[A-List] the Eurocentric bath water, the baby, and AGF (fwd)

[Andre Gunder Frank]

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               ANDRE    GUNDER      FRANK

Senior Fellow                                      Residence
World History Center                    One Longfellow Place
Northeastern University                            Apt. 3411
270 Holmes Hall                         Boston, MA 02114 USA
Boston, MA 02115 USA                    Tel:    617-948 2315
Tel: 617 - 373 4060                     Fax:    617-948 2316
Web-page:csf.colorado.edu/agfrank/     e-mail:franka at fiu.edu

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2002 09:51:27 -0500
From: g kohler <kohlerg at 3web.net>
To: wsn at csf.colorado.edu
Subject: the Eurocentric bath water, the baby, and AGF

This refers to, and is an interpretation of, Professor Frank's recent
piece (wsn, 13 March 2002) on "the Communist Manifesto: Abstract of a
world historical critique".

To give my conclusion first, it seems that, in order to get rid of the
Eurocentric bath water, AGF pretends (pretends only) to throw out the
baby (capitalism) as well. It's a Frankistic rhetorical strategy.

Details -
(1) Contradiction -
          on the one hand, AGF agrees with  Chaudhuri that "The
ceaseless quest of modern historians looking for the 'origins' and roots
of capitalism is not much better than the alchemist's search for the
philosopher's stone";
          on the other hand, AGF does exactly the same, namely,
identifying the origins and roots of that same baby. AGF explains that
the baby, which is commonly called capitalism, originates in that
"historical process" (unit of analysis = the world) which is "world-wide
and world - including Europe - encompassing".

(2) An analogous reasoning would be that there is no such thing as "the
Canadian weather", because the Canadian weather
(a) has no historical breakpoints,
(b) did not develop in quasi-Darwinian stages of evolution from lower to
higher stages,
(c) is not made within Canada, and
(d) is not uniquely Canadian and is not essentially different from
weather in other parts of the world -- but must be understood as part of
a "universal" weather "process" which is "world-wide and world-including
Canada-encompassing".
. . . and therefore, my students, says the professor, there is no such
thing as "the Canadian weather."

(3) ... and therefore, my students, says Professor Frank, there is no
such thing as "capitalism".
It's a Frankistic rhetorical strategy, like the formula "development of
underdevelopment".

Gernot Kohler


You got me and IT wrong.
Forget about the rhetoric and look at the real world/weather.
There
''Dev of Undev'' did and still does exist in fact
''capitalism'' did and still does not in fact exist
        its not a question of where or when it came from

        it never did. giving the past,present and forseeably future
        reality the ''cap'' name and attributing the specific
        characxteristics to the rea;lity that ''cap'' comes loaded with
        only leads to tyerrible misundersanding of what we see
        and obscures a lot from sight that is there and even more
        important


agf

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