Re: Mad Cows and the Market

[Seth Sandronsky <ssandron@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jan. 3

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the thanks.

Peace,
Seth

Re: Mad Cows and the Market
by Mike Ballard
31 December 2003
--- Seth Sandronsky <ssandron@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Mad Cows and the Market
> By SETH SANDRONSKY
>
>
> http://www.counterpunch.org/sandronsky12272003.html

Nice one Seth!  I especially appreciated this section:

What market ideology fogs is the social relations at
and away from the workplace that prop up the market,
while focusing on the prices of what people grow and
make for sale. A dead German termed this process
"commodity fetishism."

In his view, the focus on the market exchange of
commodities blurs the human energy that created them
in the first place. Despite humans creating the
commodity form, the former is hidden beneath the
surface of the latter due to the nature of the market.

Thus we know about the exports of U.S. beef threatened
by MCD. But we know little about immigrant Mexican
workers inside America.

They, for example, labor in the Midwest meatpacking
industry for non-union wages. There, "undocumented
laborers, kept compliant by INS raids and
surveillance, are increasingly the preferred
employees," author Christian Parenti writes in his
book Lockdown America.

In the meantime, the MCD story is unfolding, far from
over. As this history happens, a re-thinking of
markets may also occur.

***************
You finished your article by stating:

Accordingly, the market can be changed so that working
people control it instead of being controlled by it.
With that consciousness emerging, they can, slowly,
begin the necessary work to bury MCD and other
products of the market.

******************************************************

Sounds like the dreaded "dictatorship of the
proletariat" to me.  Nice to see the concept put down
so articulately.

Wobbly greetings,
Mike B)

=====
****************************************************************
"Freedom is what we make of it. If we stand
against repression, authority and illegitimate
structures, we are expanding the domain of
freedom and that's what freedom will be.
That's what we create; there is nothing to
define in words."
-- Noam Chomsky
http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal

_________________________________________________________________
Have fun customizing MSN Messenger ? learn how here!
http://www.msnmessenger-download.com/tracking/reach_customize