Day 1 Clarification Questions (Members: )
Andrew Durand:
What are the constitutive or performative aspects of economic representation?
Day 1 Discussion Questions (Members: )
Andrew Durand:
What benefits are associated with defining class as a process of producing surplus labor? Why are more traditional definitions insufficient?
Blake Ladenburg:
What are the implications/challenges/benefits of using multiple economic and social identities to determine class? How does incorporating these multiple faucets change our understanding of "class"? Does this change your interpretation of Who Rules America?
Andy Monserud:
If we reject the idea of capitalism as monolithic, what does it become? What, apart from unpaid labor of all kinds as described in the chapter, qualifies as "outside" capitalism?
Nate Olson: How has the decline of unions and other forms of working-class unity contributed to the stagnation of worker pay and benefits during the economic recovery?
Quinn Lincoln: According to Gibson-Graham, how is the current state of labor unions indicative of an axis of class?
Sarah Edwards:
Gibson-Graham posits that class is a process that “exists in change” and thus class “structure” is also constantly undergoing the same kind of changes (59). Given this notion of a constantly changing “class,” how are they able counter the issues that arise from an absence of collective identity and change the existing structures of power?
Ione Fullerton: The authors construct a world in which class is "divorced" from hegemonic/structural capitalist society. This conceptualizations allows for class struggles, even individual struggles that emerge in the household, to be be significant. How can this divorce be shared or made visible to the public so that women and families in these restructured households may "see" their own agency, "feel" their own empowerment? How can they participate in the authors' world?
Sam Jacobson:
Just to play the devils advocate and to further entrench us in our capitalist mindsets; when the authors state that our aim should be work for “noncapitalist economic practices" and a different "politics of class," my question is how do we know that this system would be any better (5)? Are we to assume that there will be no problems in this new noncapitalist world? “In slaying the capitalist monster, [will] we have eliminated as well the subject position of its opponent” or simply be created a different subject position (21)?
Jenny Gruenberg: How did the binary between capitalism and noncapitalism form? Why is this binary harmful?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Day 2 Text Mapping (Members: )
Map
Day 2 Discussion Mapping (Members: )
Map
Day 2 Clarification Questions (Members: )
Questions
Day 2 Discussion Questions (Members:
Sarah Edwards: In Gibson-Graham’s analysis of the economy as “the locus of Reason in the social totality,” how is the relationship between Man and the economy negotiated in regards to their simultaneous mastery of Reason (103)?
Andrew Durand:
In order to "recreate the political subject" Gibson-Graham argue that we must, "rethink the economic object" (97). What is the role that history plays in this process of rethinking? How does it alter the already established "discourse of the economy" responsible for shaping public policy?
Blake Ladenburg:
How can simply removing the "unified calculating subject" bring about a change in corporate practices? If corporations are as dismantled as Gibson-Graham suggests, and corporate actions are the result of an amalgamation of choices by many individual actors then how will this impact the course of these entities?
also, why does a corporation need profits?
Logan Miller
At the beginning of chapter 5, Gibson-Graham tells us of the strange almost cult-like behavior of Australian politicians in regards to 'the economy'. Is this behavior seen today? Do politicians and other influential members of government assign the economy omnipotent status and defer to its whims? If so, why is this prevalent in the first place and how can this behavior be changed? Does it need to be changed?
Nate Olson:
Why now as wage growth remains stagnant are not more redistributive policies being discussed?
Ione Fullerton
In Chapter 8, the authors discuss the discursive work that can be done to decenter economic totality to open up other visions about class. However, they write "the academic, popular and political discourses of what we have called economic centeredness constitute a major barrier to the creation of such and enterprise-oriented language and politics of distribution" (191). Have any of you witnessed this obscuring process in your class at Whitman? How did it take place?
Andy Monserud
In their extreme fleshing-out of the discourse of the economy as a body, how do Gibson and Graham deconstruct the way we see economic "health?"
Emma Dulaney:
In regards to the future of capitalism the authors state, "When it eventually fails and dies, it will be succeeded by another organic totality, a socialism that is presumably better adapted to the conditions that brought about capitalism's dissolution" (100). What flaws of capitalism do you believe would prompt its demise? What are some of the solutions socialism has to offer?
Valentina Lopez-Cortes: In Chapter 5, the author parallels the anorexic female body to industrialization as disorders that need cures: “Convincing the anorectic to participate in family therapy and negotiating with the downsized workforce to stem wages growth and introduce a new work culture are both attem[ts to foster the conditions and which the essential life forces, calories and capital, might restore the body to its natural state of health ” (95). How does this parallel enhance Gibson-Graham’s argument for the discourse of economy?
Sam Jacobson
In Chapter J.K Gibson-Graham state: "When it eventually fails and dies, it will be succeeded by another organic totality, a socialism that is presumably better adapted to the conditions that brought about capitalism's dissolution" (100). I want to challenge this idea that capitalism will be succeeded by a socialism, for while I agree that capitalism (in a traditional sense of consumer and producer) is disappearing, I would argue that it is not a system of socialism, but neoliberalism which is succeeding it. Which brings me to my question of how does the rationality of neoliberalism effect our democratic institutions as well as our social relations with one another?
Nathan Gruenberg
On page 104 Gibson-Graham speak to how the economy is “both the master of Man and the site of his mastery, whether that mastery be gained through knowledge of through action. This paradox reflects Man's dual existence: as mind and embodied Reason, he governs and controls; but as a mere and mortal body. he looks to the economy, the perfect face of Reason, and submits to it as to his god.” This leads me to ask, which one does more controlling, Man or the economy? What are the benefits and negatives of who possesses this control?
Map
Day 1 Discussion Mapping (Members: )
Map
Day 1 Clarification Questions (Members: )
Andrew Durand:
What are the constitutive or performative aspects of economic representation?
Day 1 Discussion Questions (Members: )
Andrew Durand:
What benefits are associated with defining class as a process of producing surplus labor? Why are more traditional definitions insufficient?
Blake Ladenburg:
What are the implications/challenges/benefits of using multiple economic and social identities to determine class? How does incorporating these multiple faucets change our understanding of "class"? Does this change your interpretation of Who Rules America?
Andy Monserud:
If we reject the idea of capitalism as monolithic, what does it become? What, apart from unpaid labor of all kinds as described in the chapter, qualifies as "outside" capitalism?
Nate Olson: How has the decline of unions and other forms of working-class unity contributed to the stagnation of worker pay and benefits during the economic recovery?
Quinn Lincoln: According to Gibson-Graham, how is the current state of labor unions indicative of an axis of class?
Sarah Edwards:
Gibson-Graham posits that class is a process that “exists in change” and thus class “structure” is also constantly undergoing the same kind of changes (59). Given this notion of a constantly changing “class,” how are they able counter the issues that arise from an absence of collective identity and change the existing structures of power?
Ione Fullerton: The authors construct a world in which class is "divorced" from hegemonic/structural capitalist society. This conceptualizations allows for class struggles, even individual struggles that emerge in the household, to be be significant. How can this divorce be shared or made visible to the public so that women and families in these restructured households may "see" their own agency, "feel" their own empowerment? How can they participate in the authors' world?
Sam Jacobson:
Just to play the devils advocate and to further entrench us in our capitalist mindsets; when the authors state that our aim should be work for “noncapitalist economic practices" and a different "politics of class," my question is how do we know that this system would be any better (5)? Are we to assume that there will be no problems in this new noncapitalist world? “In slaying the capitalist monster, [will] we have eliminated as well the subject position of its opponent” or simply be created a different subject position (21)?
Jenny Gruenberg: How did the binary between capitalism and noncapitalism form? Why is this binary harmful?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day 2 Text Mapping (Members: )
Map
Day 2 Discussion Mapping (Members: )
Map
Day 2 Clarification Questions (Members: )
Questions
Day 2 Discussion Questions (Members:
Sarah Edwards:
In Gibson-Graham’s analysis of the economy as “the locus of Reason in the social totality,” how is the relationship between Man and the economy negotiated in regards to their simultaneous mastery of Reason (103)?
Andrew Durand:
In order to "recreate the political subject" Gibson-Graham argue that we must, "rethink the economic object" (97). What is the role that history plays in this process of rethinking? How does it alter the already established "discourse of the economy" responsible for shaping public policy?
Blake Ladenburg:
How can simply removing the "unified calculating subject" bring about a change in corporate practices? If corporations are as dismantled as Gibson-Graham suggests, and corporate actions are the result of an amalgamation of choices by many individual actors then how will this impact the course of these entities?
also, why does a corporation need profits?
Logan Miller
At the beginning of chapter 5, Gibson-Graham tells us of the strange almost cult-like behavior of Australian politicians in regards to 'the economy'. Is this behavior seen today? Do politicians and other influential members of government assign the economy omnipotent status and defer to its whims? If so, why is this prevalent in the first place and how can this behavior be changed? Does it need to be changed?
Nate Olson:
Why now as wage growth remains stagnant are not more redistributive policies being discussed?
Ione Fullerton
In Chapter 8, the authors discuss the discursive work that can be done to decenter economic totality to open up other visions about class. However, they write "the academic, popular and political discourses of what we have called economic centeredness constitute a major barrier to the creation of such and enterprise-oriented language and politics of distribution" (191). Have any of you witnessed this obscuring process in your class at Whitman? How did it take place?
Andy Monserud
In their extreme fleshing-out of the discourse of the economy as a body, how do Gibson and Graham deconstruct the way we see economic "health?"
Emma Dulaney:
In regards to the future of capitalism the authors state, "When it eventually fails and dies, it will be succeeded by another organic totality, a socialism that is presumably better adapted to the conditions that brought about capitalism's dissolution" (100). What flaws of capitalism do you believe would prompt its demise? What are some of the solutions socialism has to offer?
Valentina Lopez-Cortes:
In Chapter 5, the author parallels the anorexic female body to industrialization as disorders that need cures: “Convincing the anorectic to participate in family therapy and negotiating with the downsized workforce to stem wages growth and introduce a new work culture are both attem[ts to foster the conditions and which the essential life forces, calories and capital, might restore the body to its natural state of health ” (95). How does this parallel enhance Gibson-Graham’s argument for the discourse of economy?
Sam Jacobson
In Chapter J.K Gibson-Graham state: "When it eventually fails and dies, it will be succeeded by another organic totality, a socialism that is presumably better adapted to the conditions that brought about capitalism's dissolution" (100). I want to challenge this idea that capitalism will be succeeded by a socialism, for while I agree that capitalism (in a traditional sense of consumer and producer) is disappearing, I would argue that it is not a system of socialism, but neoliberalism which is succeeding it. Which brings me to my question of how does the rationality of neoliberalism effect our democratic institutions as well as our social relations with one another?
Nathan Gruenberg
On page 104 Gibson-Graham speak to how the economy is “both the master of Man and the site of his mastery, whether that mastery be gained through knowledge of through action. This paradox reflects Man's dual existence: as mind and embodied Reason, he governs and controls; but as a mere and mortal body. he looks to the economy, the perfect face of Reason, and submits to it as to his god.” This leads me to ask, which one does more controlling, Man or the economy? What are the benefits and negatives of who possesses this control?