Profit and loss

[jbor]

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>From: "Phil Wise" <philwise at paradise.net.nz>

> In
> Prairie it probably has something to do with Zoyd'd being a "weak" father.
> I wonder how related this weakness is to that "virus" Weissmann talks about
> in GR?

The one passed on from fathers to sons which makes young men want to become
all macho and unfeeling like their fathers and go out warring and conquering
and killing one another? That cycle of infection and death which Blicero is
trying to "break out" from (722-4)? Can't really see a connection there ...

> If Vineland suggests that the participants of the 60s democratic movements
> could stay "revolutionaries" (these days mostly translated into alternative
> lifestylers) or be "turned", depending on various factors (i.e., the one
> cause can have two opposed results), why do two other historical phenomena
> that derive from the same sequence of events (i.e. democracy, laissez faire
> capitalism) have to be identical?

The comparison is a spurious one. You're trying to correlate people (let
alone that it's an interpretation of fictional characters in a novel) with
political and economic systems. I didn't say democracy and laissez faire
capitalism were "identical", I said that the latter was the archetypical
economic expression of the former. And it is.

> No, even with disingenuous snipping

What's disingenuous is your attempt to retract the comparison you made
between totalitarianism and globalisation.

> it is clear that the comparisons I am
> making are between the two examples laid out just above and the possibility
> that the move to a global free-market is underpinned by a metanarrative of
> capitalist progress - a myth of the entrapreneurial subject's rise which, if
> universalised, will lead to a free-market utopia of global growth

In other words, what you were and are asking is whether globalisation falls
into the same "totalitarian" schema as Marx's projection of the dictatorship
of the proletariat and Hitler's aspiration to Aryan supremacy and world
domination. You're doing quite a bit of "metanarrating" yourself there I
think. But the answer is obviously no, and those who suggest otherwise
(whether in question or statement form) are imo merely scare-mongering using
inflammatory rhetoric. There's neither Marxist nor Nazi ideology involved.
The objective is to rectify market distortion caused by national and
regional (eg the EU) protectionism to effect economic growth globally. The
anti-globalist protest is underpinned by a metanarrative or myth which says
that all corporations are "evil". In seeking to preserve the status quo
these protesters and their attempts to hinder the paradigm change in global
economics are in fact serving the interests of extreme conservatives and
nationalists in the developed Western nations, possibly without even
realising it.

> , which
> apparently has no need for democratic process.

What are the WTO talks if not "democratic process" at a global level?

> This is a very long way from calling George W a Nazi.  There
> are a number of points at which you could argue against this comparison, but
> you chose to portray it as a cheap rhetorical trick and ignore the concerns
> in it.

The comparison I made was between those who describe globalisation as the
onset of totalitarianism and those who call George W. Bush a Nazi. I accept
that you were merely asking whether it was feasible to suggest the
possibility that it could become something like etc etc, but it's
essentially the semantic move you were making in order (I assume) to voice
your opposition to it.

Your "concerns" were based on false comparisons and hokey history.

> if totalitarianism
> in history was faciliated by the end of the European aristocracy's influence
> (basically WW1 is a watershed here),

Well, no, this isn't right.

> then if the Nation State is nearing the
> end of its natural life,

Do Nation States have "natural" lives?

> how do we know this fissure won't lead to something
> similar?

What "fissure"?

> Why aren't we debating the question?

What question? If the question is "Is globalisation totalitarian?" then the
answer is "No".

best


p.s.
> There's a song on the famous Eminem CD in which he robs a bank, kills the
> teller, and then says "thank you!" in his cheeriest voice as he is leaving.
> I take it you'd regard that as a salutation, nothing more?

I'm not sure what these personal slurs about the way I sign off have to do
with anything.