capitalism:magic word (fwd)

WSN, 

emphasis on "mode of production" does not make oneself ipso facto orthodox
marxist. first of all, we have to get rid of this obsession. moreover,
being an unorthodox marxist does not guarantee marxism too (simple example
is althusser's rigid structural determinism). mode of production is a
"social relationship", like a "market" is, not an abstract or 
transhistorical
phenomenon.we repeated this hundred times. one can not talk about
capitalism, class, or any SYSTEM, etc., without taking into consideration
time and history factor. nobody in this list argued that capitalism was a
"magic word", so i do not understand the intention of Kohler's critique.
Marx did not define capitalism purely abstractly, nor any self-conscious
marxist (feminist too) in this list. he talked about "force", "history",
"private property", "division of labor", and all the other things that are
essentially "social", not "natural" (just like gender, race, patriarchy,
household, etc..). what we can *appreciate* is that feudalism, capitalism,
socialism are useful "analytical constructs" to define the features of any
historically "contingent" system we are talking about. however, these
categories themselves are "defined" and "limited" by social relationships,
which in return change and shape the course of historical events. they are
open to contingency, intervention and historical probability. othodox
marxist totally rejected this possibility by leaving the material forces
develop "naturally" untill they brought about socialism. thus, they
neglected the role of historical contingency. if orthodox marxists misused
or misinterpreted Marx, that is their fault; it does not mean that we
have to get rid of these categories. it means that we need to work with
these categories in order to get the BEST out of Marx, and see what we can
further develop from that. while doing this, of course, we have to be
careful about not "reifying" the "world system" (I guess Andy hinted
this). system , too, is a social product, and thus can not be abstracted
from social relations, class dynamics and capitalism.   

if Kohler means by "magic word" that we are attributing every problem to
capitalism, THAT IS TRUE. Capitalism, as a social system, not only a
mode of producton, is the responsible agent of inequality, sexism, racism
and lack of democracy in the world.
 
merci Ahmet, 

Mine 

>Thanks for Kohler's help. 
>When I have looked the qutation from Frank and teh
>questions Mine Doyran asks to Frank I have seen that
>the discussion ground shifts to another way which I
>was not intend. It is, of course a very useful debate
>and has a huge importance. But I meant the term
>capitalism as such helps us to understand today's
>realities on the one hand, but many realities of today
>is hidden by the term itself on the other. In short, I
>want to discuss the place and role of the term
>capitalism within today's ( current dynamics of the
>world system, the real components of today's visible
>realities) context.
>Maybe my following impressions can help us to connect
>these two discussion ground: Yes, I believe that we
>have an economistic interpretation of capitalism. I
>know that this term has political,cultural ext.
>dimensions,but I mean that we overemphasize the
>economic one. But, on the other hand I find the
>positions of Wallerstein and Frank wrong: They use
>concepts such as waged labor very rarely. Even Frank
>find it wrong to use the concept of mode of production
 >( I have just learned this from the qutation Kohler
>sent). I think there is something called capitalist
>mode of production,I think the acceleration of
>technological change ( one of the most influential
>facts of our era) is very close relationship with this
>mode of production, the two basic element of this mode
>of production ( waged labor and competition) account
>for the major part of the high living standarts of
>millions of people in today's world..Wallerstein says
>up to now there were and are always 15 percent who
>live well and exploits,and there were and are always
>85 percent who live bad and exploited. I think the
>number of this 15 percent today and their living
>standarts cannot be attributed only demographic and
>technological factors which are, lets say,
>system-neutral.  

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