Tuesday, April 19th 2011, at 11:15 am. the class of CSCL Reading History officially starts with instructor Ben Fink taking the class attendance. Saying every name along the list as he goes by, he makes side comments about some students being absent and sick today. Previously before class started, Heidi, who later turns out to be one of the difficultators, had randomly laid three big white sheets of paper on the floor in the middle of the circle of desks in the room. On the white board, Ben had also previously written the class schedule for today. On the board says, Program and underneath states, 1. Housekeeping-on blogs, external writings, the final assignment, and current events 2. Capitalism: a very short introduction 3. Difficultation-money makes the world go round…4. Weber vs. Kleist vs…Weber.
After the attendance had been taken, Ben asks the students to condense into a smaller circle. Students start to move their desk into the tighter and smaller circle. Ben then starts talking. He first covered the number one on the program about the blogs. The blogs were “fantastic” as he puts it. However, he followed with a disappointing tone as he states that some didn’t blog and commented and some did late. He then asks for protocol writers as he always does. Hallie and I raised our hands. Ben continues with his lecture.
External writing number three will be due next week Thursday on the twenty-eighth. Ben reveals that it was Tam who emailed him and asked for the extension. Office hours with Ben are back to normal now. He will also need an email from one of the group members about the final project with all the names of the other group members. In that email it will need to have the ideas of the final project. This email doesn’t need to be formal because Ben just wants to see what we’re thinking about. For the Fasolt blog coming this weekend, we will need to meet with one other person from the class. From this meeting, we will write and reflect on what we both talked about. We will have time on Thursday to talk in pairs. Ben asks if there are any questions on blogs, the external writing, and final assignment. Tam asks if Ben has any ideas for the final assignment. Ben offers the question to the rest of the class and asks if anyone wants to share their ideas and what they are doing. Ben tells Tam to come to his office hours for help after class. Ahmed then asks how many more blog posts we have left. Ben says we have two more posts left.
Ben then goes on to talk about current events. Syria is almost ready to lift its fifty yearlong state of emergency. Then there was this Iranian literary critic who in an article talks about this person who was made a heretic after reading max weber. That was it for housekeeping.
The difficultation comes next with Heidi as the only one here because Mandy and Karrie are absent today from sickness. Mandy as a finance major will present on Thursday with some tips and ideas on money. Ben then asks everyone to take out the course reading packet on Weber. He asks the question whether we understand the word capitalism and if there was anyone willing to attempt at an answer to it. Hallie speaks up and gives her definition of capitalism. Ben then goes up to the white board and write down what Hallie says. On the board is the word capitalism. Following it is the definition as an economic system that is based on accumulation of capital and there are people within the system who own the capital. The different types of people are: 1. The people who own a lot of capital and the means of production –Marx: they are not the actual producers. 2. The people who own only their labor-they sell it, to get wages.
It pains Ben as he says that we are not reading Karl Marx. Not because he wants to turn us into communists, but because a lot of the readings we have relate to what Marx has to say. Karl Marx is the “greatest economist who ever lived.” Referring back to the definition of capitalism, Marx would call number one as the bourgeoisie and number two as the proletariat. Weber is writing in opposition to Marx. What’s new between pre-capitalism and modern capitalism is that weber calls this money as capital.
Ben goes back to the white board writing, Das Kapital, by Karl Marx. He demonstrates an example using a tape dispenser as his chicken and trading it with one of Lindsey’s item as milk. His chicken for Lindsey’s milk. This is the pre-capitalist market. This is generally what we still go by today. For a modern capitalist, the economy works differently. For capitalist, you start with money. Invest it in commodity. On the board is the model as follows:
Pre-capitalist: c-(commodity)-m(money)-c
Capitalist: m-c-m
The example Ben gives is investing money into GE shares. Money becomes more after that investment as it accumulates. This is the difference between pre-capitalism, which is stable and modern capitalism, which is based on growth. Ben then refers to the course reading packet on Weber page thirty six or course packet page one hundred ninety-nine. He also goes to course packet page two hundred and three or Weber page one hundred and twenty-four. He read a passage from the page. Ben states that Fukuyama reads Weber wrong. What Fukuyama wants to say is it’s all just about the spirit and all the material will follow later. This is a bad reading on Weber.
Heidi then began her difficultation. She draws a diagram on the board. We make three dollars a day working. If we are sick that day and don’t go to work, we lose the three dollars. If we buy candy for two dollars later that day we lose all together five dollars. With those five dollars, we could’ve invested it and made fifteen dollars, which is the capital. Heidi asks everyone to stand and write anything they make of money on the three white piece of paper lying on the floor. What comes to mind when you think of money? Just write anything. Write one thing or one thought and that will get you one piece of candy. Two things and two candies. Three things and three pieces of candies. The one piece of candy is what you need. Two pieces of candies is more than you need and three is luxurious and success. Heidi gives out candy to people as they write on the paper. Some write “living expenses, savings, security, scroose mcduck, gold bars, cabaret, never enough, pink Floyd, clothes, shopping, material goods…” A couple minutes after, people started going back to their seats. Heidi says we will circle the things that relate to capitalism. Yell out and we will circle. Shopping, work, big money, living wage, system of oppression, debt, future, bills, gold bars, buy lots of stuff, competition, no money = sad, savings, living expenses, and never enough are circled. Our modern idea of what money is is related to capital. Giving candy away wasn’t because she wanted to feed students; she wanted to demonstrate that some people will make more money than others just as some people got more candy than others. Heidi will go to social work and Mandy will go to finance. Mandy will make ten thousand dollars more than Heidi in their starting salary. The question is asked that Heidi could’ve gone to finance major so it was fair. But Carlson School of Business is more expensive than the College of Liberal Arts was what someone argued. Ben recommends a book called Learning to Labor by Paul Willis. It is about kids from certain backgrounds that don’t want to go to jobs that will pay them more. If everyone wanted to be finance major, it wouldn’t work. “Deep contradiction of capitalism; a really good read,” says Ben.
Heidi reads the definition she found of asceticism. An example of an ascetic is a monk. Traditionally in Europe, the ascetics were monks. How Protestantism and capitalism link up is because of Lutheranism that the ascetic idea shifted. No longer was the holiest idea going away, but now the holy thing to do is the calling. To do your calling as best as possible. The Spirit of capitalism is the calling because that is the way to lead a meaningful life. Ben refers to page one hundred and ninety-seven in the course packet. About a third way down the page, he reads a passage. Religion doesn’t matter. When it started, religion was the foundation, but now it didn’t matter. It’s just what we do. This is where Weber is trying to go. Heidi talks about her father. She asked him about the spirit of capitalism. While Heidi is talking, Ben writes on board: Martin Luther-Lutheranism, John Calvin-Calvinism and purpose rationality, emotional rationality, traditional-religious rationality. Ben refers to page thirty-eight in Weber or course packet page two hundred. Once you pay a worker more he or she will do more work. A traditionalist will work as little as need to. Their purpose rationality is that why would you work more if don’t need more?
A modern capitalist’s purpose rationality is that they will work as much as needed to make as money even though they don’t get to spend it. Ben talks about being in an iron cage. He was going to be unproductive, but it was still hard for him. Ben wants to talk about the things we circled. He brings up Robin who seems to be saying that he makes a lot of money and is wealthy. Ben says he doesn’t make enough money and only about twenty thousand dollars a year. At twenty-six, this isn’t that bad, but if he was forty years old, he’s a failure. He then asks where we saw a connection in Weber to Kleist. Gina talks about Kohlhaas being on the wrong road. Luther chastises peasants for not being on the right road. Luther chastises Kohlhaas for not being on the right road also. He says the same thing to Kohlhaas as to the peasants. Ben then asks if anyone saw a connection of the Weber of this text and the other first one we previously read. We were given thirty seconds to think about it. Thirty seconds turned into three minutes. Alyssa talks. She was thinking about charisma and how it was almost like a fake authority. Or not exactly legitimate, but only on force of authority. She thought that Kohlhaas had charismatic authority, but in the end, he still died. Ben wants to make a proposal stating the question as follows: what for Kohlhaas in 1525, the same things he is fighting for as charismatic authority, which have become the iron cage, have become the most bureaucratic way? Ben also wants us to read Hegel on the said pages on the syllabus and to come in ready to say something about it on Thursday. With that said, CSCL Reading History class ends a couple minutes over on 12:33 pm.
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