"Capital is above all objectionable because it is boring".
This sounds like something Oscar Wilde might have said: clever and amusing
but not very penetrating. I agree that it trivializes what is at stake.
"Above all"? In a sense, capital is hardly boring if one considers the
damage it inflicts on human lives and the environment. Is a tornado or an
earthquake boring because it's just about the weather or geological
phenomena?
Gary
-----Original Message-----
From: gerald_a_levy [SMTP:gerald_a_levy@msn.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 17, 2002 7:22 AM
To: ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu
Subject: [OPE-L:7002] a boring question (for John H and others)
Re John H's [6877]:
> I think my answer would be that it is impossible to take "love" into
> economic discourse, precisely because, as Jerry points out, the
categories
> of economics ("Marxist" or otherwise) - value, capital, money etc - are
> constructed on the negation of love.
I cam across the following (odd) quote that I think connects with what
you've written about recently but am not clear whether you (or others)
would agree with:
Harry Cleever wrote that:
"Capital is above all objectionable because it is boring".
Even if we grant the idea that "capital is boring" (in the sense that
capital seeks to reproduce boring lives, i.e. that it posits the
production
and actualization of surplus value, the accumulation of capital, and the
reproduction of capitalist relations as the sole purpose of life), is
_this_
the reason why "capital is above all objectionable"?
It seems to me that as a *political slogan* (which, evidently, at least
one other person -- not Harry -- has turned it into), it misses the mark
and runs the risk of trivializing struggles against capital as struggles
against boredom. As a *conclusion* of a *critique* of capital, is it valid
or is it misleading? What do others think?
In solidarity, Jerry
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