Re: Nick Cohen on Thomas Frank

[andie nachgeborenen <andie_nachgeborenen@xxxxxxxxx>]

Frank's __question_ is, why are people bring
economically irrational? The "superprofits" theory,
which I think does not fit the facts, dismisses
Frank's question rather than answering it. Which is
OK, but I'd rather see what economically irrational
elements there are that might be going on here. I
suspect on Theory of Ideology grounds, that people
actually are often economically irrational. This has
been a major theme in my own scholarly reserach and
writing, so I havea  hobbyhorse to ride. jks


--- Charles Brown <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> ________________________________
>
> andie nachgeborenen wrote:
> >
> > Charles' reference to Lenin's idea that there is a
> > labor aristocracy" that is bought off with the
> > superprofits of imperialism doesn't fit the
> "Kansas"
> > case very well, and specifically doesn'y explain
> why
> > people act against their own economic interests.
> The
> > labor aristocracy in the theory acts in its own
> > immediate economic interest.
>
>
> ^^^^^
> CB: Obviously the hypothesis that answers this is
> that the people "in
> Kansas" vote socially "conservative" and for
> imperialism because they have a
> sense that 1) "America is the richest and greatest
> country in the world, and
> they wouldn't want to live anyplace else " and 2)
> America is rich in part
> because it gets profits from its businesses in the
> rest of the world and 3)
> the people in Kansas ,though their wages and incomes
> may go down sometimes,
> are overall richer and better off than the rest of
> the world _because_ of
> the foreign policies ( political and economic) of
> the "conservative"
> politicians who the people in Kansas vote for.
>
> Otherwise , the answer to Carl's original question
> has to be something like
> "the people in Kansas are just irrational. They vote
> against their own
> economic self interests with nothing else in the
> impact of their vote
> compensating for the vote "against their interest".
> " It is more logical to
> think that the people in Kansas vote "conservative"
> because they think that
> U.S. imperialism is in their economic self-interest
> in some way ( of course
> they don't call it "imperialism")
>
> The superprofit theory was held by Engels concerning
> 19th Century Britain
> and Lenin. So, maybe they are wrong , but Engels ,
> Lenin and maybe the
> people who vote conservative in Kansas think there
> are superprofit
> mechnanisms in rich nations by which sectors of the
> working class gain
> marginal economic benefit relative to other sectors
> of the wc.
>
>
> ^^^



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