Comments on: Capitalonormativity

By: vitia » Blog Archive » An Ugly Metaphor

vitia » Blog Archive » An Ugly Metaphor — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 04:26:41 +0000

[...] The value of each of those forms of work is somehow appropriated, and appropriated — according to Gibson-Graham and Resnick and Wolff — by different parties at different points in the progression from production to distribution. At the point of production, value can be appropriated in slave relations wherein the producer has no control over the conditions under which he produces (slave labor; the work of intellectuals under Stalin), feudal relations, market relations (you publish an article in order to put it on your cv and be promotable), gift relations, independent relations (you appropriate the value of your own labor), and others. I don’t have a sufficient grasp on rhetoric and the economics of distribution to be able to talk about those practices of appropriation here, but folks like Jim Ridolfo and Amy Robillard are doing smart and admirable work in that area. [...]

By: mike

mike — Tue, 23 Aug 2005 18:50:55 +0000

I love the Brandt book, and would highly recommend Elspeth Stuckey’s The Violence of Literacy as a companion volume, and Bruce Horner’s Terms of Work for Composition does a lot to orient compositionists to the fact that the labor of students in the writing classroom has value in the economic sense. I think the most important thing to understand, as I write above, is that the economy is not just money; in service of that understanding, I’d recommend J. K. Gibson-Graham’s 3-page definition of “Economy” in Bennett, Grossberg, and Morris’s New Keywords (Blackwell 2005), and if that piques your interest, check out the readings and bibliographies at communityeconomies.org. Gibson-Graham’s The End of Capitalism (Blackwell 1996), while now out of print, is the best extended treatment.

By: chris

chris — Tue, 23 Aug 2005 06:08:36 +0000

I really appreciate your break-down of “economics.” Looks like you’re doing some really cool work. I noticed your reading list for your future grad class on economics in composition. I’ve been reading Deb Brandt’s _Lit in Am Lives_, Brian Street’s _Social Literacies_ and other texts that discuss literacy/”economy” connections. Your posts last week have given me a lot to think about as far as “economy” is concerned. Any must-read books you could suggest??

By: Jim Ridolfo

Jim Ridolfo — Sun, 21 Aug 2005 22:19:28 +0000

Mike,

Re: (cooperatives in general)

Have you checked out Klein’s documentary “The Take”?

“In the wake of Argentinaâ€™s spectacular economic collapse in 2001, Latin Americaâ€™s most prosperous middle class finds itself in a ghost town of abandoned factories and mass unemployment. In suburban Buenos Aires, thirty unemployed auto-parts workers walk into their idle factory, roll out sleeping mats and refuse to leave. All they want is to re-start the silent machines. But this simple act â€”the take â€”has the power to turn the globalization debate on its head.

Director/producer Avi Lewis (Counterspin) and writer/producer and renowned author Naomi Klein (No Logo) take viewers inside the lives of ordinary visionaries, as they reclaim their work, their dignity and their democracy.”

http://www.nfb.ca/webextension/thetake/

By: Dorothea Salo

Dorothea Salo — Sun, 21 Aug 2005 02:28:55 +0000

You got further into it than I did. I read the title and couldn’t bear to click on it.

By: mike

mike — Sun, 21 Aug 2005 00:42:51 +0000

Dorothea, I saw that article, or at least the beginning of it. And then my brain screamed in self-righteous fury and tried to escape through my ears and grow opposable thumbs with which to strangle John Beckman’s miserable mealy-mouthed equivocating spineless PR-mouthpiece ass, and I had to turn my eyes away.

By: Dorothea Salo

Dorothea Salo — Sat, 20 Aug 2005 00:30:14 +0000

Do I want to bring up at this point a hideous article at Inside Higher Ed that argues that paid TAs aren’t in fact labor, just students?