Explaining Mass Death in the Modern Age

1. Explaining Mass Deathin the Modern Age • Joseph W.H. Lough, Ph.D. • Filosofski fakultet Tuzla • Blog: http://www.newconsensus.org/blog • Twitter: @jwhlough • email: joseph.lough@gmail.com • phone: +387 603375497

2. Review • We live (think, work, play, make love) in a materially and socially integrated, rationally systematic social formation • Our social subjectivity – including our critical social subjectivity – is shaped by, reproduces and reinforces the dominant social formation • This social formation is socially and historically specific (its universality is actual)

3. Review • This comprehensive, real, integrated rational system is what we call “capitalism”; a social formation that: • accurately measures value throughout the system in terms of abstract units of time • compels us to coordinate all our action and thought in terms of abstract value

4. Preview • What kind of “totality”? • What kind of “domination”? • What kind of “freedom”?

5. Preview • F Hayek – centralized state planning, “planning to plan” • K Polanyi – collective protection against the effects of unregulated freedom; the “double movement” • T Adorno – a social formation that generates and resolves social pathologies in ways that guarantee their reproduction

6. Preview • GWF Hegel Civil Society • the universal and the particular • the role of education • the goal of labor

7. GWF Hegel • The particular and the universal • both A Smith and GWF Hegel • accurately describe the rational totality composed by the market • reflect on the insufficiency of markets (A Smith, Th. of M. Sent.)

8. GWF Hegel • The particular and the universal • only GWF Hegel explores the central role that power and knowledge play shaping one another . . . in order to avoid the excesses of unregulated self-interest

9. GWF Hegel • The particular and the universal • what would happen if all of us actually did pursue only our self-interests? • what role does the market play in mediating and moderating self-interest?

10. GWF Hegel • The particular and the universal • what must I do in order to return from the market “a success”? • GWF Hegel: I must take the interests of “the other” into consideration when marketing my “good”

11. GWF Hegel • The particular and the universal • I must step outside of my own particularity

12. GWF Hegel • The particular and the universal • but the global market consists of an infinite number of relationships among particularities • how can I grasp the interests of the whole?

13. GWF Hegel • What is “the whole” that I grasp when I appreciate its comprehensive, rational integration of all particularity? • From what vantage-point can I appreciate this “whole”?

14. GWF Hegel • The goal of labor is to free the human being from the domination of necessity • Mechanisation frees human beings to pursue more humane arts and sciences

15. Hayek & Polanyi • Beginning at the End • how do prices mediate social relations? • what are interventions into the market? • what are market distortions? • why are they socially and politically disruptive?

16. Hayek & Polanyi • Beginning at the End • what role does the Rule of Law play in the smooth functioning of markets? • why might “democratic” intervention in markets prove disruptive? • why might local, particular intererests prove disruptive to markets?

17. Hayek & Polanyi • Beginning at the End • when F Hayek objects to rule by committee or by fiat, are his concerns valid? • would F Hayek approve of government without public intervention, only in accordance to a system of rules?

18. Hayek & Polanyi • Beginning at the End • was the mediation of social relations by self-regulating markets historically “inevitable”? • was the mediation of social relations by self-regulating markets “natural”? • to what do we owe the “naturalization” and “normalization” of the rule by markets?

19. Hayek & Polanyi • P Bourdieu introduces us to two useful concepts: • habitude and hence habitus • meconnaissance

20. Hayek & Polanyi • How does F Hayek’s account of the Road to Serfdom illustrate his (and our) habitus? • How does F Hayek’s account of the Road to Serfdom illustrate meconnaissance?

21. Hayek & Polanyi • By what is the totality about which F Hayek warns us composed? • Against what does F Hayek wish to protect the self-regulating market? • Who (or what) is the “free” agent in F Hayek’s account?

22. Hayek & Polanyi • According to K Polanyi, what or who mediates social relations prior to the intervention of the state in the 15th and 16th centuries? • In what way were the absolute monarchs of the 17th century revolutionaries?

23. Hayek & Polanyi • How are the peasant revolts (from the 16th c. forwards) “reactionary”? • How is the violent suppression of popular unrest (from the 16th c. forwards) “progressive”?

24. Hayek & Polanyi • Under early capitalism, who came to the aid of the peasants? • When did monarchs and prelates shift their focus from protecting society to controling and exploiting society?

25. Hayek & Polanyi • Can you name any instances in the 20th century when “the public” rebelled against self-regulating markets? • Can you name any instances when “the government” intervened to quell public unrest by satisfying their interests?

26. Hayek & Polanyi • For F Hayek, is there any difference between democratic and non-democratic government? • Which, for F Hayek, is more important: the Rule of Law, or democracy?

27. Hayek & Polanyi • From F Hayek’s vantage-point, what is the cause and primary quality of 20th century totalitarianism? • From K Polanyi’s vantage-point, what is the cause and primary quality of 20th century totalitarianism?

28. Preview • 17:00-18:30 today; an airing and discussion of Lutz Hachmeister & Michael Kloft’s “Goebbels Experiment” • Next Wednesday • if capitalism lays at the root of genocide and totalitarianism; and • if capitalism survives the war; then • how might we grasp the social psychology of social actors in the post-war epoch?