[PEN-L:11668] Re: wojtek

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>> Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol@xxxxxxx> 09/24/99 01:17PM >>>
At 11:11 AM 9/24/99 -0400, Charles Brown wrote:
>The problem with Wojtek's proposal below is that it is anti-dialectical:
he reverses the priority of the whole over the part. One MUST start with
the largest "unit", the whole system. You must, despite the difficulty of
it, start with " the world system". This error taken to its typical
bourgeois level places the "unit" at the level of the individual, and then
it derives the characteristics of the group or the "social" from the
individual. Thus, capitalism is explained by the "rational man(sic)" who is
an individual, Robinson Crusoe.
>
>This is an error of Cartesianism.


Charles, with all due respect, i disagree.  I lean toward philosophical
nominalism and tend to view 'wholes' as nothing but figments of human
imagination, platonic ideas imbued with 'real' existence - or a way of
interpreting the world, if you will.

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Charles: Wojtek, respectfully, couldn't the same thing be said about your "units" ? Afterall, they are whole or totalities too. Just at a "lower" level. How do we know that you do not arrive at your units by a platonic process ?
Basically your approach assumes disorder above the level of your unit except as the result of the interaction of your "units".

But in this case, surely there is reason to think of a system between Europe, Africa, West Asia and China before the travel to the Americas, and then including Americas too after the contact.

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Wojtek:
More precisely, a 'whole' can be either a product of assembling and
aggregating individual units of analysis in a partricular way (e.g.
statistical sample), or something that has a 'real existence' (e.g. an
assembly of individuals forming an organization).  Thus, it is of key
importance to distinguish between the 'whole ' as contsructed by the
researcher, and the 'whole' as existing independently of the researcher's
cognitive processes, existing in the objects being studied.

For example, neo-classical economists do not make that distinction.  They
assume that the form or rationality that guides their research (e.g. utlity
maximisation) is also the form of rationality that guides human behavior
they study.  In other words, they tend to belive that all human actors know
what the nc researches do.  based on that, they describe the "whole" (i.e.
equilibrium, which is a property of the system of exchange i.e. a whole) by
simply agregating those individual rationalities which are reflections of
their own rationality. That is why, imho, nc economics is pure science
fiction incapable of predicting a single fact.

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Charles: I don't think the neo-classical error is in positing the possibility of an equilibrium from the standpoint of the whole, but rather they commit an EMPIRCIAL error ( of all things here) in claiming that the equilibrium is an essential characterisitic of the whole. In other words, they see all change in the system as circular. But the system can break out of the equilibrium and make a qualitatively new whole.

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If we start with "naturally" existing wholes - i.e. social assemblies that
exist in the minds and behavior of people who form them, not just in the
mind of the researcher - we came closer to empirical science than to
tautologies of th enc variety.  For example, in a particular historical
setting, certain units of production may operate in a "capitalist" mode
(i.e. employing wage labor to produce commodities for exchange, profit
maximizing, accumulating, etc.) whereas other do not (for example, peasant
households, artisan shops, etc.).  Does that mean that the "whole" i.e.
entire nation-state where both kinds of units exist is capitalist or
non-capitalist?  Of course, the decision is arbitrary, a typical
"half-full, half-empty" dilemma, and thus subject to ideological
interpretations.

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Charles: The first question is : what is in fact happening ? is it a mixture of two modes of production ? It is not important that it be designated as one or the other. It is important to determine where it is going. It is probably moving toward predominantly and completely capitalist.  But in the case of capitalism, I think the important whole to consider is the whole globe. Capitalism is the first system that is reuniting the whole human race in one whole, since probably we humans broke out of Africa, what , 2,000,000 years ago ?  The biggest whole now is the whole globe and the whole human species. It is not an exaggeration to say that the socialization of labor is global now.  This was starting at the beginning of capitalism, as can be glimpsed from Engels and Marx's _Manifesto of the Communist Party_. As you may guess, I am not saying this is an absolutely "good" thing, but it is empirically accurate.

999999999

Wojtek:
If, on the other hand, we focus on individual units of production (instead
of nation states or even larger wholes) as the unit or analysis - we avoid
that arbitrariness, and may actually learn something about the nature of
capitalist institutions, instead of assuming that a priori, by definition.

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Charles: I must say , I don't see how you avoid an abitrariness problem at the level of selecting your unit. I recall well this problem in studying anthropology when we were trying to decide how to draw boundaries around cultures or groups.  Selecting the part can be just as arbitrary as selecting the whole.

I mean the point on a production unit is that , today, production is so social, the division of labor so complex, calling it global is almost not an exaggeration. So, a factory, a production unit, has connections all across the globe, etc.

CB