Re: Dallas Smythe student

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>]

> Let's simplify this discussion:
>
> undialectical critique of capitalism: bad
> undialectical apology for capitalism: bad
> dialectical critique of capitalism: good
> dialectical apology for capitalism: intellectually dishonest
>
> The latter proceeds by mistaking a dialectical critique for an undialectical
> critique and "correcting" it where it needs no correcting.

Tom, we can't "focus on the individual's role when discussing
solutions to the planet's problems" (as Shawna Richer says Sut Jhally
does) such as the individual's consumer choices.  That's not a
dialectical critique of capitalism.  That's more like a program of
Global Exchange, Oxfam, Simply Living, and so on.  All staffed and
supported by well-intentioned people, I'm sure, but that's ultimately
a liberal dead end.  Socialism's point is not so much to oppose
commodification as to take collective control of _what has already
been socialized through commodification_ by abolishing the private
ownership of the means of production.

Criticisms of commmodification make sense mainly when what's being
commodified, that is privatized, is _already explicitly publicly
owned or customarily in the public domain_, like air, water, electric
power, public education, public transportation, public broadcasting,
and so on.

When a housewife becomes _a wage laborer_, her labor power becomes,
well, _commodified_, but socialists don't object to that, do we?
When what used to be provided by unpaid women's labor becomes
_commodified_ -- for instance, care of the old, now often provided by
nursing homes -- should socialists bitch and mourn commodification as
such?  Or should we rather seek to turn a commodified service
provided by capitalists into a social program provided by the
government, raise wages and benefits for workers, etc.?
--
Yoshie

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