Abraham Rotstein, Weekend Notes XII
Text in English to type
"Freedom and Technology" - General Comments
[2] […] The existential criticism begins with Freud and runs to Sartre and is not a criticism of society at all e.g. Tillich, Nietzsche. Shaw accepted the idea from Nietzsche that we need a superman. […]
[3] […] In dealing with Owen, Shaw and the young Marx does the latter come in at end of social discontent? He didn't join in the social pessimism. P. anticipates that the Russians are turning to the early Marx.
[4] Tillich
P. also read Kierkegaard again an read the story of Abraham and Jacob. […] Descartes and a Latin sentence from Newton to prove [5] these people were not atheists. But in this piece there is no specific interest in Christianity and no belief in Christ but there is a belief in God. On the other hand if it is faith irrespective of Christian tenets, then it is not sure if anything else is meant than the firm conviction of the meaningfulness of existence. The Christian position is based on the fact that Jesus redeemed mankind.
P. started the Old Testament and read a lot. It is a confused story starting off several times from Genesis and especially peculiar with regard to the ancestors of the race. As regards the morality of Jacob it is not known if it is a humoresque or seriously meant e.g. the Esau affair.
[…] It means becoming different people - Shavian people. Shaw said that [6] human society won't go to hell and is not dependent on cheap conventions. We can drop them; what we are adjusting to are not the true necessities. We shouldn't talk with big gestures, with big phrases. That's Shaw.
[…] J.S. Mill, “On Liberty” (1839?)
[…] Luther and Calvin did say …
[7] Cromwell Locke and the Seekers - tolerance.
[8]
[9] [10] [11] [12]
[13] […]
Shaw is usually recorded as a critic of society, but he is not. […]
Goodrich, Chapman Terry Hopkins Rousseau [14] […] Mannheim
[15] […] Mannheim says that the masses play a bigger part in political and economic life …
[16] [17]
[18] […] Michael Polanyi read a paper
[19] Tillich's term 'estrangement' is a Marxist term (cf. article in 'Time').
P. is for "religion" rather than using "Jewish-Christian position." Shaw is for that and so is Owen. […] ↑
Introduction to "Freedom and Technology"
[20] [21] ↑
Robert Owen (2)
[22] P. thinks we should borrow more from The Great Transformation on Robert Owen. Much of it is really needed. The "Discovery of Society” background is relevant and should be brought to life on the Owen chapter and no other. In England this is not accepted (The Great Transformation fell through) but this doesn't hold for America. (They know nothing about anything anyway but the American history of England is a different history from the English. What another country wants to know about a country may be quite different.)
Owen was in a unique position. He was on the same level with sovereigns, the Church, and was even ordering Parliament around. Being Welsh he had an equal social status. (The Tudors were Welsh, had they been English they would never have been sovereigns.) MacDonald, if he had been English would have not have been Prime Minister. England didn't have lower class English Prime Ministers. Wales did not have classes and there is no nobility, so that this was possible for the Welsh. Half of the brigandswere called Owen which is a name as Welsh as Morgan.
Owen was a Welshman and had money and could rise to a position of potential influence which twenty-five years later, Cobden and Bright couldn't achieve because they were commoners from Manchester and hadn't gone to Oxford. But Owen needn't go to Oxford. (Write a paragraph on how Owen could rise. This wouldn't occur to G.D.H. Cole but it occurs to K.P.) Cobden and Bright wore black clothes and bowler hats but couldn't get a hearing. They weretje leaders of the free trade movement which was victorious in ten years. The English middle class couldn't be the leaders of the middle class and it was [24] not Cobden and Bright but the aristocracy who went liberal. ↑
Institutional Analysis
The Economizing Processus
Book on Money
K.P. on Writing
The Canadian Elections
Greece, Rome and the Economy
Jewish Survival
[51] Jewry survived because the tribal institutions were artificially introduced at the time of Nehemiah in order to have background for reciprocity institutions. These couldn't have been introduced unless there were tribal or clan institutions to support them. Ezra and Nehemiah list all the clans in the Old Testament in 445 B.C. When this part of Jewry returned they were artificially organized in tribes. This made it possible to say that now they should have mutual help and the principle of no gain. That couldn't have been done unless there was a clan organization and in principle this never ceased to work. These remained established in customs, and the principles of mutual help and non-gain survived but this couldn't have been done without family organization. Jewry continued to practice among itself a consistent non-gain organization throughout the ages and when the clan was disorganized the community organized itself on a reciprocative basis. There were no transactions among members of the community.
This discovery is due to K.P.'s method. Reciprocity can not be practised unless we have an institutional basis. It can only be practised if the individual in one group has a correspondent in another group.
The Mishnah is absolutely conclusive and the extent to which the Mishnah excludes gainful transactions is fantastic. P. thinks that this kept the Jews an utterly non-commercial community through millenia. This forced them for a living on the Gentiles (my question, P. agrees). The community was sharply closed. ↑
Notes
Marx (2)
Edmund Wilson
Sartre
Shaw (2)
Dery
Montague Norman
The Poor Law
Christianity and the Social Revolution (2)
The Great Transformation (3)
Trade and Market in the Early Empires (3)
China
France
Text Informations
Date: June 22, 1957
KPA: 45/08