Re: rkm's manifesto

1/19/2001, Richard N Hutchinson wrote:
    > Having requested a pithy statement from Richard K. Moore,
      I feel duty-bound to respond.  Sorry for the delay.

Dear Richard H,

I appreciated your request for a statement, and I thank you
for taking the time to reply.

Yes, biological evolution was only offered as an analogy. 
The point was that qualitative changes-of-state can occur,
and from then on the rules of a game can be entirely
different.  That certainly proves nothing about geopolitical
affairs, but it provided a referent for the points I wanted
to make.  It provided a vocabulary, that is all.  That, in 
itself, does not invalidate my thesis.

You say that regimes rise and fall.  And so they have, from
time immemorial.  What I'm suggesting is that we may have
reached the end of that cycle.  I may be wrong, and would be
happy to consider counter-evidence.  But simply stating the
contrary, as an assumption, is not a rebuttal.


    >" circumstances directly found, given and transmitted from
    the past."  (Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire, 1852)

That is all well and good, but what about circumstance
directly found today?  Instead of looking at current events
in their own terms, every attempt is made on this list to
interpret them through a world-system lens.  If you want to
be scientific, you need to compare that lens to others, and
verify that it continues to model reality in an effective way.
Refusing to look through the telescope does not invalidate the 
moons of Jupiter.

cheers,
rkm

BTW> 


1/19/2001, jdc@asu.edu wrote:
    > Therefore, I would like to echo the proposition that
    members limit themselves to one post per day.  Look at it as
    an opportunity to mull over your thoughts and condense them
    into a singular, well-crafted bit of commentary that will
    not be lost in the deluge of mediocrity that is currently
    overwhelming this service.
    
Fine by me.  Goodbye for 24 hours.