Re: [xmca] Ceci n'est pas un dollar

[Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>]

Tony,

Andy asked me where I was going with my focus on Shotter's notion of
"chiasmic intertwining".

The Occupy Wall Street is a concrete way of reflecting on this question.
David Graeber's concept of "debt" as the central value behind globalization
that JUSTIFIES the violence and shattering of a sense of "home" as the
result of social relations being organized around the concept of debt. If
you "owe" the other you MUST PAY IT BACK.

 Tony, you state,

And monetary value is not an altogether different kind of affair than
semantic value or phonemic value -- i.e., Saussure's "valeur."

Is this the "key" or central question, What do I "owe" the other? or "What
do we "owe" others?

The value of social relations as "exchange values" that is at the heart of
globalization and the violence perpetrated in the "collecting" of debts
owed.  If the other person gives you something of value you are indebted to
the other and loose freedom.  How deep does this relational concept of debt
and being indebted to the other organize our activities?

Chiasmic intertwining is pointing to another way of valuing social relations
and is asking the same question,  What do we "owe" each other?  Framing debt
as a "particular relational value" rather than an economic question  opens
the way to challenge debt as this totalizing way of relating to the
other. Challenging the deep seated value that becoming indebted and
dependent on the other results in loosing personal freedom and must be
resisted at all costs. The notion that dependency  puts you in an exchange
relationship with the other deforms all relations of mutuality.   To be
vulnerable is to be placed in an exchange relation and MUST BE PAID BACK.

Can the Occupy Wall Street movement shift the monetary and economic debt
 narrative [who owes what to who] to a moral conversation of "What do we owe
each other? as a question fundamentally about values.

I suspect Obama wants to be pushed in this direction

THIS IS A DEBT CRISIS

Larry


On Sun, Oct 16, 2011 at 2:09 PM, Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu> wrote:

> Yes, indeed. Chris Sinha's paper, distributed here not long ago, is good on
> this too.
>
> Martin
>
> On Oct 16, 2011, at 2:34 PM, Tony Whitson wrote:
>
> >
> > Of course, neither the thought of the dollar bill nor the paper dollar
> bill itself is actually a DOLLAR.
> >
> > a DOLLAR is a measure of value used for exchange, keeping accounts, etc.
> >
> > And monetary value is not an altogether different kind of affair than
> semantic value or phonemic value -- i.e., Saussure's "valeur."
> >
> > An excellent source on such matters is the work of David Graeber
> > (see http://www.amazon.com/David-Graeber/e/B001IQXM5K/ ), who also
> happens to be one of the instigators of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
> >
> > In his latest book on Debt, Graeber argues that Adam Smith's fable about
> the orgins of money is completely unsupported by any history or
> anthropology. Graeber's work is full of examples that could be used for
> exploring issues in this thread.
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