From: rakeshb@STANFORD.EDU
Date: Tue Apr 29 2003 - 13:03:27 EDT
Michael, It seems that we are condemned to speak past each other; I never did understand exactly why you believe the Cartesian legacy impoverished Marx's work. As for the new set of concerns: 1. digital technology raises many social and cultural questions and there is no question that it has led to productivity improvement; the question however was whether the assimilation of digital technology would raise the rate of productivity growth and whether its impact would be comparable to or exceed that of the electrication of the economy (as Paul David famously argued). Anecdotal evidence is not the best way to approach those questions. 2. the pointing not only to the actual existence of psycho-technics but also to their real effects does not impose manichean divisions on the world. As pointed out by Schumpeter whose dynamic vision of the capitalist system seems more consonant with yours than Marx's, "the neoclassical economic vision of the consumer may lead one to believe falsely that new wants arise spontaneously in consumers and then the productive apparatus swings through their pressure." " But as a rule the producer initiates economic change and consumers are educated by him if necessary. They are taught to want new things. At any rate, railroads did not emerge because consumers took the initiative in displaying an effective demand for their services in preference to the services of mail coaches. Nor did the consumer display any such initiative wish to have electric lamps or rayon stockings, or to travel by motorcar or airplane, or to listen to radios, or to chew gum. There is obviously no lack of realism in the proposition that the great majority of changes in commodities consumed have been forced by producers on consumers who, more often than not, have resisted the change and have had to be educated up by elaborate psychotechnics of advertising." Of course the very elitism which had Schumpeter locate dynamics in the mythic personality of the heroic entrepreneur shows here in his portrayal of the passive consumer. But as Nathan Rosenberg underlines there is indeed a successful assault here on the sanctum sanctorum of the neo classical citadel: the commitments to the exogeneity of consumer preferences and the associated virtues of consumer sovereignty. 3. It does seem to me that you had misquoted Arrighi seemingly in order to set the stage for the expression of your disgust at the culture of contemporary Germany. At any rate, it does not seem to me that you explain why Asian central banks seem to be willing to make less of a return on their dollar assets than American investors are making on their foreign investments. By the way, I do not to think that peace chains are an expression of the fundamental cultural sickness of any society, but then perhaps I am not as impressed by Ernst Junger as you are. Rakesh
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