Capitalist Structural Violence

Hi all.

One thing that keeps coming up, in my conversations with Philosopy majors, is the idea of Capitalist Structural Violence. What does this mean, and where do I find more information?

A quick search found me this:

Capitalistic consumerism needs an infrastructure in order to continue to manifest itself.
Components of that infrastructure include technology and telecommunications, corporate led
globalization, the neo-liberal market ideology, world financial institutions, and complacent, or
complicit, governments. Most significantly, the other component of this infrastructure is the
consumer, and by association, the family and consumer sciences (FCS) profession. The basic
premise of this paper is that this entire infrastructure is a key source of structural violence,
enabled by consumers and FCS professionals who, knowingly or unknowingly, embrace the
ideology of consumerism.

http://www.kon.org/hswp/archive/consumerism.pdf

It's not a theoretically formed argument, but one backwards from the status quo. Much like: if you don't support public schools you must hate children because without public schools there would be no education.

The reason why the proposition is doublethink is this:

Capitalism means dealing with capital in a marketplace. So capitalism is: savings, investment, trade. And all along the self-ownership and home-steading principles. If something is not along the self-ownership and home-steading principles then it is not capitalism. If you take someone's goods and use it for yourself then that's not an investment, but a robbery. Equating violence with voluntarism is doublespeak.

It means "I hate capitalism because I didn't get everything handed to me in life on a silver platter, so I'm just going to make up lies and project the brutality I want to engage in on capitalists in the hope that someday I will be the ruler of the planet so I can make everyone do what I say."

Knight_of_BAAWA:

It means "I hate capitalism because I didn't get everything handed to me in life on a silver platter, so I'm just going to make up lies and project the brutality I want to engage in on capitalists in the hope that someday I will be the ruler of the planet so I can make everyone do what I say."

I think often it means "I hate capitalism because I did get everything handed to me in life on a silver platter. And a system that does not reward intellectual leaders such as myself, and instead rewards vulgar businessmen, must be unjust. I will also pretend to be a friend of the working class, even though I really despise them as well"

 

It is fake theory to sheild the source of the majority of violence on the planet, that is monopoly government.  These bozos think that just because every couple of years the two parties get together and give you a choice of one of two people to then rule the most powerful country on Earth then those people would never hurt anybody and would offer their lives to protect them. 

As fake as the theory is, it does work.  This lie like "Climate Change" has a lot of believers.  People want control over other people.  To justify this they convince themselves that other people are stupid and could not live without their rulers.

Debating Philosophy majors can be a pain.  Although they undoubtedly know better, many seem to love engaging in sophistry and unsupported claims.  I've found it useful to always define my terms and insist that they do the same.  "Capitalist Structural Violence" is meaningless without a definition.  If you google it and argue against that definition they'll accuse you of strawmanning them, often without clarifying what it was they actually meant.

I read the pdf, and found it to be full of holes.

Thank you for the PDF and all the handy advice.

Prelude To Ruin:

I've found it useful to always define my terms and insist that they do the same.

This.

Rooster:

I think often it means "I hate capitalism because I did get everything handed to me in life on a silver platter. And a system that does not reward intellectual leaders such as myself, and instead rewards vulgar businessmen, must be unjust. I will also pretend to be a friend of the working class, even though I really despise them as well"

I like the combination of the two....

"I hate capitalism because I did get everything handed to me on a silver platter, and require a system that places the positive obligation on all rich, evil capitalists, because using money to create production is unjust.  I will also pretend to be a friend to the working class, making up lies and projecting the brutality I want to engage in on the capitalists, although I despise workers as well, in order to achieve leadership, so I can make everyone do as I say, or perish under the iron boot."

Harry Felker:

Rooster:

I think often it means "I hate capitalism because I did get everything handed to me in life on a silver platter. And a system that does not reward intellectual leaders such as myself, and instead rewards vulgar businessmen, must be unjust. I will also pretend to be a friend of the working class, even though I really despise them as well"

I like the combination of the two....

"I hate capitalism because I did get everything handed to me on a silver platter, and require a system that places the positive obligation on all rich, evil capitalists, because using money to create production is unjust.  I will also pretend to be a friend to the working class, making up lies and projecting the brutality I want to engage in on the capitalists, although I despise workers as well, in order to achieve leadership, so I can make everyone do as I say, or perish under the iron boot."

A bit clunky, we'll have to keep working on it, then we can send it out to academics to sign it.

Rooster:

A bit clunky, we'll have to keep working on it, then we can send it out to academics to sign it.

 

Let me try to rephrase...

"I hate capitalism because I did get everything handed to me on a silver platter, using money to create production is unjust, and therefore capitalists are evil.  I will make up lies and project the brutality I want to engage in on the capitalists, to gain the support of the working class, that I despise as well, in order to achieve leadership, so I can make everyone do as I say, or perish under the iron boot."

Padishah:

One thing that keeps coming up, in my conversations with Philosopy majors, is the idea of Capitalist Structural Violence. What does this mean, and where do I find more information?

hehe. idk, i've never heard it put in those terms before. maybe he thinks in capitalism, owners organize to violently crush labor unions, which is false.

As said before, anti-capitalists will often create official sounding terms, and populist slogans which have no clear cut defining terms and are designed to distract from cause and effect in the real world

Capitalistic consumerism needs an infrastructure in order to continue to manifest itself.
Components of that infrastructure include technology and telecommunications, corporate led
globalization, the neo-liberal market ideology, world financial institutions, and complacent, or
complicit, governments. Most significantly, the other component of this infrastructure is the
consumer, and by association, the family and consumer sciences (FCS) profession. The basic
premise of this paper is that this entire infrastructure is a key source of structural violence,
enabled by consumers and FCS professionals who, knowingly or unknowingly, embrace the
ideology of consumerism.

LOL As if all those things are bad (oh noes, technology! globalisation!) I love how according to their stupid ideology governments are "complacent" or "complicit" and not agents of the very things they find contemptuous. Then we get things like world financial institutions, "neo-liberal" ideology (read: anything leftists hate) and "consumer sciences". So funny. WTF is "violent" about this, minus where governments enter in? What has the consumer and FCS professional "enabled"? Again, LOL

fezwhatley:

Padishah:

One thing that keeps coming up, in my conversations with Philosopy majors, is the idea of Capitalist Structural Violence. What does this mean, and where do I find more information?

hehe. idk, i've never heard it put in those terms before. maybe he thinks in capitalism, owners organize to violently crush labor unions, which is false.

... I think they mean something that is apart from this. I actually had a lecturer in "Sociology of Labor" that was an obvious Marxist. He did mention things like the conquest of the Americas (which was of course open violence), but most of the time he focused on issues like legislation, the weak position of workers, "outsourcing", banning of trade unions. and a few other aspects that can be seen as part of "structural violence".  While he mentioned that Black Trade Unions were banned for a while in the old South Africa. He actually was honest enought to mention that Blacks that also benefit from many aspects "Apartheid" like influx control, because this prevented an oversupply of labor and actually kept wages of Blacks at a higher level. That Marxist seemed to have learnt a thing or two about economics, just that he lost it with Marxs labour theory of value (wages, profits).

fezwhatley:

As said before, anti-capitalists will often create official sounding terms, and populist slogans which have no clear cut defining terms and are designed to distract from cause and effect in the real world

I would not dispute the existence of something like "structural violence" as such, but you are certainly right that people from the left like to make up sweeping terms that they infuse an emotional load to an then they use this in debates as a tool to "convince" an unsuspecting audience. One should ask the Leftwingers whether they this kind of terms isn't actually some form of "structural violence" or deceit. And of course they should tell us, whether they think that a society without "structural violence" is actually possible.

Perhaps one should discuss in detail the reasons for income differences and what role social and economic power does play and of course social status, formal and informal instutions in society and the like.

If I am not mistaken Friedrich von Wieser was the Austrian economist that actually did elaborate on this issue more extensively (Das Gesetz der Macht, 1926).

 

Jon Irenicus:

 

LOL As if all those things are bad (oh noes, technology! globalisation!) I love how according to their stupid ideology governments are "complacent" or "complicit" and not agents of the very things they find contemptuous. Then we get things like world financial institutions, "neo-liberal" ideology (read: anything leftists hate) and "consumer sciences". So funny. WTF is "violent" about this, minus where governments enter in? What has the consumer and FCS professional "enabled"? Again, LOL

Right. And then to top it all off, it tries to demonize consuming with 'the ideology of consumerism'. We are a consuming beings, that's not an ideology, that's a fact of nature.

Knight_of_BAAWA:

It means "I hate capitalism because I didn't get everything handed to me in life on a silver platter, so I'm just going to make up lies and project the brutality I want to engage in on capitalists in the hope that someday I will be the ruler of the planet so I can make everyone do what I say."

 

Add to that: but a name packaged trying to sound academic.  This is a common tactic among leftists, this type of jargon.  With that in mind, if you say it to some hip girl at a college campus you may end up with higher odds of "getting some". 

Dondoolee:

With that in mind, if you say it to some hip girl at a college campus you may end up with higher odds of "getting some". 

 

 

just being chatty but does that actually work? Do you know anyone who has actually done this?

fakename:

Dondoolee:

With that in mind, if you say it to some hip girl at a college campus you may end up with higher odds of "getting some". 

 

 

just being chatty but does that actually work? Do you know anyone who has actually done this?

 

Some entire youth (16-35) type subcultures and much of white Manhatten/Brooklyn.

As far as actually purposfully speaking gibberish while sounding leftist and pulling it off, look up Sokal and the science wars.  That is the most famous case.  As far as real life, you most certainly can use leftist gibberish to impress some women.  If you play an insturment with even marginal compitence, your odds increase even more.  

I wonder if there was diliberate well used propaganda somewhere to almost encourage this behavior, as it seems almost diabolical.  It is easy to be in a 3rd rate pop band, it is easy to recite leftist gibberish.  Not only is it easy to do these things BUT it attracts women and gives you intellectual praise and validation from "the right people".  I of course have made no serious inquiry into this (nor do I intend to) and I am making very broad generalizations, but I have seen enough of this 1st hand to make the stereotype.

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fakename:

Dondoolee:

With that in mind, if you say it to some hip girl at a college campus you may end up with higher odds of "getting some". 

 

 

just being chatty but does that actually work? Do you know anyone who has actually done this?

 

Also of note, I have noticed that this obsurantism is FAR more prolific among leftist styled writings.  The fact is, I have no recollection of encountering this writing style outside of leftist type babel.  To take it one step further (and I say this as an atheist), I think the intellectual groups on the left that are LEAST guilty of this offense are the leftist intellectuals of the more traditional western religions.  If my observations are correct (and they very well may not be) all of this would be a major curiosity to me.

Dondoolee:

Some entire youth (16-35) type subcultures and much of white Manhatten/Brooklyn.

As far as actually purposfully speaking gibberish while sounding leftist and pulling it off, look up Sokal and the science wars.  That is the most famous case.  As far as real life, you most certainly can use leftist gibberish to impress some women.  If you play an insturment with even marginal compitence, your odds increase even more.  

I wonder if there was diliberate well used propaganda somewhere to almost encourage this behavior, as it seems almost diabolical.  It is easy to be in a 3rd rate pop band, it is easy to recite leftist gibberish.  Not only is it easy to do these things BUT it attracts women and gives you intellectual praise and validation from "the right people"....

Doesn't this get kind of boring? I mean such a stupid pick up line. Are women really that silly to fall for it? And what about these "right people", is it really that insane in America?

I am getting the impression that "equality" actually means being the same as the most stupid one can get. Just that no retard is going to be offended.

Torsten:

I am getting the impression that "equality" actually means being the same as the most stupid one can get. Just that nor retard is going to be offended.

That is the leftist mediocrity....

Dondoolee:

As far as real life, you most certainly can use leftist gibberish to impress some women.  If you play an insturment with even marginal compitence, your odds increase even more.

Funny, I was never a leftist, I never had to go to this to "get some"

Dondoolee:

I wonder if there was diliberate well used propaganda somewhere to almost encourage this behavior, as it seems almost diabolical.  It is easy to be in a 3rd rate pop band, it is easy to recite leftist gibberish.  Not only is it easy to do these things BUT it attracts women and gives you intellectual praise and validation from "the right people".  I of course have made no serious inquiry into this (nor do I intend to) and I am making very broad generalizations, but I have seen enough of this 1st hand to make the stereotype.

This is the developed mediocrity of the leftist agenda, if everyone is an idiot, then no one is superior...

As far as actually purposfully speaking gibberish while sounding leftist and pulling it off, look up Sokal and the science wars.  That is the most famous case.

Um, you're conflating post-modernism with "leftism" (whatever that means; seems like most of you are using it as a blanket buzzword for whatever you don't like). The Sokal affair was an attack on postmodernism. Postmodernism /= "leftism". In fact, it explicitly denies liberal humanism, and if you actually read Sokal's pieces on this, he was a "leftist" himself complaining about the corruption of academia by postmodernism. I repeat: Sokal is a "leftist" himself, and the very rationalism and humanism upon which modernist liberalism bases itself is precisely what post-modernists are rebelling against.

Being charitable, maybe 'Capitalist Structural Violence' is just the enforcement of justice against muggers, rapists, and murderers.

Stephen Forde:

Being charitable, maybe 'Capitalist Structural Violence' is just the enforcement of justice against muggers, rapists, and murderers.

Hehee... does this guy think Jakob murder, rape and steal?