Lanham
>>> rlanham1963 at gmail.com
>>> Facebook: Ryan_Lanham
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 3:46 PM, Franz Nahrada
>>> <f.nahrada at reflex.at>wrote:
>>>
>>>> Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com> writes:
>>>> >Franz:
>>>> >
>>>> >Another countryman of yours, Ludwig Wittgenstein, said that knowledge
>>>> > is
>>>> >ultimately predicated on (reasonable) agreement.  To say that LTV is a
>>>> >"law of nature" is a sort of nihilism that leaves no possible
>>>> > rebuttal.
>>>> >You cannot have proof of this because there is mountains of evidence
>>>> >against it.  If it was meant as science (and it was) it is simply an
>>>> >error--a bad theory.  If it is normative--that is, a statement of how
>>>> >things ought to be rather than how they are (scientific), it is a
>>>> >normative theory that civilizations the world over have repeatedly
>>>> >rejected.
>>>>
>>>> Sorry, I was not prepared for that kind of misunderstanding .... the
>>>> Marx
>>>> that you have so vigorously critizised is neither normatively nor
>>>> otherwise positively related to Labour Theory of Value. He is just
>>>> saying
>>>> that in a society where there is no a priori arrangement of division of
>>>> labour actors are doomed to have the social validity of their efforts
>>>> in
>>>> the form of value. And, with the inevitability of a law of nature, the
>>>> aberration from social average productivity by what reason ever will
>>>> depreciate their labour.
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> >I've had similar discussions with many other forms of nihilistic
>>>> >fundamentalism.  You are not seeing the world through different eyes,
>>>> > you
>>>> >are simply avoiding actual discussion and open inquiry.  As I have
>>>> > said
>>>> >before, if one cannot begin with some basis of discussion (other than
>>>> >canonical acceptance of some text--be it Marx or the Gospel of St.
>>>> > Luke),
>>>> >there is really nothing to be said.
>>>>
>>>> There is no canonical acceptance of some text here but a logical step
>>>> of
>>>> thoughts. If a society treats value as an objective property of things,
>>>> something which Marx called fetishism, value can be deciphered as the
>>>> form
>>>> of their social action totally separated from their willfull influence.
>>>> Value is not money and value is not not money. Money is the form of a
>>>> content which is relational, a chaotic everlasting process (as long as
>>>> commodity production exists) for the validity of a commodity as part of
>>>> the societies labor.
>>>>
>>>> The fact that money gets a life of its own is based on that fundamental
>>>> relation.
>>>> >
>>>> >Your canon (Marx) blinds you from actual study.  Therefore to
>>>> > criticize
>>>> >others for not seeing the world through your text is irreducibly
>>>> > absurd.
>>>> >
>>>> Did I clarify your misunderstanding?
>>>>
>>>> Franz
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Working at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University -
>> http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html -
>> http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
>>
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>>
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>>
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>>
>
>
> --
>
> Marc Fawzi
> Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/people/Marc-Fawzi/605919256
> LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/marcfawzi
>

-- 

Marc Fawzi
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/people/Marc-Fawzi/605919256
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/marcfawzi