Re: [Pen-l] Literary criticism and economics [was: It's the metonymy, stupid!]

[Sandwichman <lumpoflabor@xxxxxxxxx>]

Mirable dictu! So it turns out that you and I actually agree, Jim. What you disagree with is a distortion of my position ("as Tom seems to do"). You reject economic growth as a normative concept. I reject economic growth as a normative concept. You agree with my position that rejecting economic growth as a useful concept only makes sense if there is an alternative concept to do the work previously done (however badly) by the concept of economic growth. 

Where we may differ is that I maintain there is indeed such an alternative but that it makes no sense to stipulate that the alternative can only be justified *from the perspective of economic growth as a normative concept*. In other words, the alternative stands on its own feet. It is in no way subordinate to the concept of economic growth or its constituent parts. That would be like having to justify the Copernican system *in terms of* the Ptolemaic one. Both impossible and absurd. So although economic growth may have been a useful but flawed concept for describing some aspects of the world, it is *not* a useful concept for evaluating the suitability of a replacement. On the contrary, it is a toxic concept for the latter purpose.

Now if only you would stop arguing against what I "seem" (to you) to say (and thereby misrepresenting my position) and confine your response to what I actually write, there would be no cause for irritation. For example, nowhere in my last message did I say anything about literary critics as a group being more ecologically aware than economists. I wrote only about Kenneth Burke's prescience. Generalizing from that particular is a non sequitur. 

By the way, for the record your parenthetical remark was in an on-list message.

On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 9:41 AM, Jim Devine <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Seemingly in response to a parenthetical remark of mine ... in an off-list message to him,

My bottom line: rejecting "economic growth" as a concept that's useful
for describing the world (as Tom seems to do) only makes sense if
there's some sort of alternative conception ("myth" if you will) to
replace it. Ptolemaic astronomy was bogus, yes, but it made sense to
reject it only when Copernican astronomy was available. After all,
Ptolemaic astronomy served some useful purposes, even if it was
relatively cumbersome in its formulations.

(As noted above, I reject "economic growth" as a normative concept.)
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-- 
Sandwichman
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