Regarding production I asked, "What do you think it involves?"

jb wrote:

<<I think the production of wealth, especially as it's being used here,
refers
to exactly what it says, the production of wealth.  >>

I understand that the basic procedure for defining a term or phrase
necessitates using words other than those contained in the term or phrase
under discussion.  So, to say that the "production of wealth" involves the
"production of wealth" seems to me somewhat tautological.

<<here again you're confusing, perhaps deliberately, wealth with value.
getting paid 30 cents an hour for stitching together a garment is not
wealth,
unless you want to so debase the concept of wealth as to make the concept of
wealth so broad as to be meaningless.>>

You and I might agree on the basic premises and may simply be using the
terms differently.  I think your remarks are directed at the DISTRIBUTION of
wealth while I am talking about the PRODUCTION of wealth

<<so that's why you commented on the "eye of the camel" quote?  listen --
wealth is not poverty.  >>

I agree with the sentiment.  You are using the word "wealth" in its common
parlance.  The technical economic definition of wealth (whether you are
Keynesian, a laissez-faire capitalist, a fascist, a marxist, a stalinist, or
an anarcho-syndicalist) includes "any produced good which has economic
value".  Other definitions are possible of course.

<<the exploitation of workers, no matter what they're
producing, can't be explained away as the 'production of wealth' >>

I agree.  The production of wealth within a capitalist context must include
exploitation as its primary feature.

<<that therefore Christ, or Pound would approve of it. . . . the 'production
of wealth' is, in reality, never an abstraction.  real relationships are
involved.>>

Once again I agree.  If, in principle, you mean that Christ would not
approve of capitalist exploitation, feudal exploitation or State-Socialist
(Stalinist) exploitation or any type of exploitation, I thoroughly concur.

{Pound, on the other hand, did approve of exploitation.  In spite of his
denunciation of some types of exploitation --- such as British imperial
exploitation --- you are aware that he supported Mussolini's form of fascist
exploitation, Hitler's form of Nazi exploitation, and the entire record of
Chinese imperial exploitation, that is, the exploitation of the Chinese
people by the bureaucratic and feudal landlord classes. ]

<<unlike you, I see the poetic dimension of the poet Ezra Pound as an
expanding, creative act.>>

I also see it as a creative act.  The question is WHAT is being created?

<<I do not attempt to reduce it to the facts of his
life, nor to his political remarks, and I think that attempts to do so, such
as yours, have an agenda that has nothing at all to do with the stated
objective -- to understand.  >>

I am talking about the IDEAS and BELIEFS which infuse the Cantos and much of
Pound's written work.  Isn't it more or less of a reduction of Pound to
simply say his work is "an expanding and creative act"?  You could say that
about the work of any poet from Homer to Shakespear to Byron.  Are you
reluctant to CHARACTERIZE this act, to interpret it, other than to say it is
"creative" and "expansive".  Other than this, I am not clear on what you
think about what Pound did.

<<you have it backwards -- the genius of Pound's
poetry has nothing at all to do with being a fascist, or an anti-Semite, or
a
crank -- it exists in spite of these things.>>

Not inspite of these things.  But in relation to these things (and in
relation to many other things).

I might venture to ask whether you see Pound IN RELATION to anything other
than a very abstract or ethereal act of "creation."   What did he create?
Why did he create it?  What is the relationship between his creation and the
world that he tries to represent, transform, and transcend through his work?
  His act of creation seeks to embody and express ideas and beliefs about
social issues, political philosophies, historical acts and movements, and
many other topics.   Do you want to separate the aesthetic aspects of Pounds
work COMPLETELY from any relationship within the world in which it exists or
from the world it depicts?  I get the fact that you disapprove of some
aspects of my approach.  But what is your approach?  You seem interested
enough in economic theories, but I do not understand how you relate this
interest to your interpretation of Pound?

Recall Pounds on words on this issue:  He himself said:  "New Masses
[Magazine] is quite right/My poetry and my econ/are NOT separate or opposed"
(Pound/Zukofsky, 169).

I take him at his word on this.  So examine a line from the Cantos:

        In the Cantos, Pound refers to Confucian ethical notions such as "filial
piety" in contexts where the implications are clearly economic as well as
moral.  For instance, in Canto 98, employing the ideograms for land and
money,  he writes,

                Filial piety is very inclusive:  it does not include
                Family squabbles over

                                     *   land  *   money, etcetera
                                                                        (98/691).

[Sorry that I cannot transmit the ideograms via email; you'll have to look
at the original].

Such moral injunctions must be viewed in their historical contexts.  They
are not to be interpreted merely as friendly admonishments to brotherly
love;  they are designed to uphold the economic interests of a particular
socio-political formation.  As Chinese historian Yang Jung-kuo points out,
                Confucius concluded that filial piety and brotherly
                duty were the fundamentals of benevolence.
                        Why?  This was because under a slave system
                ancient society was ruled by the clan aristocracy.  The
                slave owners as a ruling class belonged to the same
                clan and had the same ancestors.  Confucius thought
                that the sharp contradictions and strife among the
                slave owners would lead to the collapse of their rule.
                Therefore he pointed out that so long as they showed
                filial respect to their ancestors and parents, the
                slave owners would be united vertically.  By brotherly
                duty he meant mutual affection and love among slave-
                owners horizontally.  With the slave-owners united
                both vertically and horizontally, there would be no
                insubordination and rebellion and the rule of the clan
                slave-owning aristocracy would be made secure.
                                (Yang, 12-13.  In Criticizing
                                Lin Piao and Confucius).


Regards,

Wei




________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com