Re: Paris getting ready for jail
On Jun 2, 2007, at 12:58 PM, Carrol Cox wrote:
This raises a general question about all members of a capitalist
ruling class: having more than they can (or even their heirs) can possibly spend, why do they still struggle for MORE MORE MORE. A capitalist firm (whether corporate or ‘privately’ owned) has to try to grow to stay even — that is the central dynamic of the system. But
individuals within the class don’t, and yet many of them do! Many also don’t but transform themselves into rentiers, but as the case of Paris Hilton
(but also I gather of Paul Allen on a bigger scale) continue to try to enlarge their ‘nestegg’ beyond reason.
Paris Hilton is rich, but she’s not ruling class.
Joel Kovel once gave a lecture, which I don’t think he’s ever
published, on the capitalist ego at a Rethinking Marxism conference,
must have been 1996. As I recall his argument, the ego-subscript-K is
grandiose and voracious; it has to exploit whatever it sees for
maximum gain. The urge to accumulate has to be deeply inscribed in
capitalists. I know you’re not big on individual agency but it’s hard
to understand how the system works without producing people like this.
Doug