Brian Holmes on Sat, 10 Dec 2011 12:31:06 +0100 (CET) |
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Re: <nettime> Debt Campaign Launch |
Ed, you get the prize for the most considered, long-ranging reflection ever performed around a set of nettime posts! Plus I would like to point out in your favor that the Monopoly sector exists, despite the supposed magic of the marketplace, and that yes, indeed, the absence of competition like the absence of passion or solidarity or love of the underdog, breeds a long blank stare. I have recently (that is, 2 months ago) begun reading James O'Connor's Fiscal Crisis of the State, which is a lot about the Monopoly sector in postwar capitalism, and the book is so goddam interesting that I can only read a chapter at a time and then let it percolate for weeks. OK, of course monopoly is more accurately dubbed oligopoly as you point out, but the end result is the same: price-fixing among the dominant forces, and barriers against the entry of anyone else into a given sector. O'Connor's brilliant insight is that the State mirrors the monopoly sector to the extent that the upper bureaucrats in the state demand the same kinds of wages. And so they create the same kinds of distortions and sinecures. All that is left - the crumbs plus lots of unemployment - goes under the third rubric of, get this, the Competitive sector, which despite Milton Friedman and Arnold Schwarzenneger and all the other neoliberals, is actually the crap end of the economy, where capitalism is expressed as disposable people and immiseration. For the majority, of course. The University is a well-oiled machine precisely to the extent that it exploits these bloated possibilities of State Monopoly Capitalism, you are right and I stand corrected if ever I implied that competition was the driving force (which is of course what neoliberal ideology claimed, totally falsely and with naked self-interest). In fact, organized expropriation is the driving force. In the case of the University of California, what are the big sectors? Defence obviously: pure monopoly capital. Biotech: speculative capital oiled by huge state contributions that are supposed to ensure that the US will be leader of an industry which has largely been "profitable" because of the subsidy itself (the first chapter of Melanie Cooper's "Life As Surplus" is excellent on biotech). Then you have the medical schools: I dunno how much the state contributes there, but basically all rich people contribute to medicine so it's billionaire city, plus the monopoly-sector insurance companies love expensive medicine, what better excuse for charging a fortune? Which is why the sons and daughters of the middle classes are always advised to go into medicine, because a doddering bureaucratic sugar daddy is easier to find there. But finally, what is the biggest, fattest, most egregiously profitable sector of the University for any professional rent-seeker looking to cream off, say, a million dollar salary? Football, of course. Just coach it. To refer back to the title of this thread, why exactly should people reimburse their loans to these Monopolists? What exactly is their moral obligation to Justice and Equality before the Lord God of Almighty Debt? Well, I just don't know. all the best, Brian On 12/09/2011 03:46 PM, Ed Phillips wrote:
I've been chewing over and ruminating on this conversation and on some of the posts that Brian Holmes linked to from another list, and I'm asking myself what some of the broad themes are and what kind of idiosyncratic foray I might make that could add to the conversation.
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