As opposed to what I read, which is fast paced and totally gripping… *sigh*

Nothing I’ve read recently could be called either.

Except the newest Harry Potter. That was both. Ron dies, by the way.

Just kidding about Ron.

Deadwood, now that’s exciting and gripping. I don’t read it though, I watch it on TV.

Seriously though, Ron dies. It’s very sad. Also very impressive on Rowling’s part, killing off a major character like that.

I still read that other stuff. I have many hobbies.

The deeds I’m involved in aren’t what I want to blog about. First off cuz they’re often slow paced and not very gripping, and second because some of them are connected to workplace organizing which is not yet public so that if I talk much about it folk could possibly get fired. Third off cuz this blog is mostly designed to help me jot down notes about what I’ve been reading lately, to get my brainjuices flowing a bit more than they would otherwise.

take care,
Nate

I think there are good grounds for arresting the entire faculty of Steinford (maybe the Biffs and Bunnies too): they Steinfordians are sort of the Cali vichy to the UC apparatchiks (with more than a few real nazis out in the sticks): and I don’t think one has to be some wild-eyed marxist to understand that. What happened to Nate the appreciative reader of Malatesta, Bakunin, Makhno? (Makhno not my fave, but interesting and tragic figure). The Deed as well as the Idea, comrade.

I think there are good grounds for arresting the entire faculty of Steinford (maybe the Biffs and Bunnies too): they Steinfordians are sort of the Cali vichy to the UC apparatchiks (with more than a few real nazis out in the sticks): and I don’t think one has to be some wild-eyed marxist to understand that. What happened to Nate the appreciative reader of Malatesta, Bakunin, Makhno? (Makhno not my fave, but interesting and tragic figure). The Deed as well as the Idea, comrade.

I have Rorty’s “The Linguistic Turn” (written a bit before his Pragmatic Turn), and it’s a nice collection of …gasp….analytical and language-related essays. Rorty was sort of a Carnapian early on, and I am one who still finds Carnapian ideas sort of interesting and applicable (as well as physicalist and secularist to the core), even if the “anti-normative” aspects of his writing might offend some PoMo’s. RC’s politics were quite progressive as well, supposedly, and he was not as snooty and conservative as most of the positivists.

ps- on a different matter entirely, you read much Rorty? I imagine you won’t agree with some of his main axes he likes to grind, but I think he’s a skilled writer and argue-er. I just got his Philosophical Papers v4, I haven’t read the first third but the latter two sections are quite good.

Also, FWIW for Marx ’socially necessary labor’ isn’t the labor that’s … necessary for producing a society. It’s the remunerated labor against which surplus value is measured. The capitalist wants to reduce (what counts as) that labor by cutting wages/making work unpaid/making labor more productive so as to get a higher product to wages cost ratio etc.

I will say that I recognize that greater unionization in one sector may well raise costs to consumers of products from that sector, which is a genuine difficulty that has to be navigated and is why support for organizing across unions and sectors is important. The thing is, it’s not the unions but the bosses that do that, pass that cost along in order to maintain profits. In the longterm eliminating bosses (the social position of bosses) will eliminate that happening. In the short term, it’s all a matter of power really. The janitors have decent pay because they organized and they fought their employers and they won. It’s management that decides pay and conditions and benefits, with the collective power of labor being something that shapes that decision-making process. If management’s paying the teachers poorly the fault is management’s, not the fault of the janitors who fought to make management pay them better.

take it easy,
Nate

OK, Sir. Well-stated, yet that has happened to a large extent, at least in California. Custodians for instance have a large and powerful union. In some school districts the custodians, maintenance, etc. are earning at least as much as teachers and admins. And teachers, or new teachers are struggling. Another complex situation (”stratified,” I guess), but I wager some people might take issue with custodians making the same as educators (or nurses paid the same as doctors). This relates back to that noble marxist concept of “socially necessary labor.” The math teacher’s work, I assert, produces more social value than does the custodian’s work, however bleak that might sound. Building good bridges, or even good computer programs requires more real work, intellectual speaking, than does cleaning the bathrooms or cooking the burgers at Squeaky Fromme HS. So some type of compensation or meritocracy system would seem to be required (and it was with soviets as well: engineers had nice dachas or better cars compared to assemblers, etc.). Complete egalitarianism seems more maoist than marxist; implementing that sort of maoist communism cost millions of lives, however admirable the comrades’ intentions were. Regardless I agree, that capitalists should pay in a sense, but would limit that to upper-middle class and very wealthy. But that “retaliation” could be enacted via radical reforms, sort of economic distribution laws, instead of, well, riots: it’s just that few have the spine to say hold a gat to Harry Reid and Co……….