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List:       freenet-philosophy
Subject:    [Freenet-philosophy] Addendum!!Re: the 'solution' of anarchism...
From:       Jonathan Broad <jonathan.broad () doit ! wisc ! edu>
Date:       2000-07-28 19:20:49
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Sorry about not completing my email before sending it.  It's hard to do
philosophy and pretend to work at the same time.  Here's the rest

>transformation of the prevailing social relations of production. I'm
>inclined to think that globalizing, 'advanced' capitalism is the enemy to
>Freenet. Really, the 'free-market' ideologizes its success as a kind of
>anarchism (which, of course, is absurd), and we've seen where that leads:
>massive centralizatiion of network control. Above all else, don't let your
>'anarchism' be informed by the destructive myth of the Hidden Hand. In this

You use words too broadly.  Foucault teaches us to look at words the same
way we look at museums: as artifacts.  But, unlike museum artifacts, words
are used and words change.  The formations you speak of might have been
more true when Foucault wrote them, but what he was really advocating was a
style of inquiry that necessitates a creative use of terms.  In my opinion,
although I understand and agree with his message(s), I don't think he lived
up to it/them (he had moments of brilliant prose, but they required too
much knowledge of the history of philosophy and social theory to be really
effective).  

So, from my perspective, when you say 'free-market', well--I don't really
know what you're saying, but I imagine its along the lines of a free-market
'libertarian'.  I don't want to fire up the flame-throwers here, but that
kind of anarchism is a minority strain in the discourse (some wouldn't call
it anarchism at all, since in presupposes the persistence of a minimal
state to protect property rights).  I've always been of the opinion that
libertarians should study the history of early nineteenth-century Britain
more closely to see what would come of their theory, but YMMV.

Now, there's a difference between 'free-market' and a free market which
your language obscures.  One is a fairly specific term in the institutional
discourse of economics and politics.  But the latter could describe quite a
wide variety of concrete ways of exchanging goods and services and which
doesn't entail a specific political regime.  I am an advocate of free
markets where they are appropriate, that is, where their benefits outweigh
their problems and where it is ethically sound to encourage them.
Sometimes it's silly to compete.  Still, the 'Hidden Hand' does work, it is
a proven, specific effect of a certain kind of organization.  Don't blame
all markets if Capitalism typically nullifies most of these benefits by its
overly-abstract definition of property.

 
cordially,

jb


Jonathan Broad---
jonathan@relativepath.org

Drawing on my fine command of the English language I said nothing.
---Robert Benchley

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