[PEN-L:1844] Fwd: Re: Fwd: Re: Re: Redutio ad Absurdum boundary="part0_914354916_boundary"

[Nativejmc@xxxxxxx]

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To Jim Devine's reposne I have to agree. There is a real danger in
trivializing the most horrible with analogy overreach or fallcy of "proof" by
analogy. On the other hand, Auschwitz was an inexorable result--not a
beginning--of a system of twisted logic, imperatives, interests and power
structures that progressively unfolded from post WWI--and even before--on.

The captured SS document does indeed embody the cold and sterile and inhuman
kinds of "calculus of rationality, optimality, efficiency, general
equilibrium--order"-- and hypothetico deductivism quite common in marginalism
and neoclassical tracts. Further the trite disctinction between "normative"
and "positive" as well as the sterile models was also being alluded to.

But the point is very well taken; false analogies or overreach can indeed
trivialize the most montrous and put them on the plane of the comonplace. But
then let's take the principle one more step: not to see clear parallels or
analogies--e.g. the one and only one true Holocaust or the one and one only
true victims concept--also trivializes the commonly known/referred to
Holocaust along with the commonly known/referred to victims and not commonly
known/not commonly referred to victims.

On one more note, the foundations--legal, social, moral, economic, political,
cultural--of fascism in Germany as well as every other known past and present
case of fascism are progressively laid well before the full asumption of State
power by fascists. Typically those laying the foundations do so under banners
of "conservativism", let markets do what markets do (at the level of rhetoric
only) and the core principles of the Bruning, Von Pappen and Von Schleicher
regimes that were instrumental in laying the foundations of fascism in Germany
presented the rhetoric of capitalist-driven efficiency with which most
neoclassicals would have had no problem rationalizing at the theoretical
level.

But the comment and exception of Jim Devine remains important and very
necessary. Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa for any overreach on mym part or for
not making the extent of any analogy clear.

Jim Craven

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Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1998 09:25:22 -0800
To: pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: Jim Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: [PEN-L:1839] Re: Fwd: Re: Re: Redutio ad Absurdum
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Jim Craven writes: >The reason I see Auschwitz as an inexorable
metaphor/expression of
>libertarianism is on the plane of the sterile, cold, calculating, selfish
>calculus of maximization, "optimality", "efficiency" dog-eat-dog and rat-race
>individualism embodied in the libertarian perspective coupled with the de
jure
>illusions of  market-driving "choice" hiding the tyrrany and brutality of
>market-based de facto realities and consequences on the many in service of
the
>profits/power of the few.

I for one am really tired of Nazi analogies, like one that showed up awhile
back on pen-l comparing (now exiting) California Governor Pete Wilson to
the Nazis. Sure he's a horrible person and probably deserves to be forced
to live in Pelican Bay (one of the prisons he built) for a month or more to
see what he hath wrought. But he's no Nazi. (I bring up that analogy in
hopes that I don't have to repeat my arguments from a previous thread.)

The problem with the overused Nazi analogy is not only the fallacy of
argument by analogy (i.e., that saying that Wilson is like the Nazis
ignores the way in which Wilson is _not_ like the Nazis).  It's also that
the excessive use of the Nazi analogy slowly but surely undermines the
horror of the Nazis and their rule. I can imagine someone thinking: oh, the
Nazis must not have been so bad, if they're only as bad as Pete Wilson.
(Similarly, when a young man "cops a feel" of his date's breast, calling it
"date rape" threatens to undermine the meaning of rape.) We should try to
avoid excess rhetoric.

Getting back to the issue of false analogies as applied to the comparison
between markets and Auschwitz, there's a clear difference between the two,
summarized by Marx's phrase "commodity fetishism."  An explicit despotism
like Auschwitz lacks it. The market -- commodity production -- hides the
class despotism (the monopolization of the means of production and
subsistence by a small minority of the population, so that the majority has
little choice but to work for the minority, producing surplus value).
People living in a "market system" usually see it as a "natural" process
and suffer from what Marx termed "the illusions created by competition"
(which is basically the same as com. fet.), concluding that rent is
produced by land or the scarcity of a resource, interest is a reward for
the deferment of enjoyment ("waiting" or time preference), and profits is
the reward for risk-taking and entrepreneurship. They don't see these
incomes as being parts of surplus value and as resulting from class
despotism. The market usually hides the human responsibility for what's
going on and for the creation of class inequality, blaming inhuman forces
such as technology.

On the other hand, the death camp's social relations are very transparent
to the participants.

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx &
http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/jdevine.html


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