DJP
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If anyone’s interested, his new “white paper” has now been published:
https://peterjoseph.substack.com/p/integral-white-paper-v01-released
“I can’t access this article in The Economist”. Well here’s the relevant passage:
The popular understanding of the “invisible hand” is even further off the mark. Smith borrows the phrase from Macbeth, who talks about a “bloody and invisible hand” shortly before murdering Banquo. In all his works, the economist mentions the phrase just three times, in three different contexts—and never in reference to the price mechanism. “Smith did not particularly esteem the invisible hand,” writes Emma Rothschild of Harvard University.
[…]
In fact, he often favoured the visible hand of government. He urged the state to provide education. He favoured legal caps on interest rates. Today, almost all free-market economists despise America’s Jones Act, which requires that shipping between American ports be conducted on vessels that are built, owned and largely crewed domestically. Smith, by contrast, favoured the Navigation Acts, a similar British law.Smith acknowledged the benefits of markets, but also their costs. Consider his famous pin factory. The division of labour within it allowed workers to produce thousands more pins than if they were working alone. Countries that perfected the art of dividing labour, Smith argued, would grow rich. Yet he also worried that a life spent on a few simple operations would make a labourer “as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human…to become”. Did Smith think the costs outweighed the benefits? It is hard to be sure.
“of what is it a metaphor though?”
A metaphor for a spontaneously arising order that works out for the benefit of all without anyone consciously trying.
“This forum talks about many topics, and it seems you have a limited mindset about what can or cannot be said!”
Sorry, I think you misread the tone here. The “why” was meant as an enquiry into if there was some reason for him currently coming into public significance or something like that. A request for more information.
Talk about what you like you don’t need anyone’s blessing for that…
Never heard of him. But why mention him here?
Couldn’t see any mention of transhumanism or depopulation conspiracy theories on the academic profiles – do you have reliable sources for these?
Lots of academics in the US are being targetted by far right, Zionist, or Christian fundamentalists right now.
Thanks. Interesting to know. I spent a year as a GTA marking undergrad philosophy, politics and humanities essays.
In the fields of political science and political philosophy, what Vlad Vexler says would be well known and familiar.
Sorry I can’t get the time to write a full response, that would have to be an essay in itself. I looked around and this is one of the shortest videos I could find. It’s from James Blakely who has a recent book called “Lost in Ideology”.
There’s a difference between stating a fact and giving a definition of how you will be using a word. He’s not specifically referring to any sources or quoting anyone (and this is a YouTube video not a peer-reviewed paper).
What do you teach? and at what level?
There are literally hundreds of articles and books that use “ideology” in the way he is using it. These could be described as the “cultural”, “descriptive” or “interpretive” approach. You don’t need to quote an “authoritative source” when using a word in a common way…
That you are unfamiliar with this seems self-evident.
I won’t have the time to get into any in-depth discussion of “ideology here”, but the up-to-date use of the term is something like what is outlined in this book.
https://academic.oup.com/book/768
Or in section 2 here. Vlad Vexler is using ideology in the “cultural” sense.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ideology/#MapIde
As the first sentence in that article puts it; “The uses of the word “ideology” are so divergent as to make it doubtful that there is any conceptual unity to the term.”
“A quick example, he states from 4.08 onward, that ideologies are “a collection of beliefs and images which sit in us and facilitate the negotiation of the political landscape“, this is not support by any definition of ideology and is a very questionable definition”
The only conclusion I can draw from this is you have not read *any* contemporary literature on “ideology” – the one he gives is a pretty standard.
I think you are getting confused because he is using “ideology” in the descriptive sense, rather than in the prejoritive sense, as in “false consciousness”.
“A useful take on a misused word”
Well that source is definitely not a well-respected political science journal! I question its usefulness.
And the examples they give definitely show that there definitely is some kind of family resemblance between what Trump is doing and all-out fascism, even if you don’t want to call it that.
Gabriel Rockhill co-organises a Critical Theory Summer School in Paris each year. I’m not too sure what his politics are, you could find out through here:
https://criticaltheoryworkshop.com/On a similar theme, I have this book in my reading pile: ‘The Domestication of Critical Theory’. Michael J Thompson’s other articles and books I have read have been good:
‘The Domestication of Critical Theory’ by Michael J Thompson reviewed by Neal Harris
It’s not a question of capitalism *or* oligarchy. Oligarchic power – the power of the ultra wealthy – predates capitalism and exists within it.
What’s different today is that, unlike in previous decades, the oligarchs would get politicians to govern in their behalf now oligarchic interferrnce in politics is more naked and visible.
“Some critics of the way capitalism works just want to abolish oligarchs as the super-rich. They don’t want to abolish capitalism or the ordinary rich.”
This is true – but it gives us a great way into the debate. The problem with oligarchy is that it is a kind of arbitrary power. If people have a problem with this then we can explain how capitalism creates these types of power, but on a non-personal level.
