3 ms·

What is the point of this article? I don't have anything to do before the grocery store opens, so I gave it a full chance, and after the end I'm still really st

What is the point of this article? I don't have anything to do before the grocery store opens, so I gave it a full chance, and after the end I'm still really struggling to identify what the author is trying to do here. Is this an extended argument that people should avoid calling things "feudal" as a rhetorical strategy?

starkd 5y ago
It's almost like the writer exists in a very restricted echo chamber. I have trouble relating to it.
- barbecue_sauce 5y ago
  I mean, the New Left Review is an academic journal. The author is probably an academic rooted in the Marxist/Marxian strain of western philosophy and thus communicating through the appropriate vernacular of the discipline.
- mkr-hn 5y ago
  I'm pretty far to the left and have never heard of this publication. I get the feeling it's suffering the same phenomenon as movie reviews where professional critics are increasingly distant from people who watch movies for fun. People can now get their movie recs and political advocacy from people they mesh with across the world without consulting the cathedral.
paganel 5y ago
There are some of us who are interested in this type of subject, for example I do happen to have read books written by several of the authors mentioned in this article during the past year or so (in my case that's true for Mazzucato, Perry Anderson, Immanuel Wallerstein and I did try to put my hands on Brenner's Merchants and Revolution [1] but I was too lazy). The transition from feudalism to capitalism is a very interesting subject, even the discussion itself of said transition makes for an exciting piece of late 20th century (in fact the 1970s-1980s, to be fair) intellectual history. Back to the article itself (which, I admit, I hadn't finished reading until checking the comments in here), I would have personally also added a quick mention about the Asiatic mode of production [2], but seeing as I'm not a specialist on this maybe I'm talking bs. More generally speaking I fully admit that this type of discussions can be quite boring for those with no prior interest in them. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Merchants-Revolution-Commercial-Political-1550-1653/dp/1859843336 https://www.amazon.com/Merchants-Revolution-Commercial-Polit... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiatic_mode_of_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiatic_mode_of_production
zozbot234 5y ago
If I had to guess, I'd say they're trying to point out that, yes, technology-powered late-stage capitalism may well share some features with pre-capitalist modes of production but this does not equate to a full return to a feudalist mode, and that processes already inherent to capitalism itself-- such as capital concentration and centralization driven by the tendency of the rate of profit to fall-- are still very relevant. It's hard to say because the whole distinction is pretty artificial.

starkd 5y ago

It's almost like the writer exists in a very restricted echo chamber. I have trouble relating to it.

barbecue_sauce 5y ago
I mean, the New Left Review is an academic journal. The author is probably an academic rooted in the Marxist/Marxian strain of western philosophy and thus communicating through the appropriate vernacular of the discipline.
mkr-hn 5y ago
I'm pretty far to the left and have never heard of this publication. I get the feeling it's suffering the same phenomenon as movie reviews where professional critics are increasingly distant from people who watch movies for fun. People can now get their movie recs and political advocacy from people they mesh with across the world without consulting the cathedral.

paganel 5y ago

There are some of us who are interested in this type of subject, for example I do happen to have read books written by several of the authors mentioned in this article during the past year or so (in my case that's true for Mazzucato, Perry Anderson, Immanuel Wallerstein and I did try to put my hands on Brenner's Merchants and Revolution [1] but I was too lazy). The transition from feudalism to capitalism is a very interesting subject, even the discussion itself of said transition makes for an exciting piece of late 20th century (in fact the 1970s-1980s, to be fair) intellectual history. Back to the article itself (which, I admit, I hadn't finished reading until checking the comments in here), I would have personally also added a quick mention about the Asiatic mode of production [2], but seeing as I'm not a specialist on this maybe I'm talking bs. More generally speaking I fully admit that this type of discussions can be quite boring for those with no prior interest in them. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Merchants-Revolution-Commercial-Political-1550-1653/dp/1859843336 https://www.amazon.com/Merchants-Revolution-Commercial-Polit... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiatic_mode_of_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiatic_mode_of_production

zozbot234 5y ago

If I had to guess, I'd say they're trying to point out that, yes, technology-powered late-stage capitalism may well share some features with pre-capitalist modes of production but this does not equate to a full return to a feudalist mode, and that processes already inherent to capitalism itself-- such as capital concentration and centralization driven by the tendency of the rate of profit to fall-- are still very relevant. It's hard to say because the whole distinction is pretty artificial.