Is this a mode of production I see before me?
November 16, 2014 5:24 AM Subscribe
Paul Mason: What Shakespeare taught me about marxism.
That's a wobbly sentence, but he says that it's their "greatness (which) is essentially bourgeois self-made" rather than them as individuals. It's still an arguable point, but I don't think Paul Mason is unaware that Hamlet was a Prince of Denmark.
Bonus content - here's Mr Mason getting annoyed in London with our modern day trading class.
posted by sobarel at 6:02 AM on November 16, 2014
Bonus content - here's Mr Mason getting annoyed in London with our modern day trading class.
posted by sobarel at 6:02 AM on November 16, 2014
What light through yonder window breaks the back of the worker?
posted by twoleftfeet at 6:04 AM on November 16, 2014 [7 favorites]
posted by twoleftfeet at 6:04 AM on November 16, 2014 [7 favorites]
What Shakespeare taught me about Marxism
Cade:
I thank you, good people—there shall be no money; all shall eat
and drink on my score, and I will apparel them all in one livery,
that they may agree like brothers, and worship me their lord.
Dick:
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.
Cade:
Nay, that I mean to do.
posted by Segundus at 6:53 AM on November 16, 2014 [5 favorites]
Cade:
I thank you, good people—there shall be no money; all shall eat
and drink on my score, and I will apparel them all in one livery,
that they may agree like brothers, and worship me their lord.
Dick:
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.
Cade:
Nay, that I mean to do.
posted by Segundus at 6:53 AM on November 16, 2014 [5 favorites]
Zounds!
posted by Pudhoho at 7:07 AM on November 16, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Pudhoho at 7:07 AM on November 16, 2014 [1 favorite]
it's their "greatness (which) is essentially bourgeois self-made" rather than them as individuals
I still don't buy it. The rich could afford to indulge in esoteric studies, collect art, or spend their hours becoming master fencers. Pretty much all of Shakespeare's main characters have a connection to royalty or nobility.
Now if he'd said that Shakespeare put those characters on stage because there was a new, upwardly mobile bourgeoisie that were striving to attain such things themselves, I might be more inclined to agree. Shakespeare was a bit of a social climber himself, securing a coat of arms for his family.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 7:28 AM on November 16, 2014 [1 favorite]
I still don't buy it. The rich could afford to indulge in esoteric studies, collect art, or spend their hours becoming master fencers. Pretty much all of Shakespeare's main characters have a connection to royalty or nobility.
Now if he'd said that Shakespeare put those characters on stage because there was a new, upwardly mobile bourgeoisie that were striving to attain such things themselves, I might be more inclined to agree. Shakespeare was a bit of a social climber himself, securing a coat of arms for his family.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 7:28 AM on November 16, 2014 [1 favorite]
I'd say off the top of my head the most of the Italians were mercantile types.
posted by Trochanter at 7:48 AM on November 16, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Trochanter at 7:48 AM on November 16, 2014 [1 favorite]
Reminds me of all the hours of Michael Neill lectures I sat through as an undergrad in the '90s. Though Neill would probably say that the classic early modern play that reflects the transition from feudalism to capitalism is Massinger's A New Way to Pay Old Debts.
posted by Sonny Jim at 8:21 AM on November 16, 2014
posted by Sonny Jim at 8:21 AM on November 16, 2014
"Frozen Desire" by James Buchan. A self described literary history of money.
posted by Pembquist at 9:41 AM on November 16, 2014
posted by Pembquist at 9:41 AM on November 16, 2014
twoleftfeet, I see your
What light through yonder window breaks the back of the worker?
And raise you a
A rose by any other name would continue to be defined by the material conditions of the economic base regardless of its superstructural designation.
posted by univac at 12:18 PM on November 16, 2014 [3 favorites]
What light through yonder window breaks the back of the worker?
And raise you a
A rose by any other name would continue to be defined by the material conditions of the economic base regardless of its superstructural designation.
posted by univac at 12:18 PM on November 16, 2014 [3 favorites]
A spectre is haunting Europe...oh, wait- that's just Hamlet's Dad and/or Banquo.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:50 PM on November 16, 2014
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:50 PM on November 16, 2014
Oh what fools these mortals be.
Economically, we are totally Pucked.
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:31 PM on November 16, 2014
Economically, we are totally Pucked.
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:31 PM on November 16, 2014
A spectre is haunting Europe...oh, wait- that's just Hamlet's Dad and/or Banquo.
That seemed to be the point of Derrida's Spectres of Marx.
posted by stanf at 3:11 PM on November 16, 2014 [2 favorites]
That seemed to be the point of Derrida's Spectres of Marx.
posted by stanf at 3:11 PM on November 16, 2014 [2 favorites]
What a horribly wrong reading of Shakespeare.
Shakespeare read correctly refutes the entire plenty-leads-to-socialism trope, and in fact reinforces that which we in fact observe, which is that to be human is to be hungry, and all that a sufficiency of something does is to denigrate its value and raise something else in its place to serve for scarcity.
Shakespeare's heroes and villains have in common that they are almost all possessors of wealth, power and esteem, earned or inherited, and desperately want more, or different. Macbeth, Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Hamlet, Gertrude, Othello, Lear, Richard III, heck, Oberon and Titania -- bottomless pits of want, compulsive disregarders-of-what-they-have-in-favor-of-what-they-have-not.
Romeo and Juliet -- all the acceptable matches in the world, and they have to condemn their families and themsleves to death because it's not enough, they must have the forbidden fruit.
And the great other romantics, Falstaff and Hal! Falstaff ever hungers, never sates. Hal has the throne of England -- not enough, he wants France.
A person who does not live in profound mental scarcity, is treated as kind of platonic ideal, not anyone who would seriously exist. Listen to Caesar talking of his ideal companion: "Let me have men about me that are fat / Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o' nights / Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look / He thinks too much: such men are dangerous."
posted by MattD at 3:56 PM on November 16, 2014 [7 favorites]
Shakespeare read correctly refutes the entire plenty-leads-to-socialism trope, and in fact reinforces that which we in fact observe, which is that to be human is to be hungry, and all that a sufficiency of something does is to denigrate its value and raise something else in its place to serve for scarcity.
Shakespeare's heroes and villains have in common that they are almost all possessors of wealth, power and esteem, earned or inherited, and desperately want more, or different. Macbeth, Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Hamlet, Gertrude, Othello, Lear, Richard III, heck, Oberon and Titania -- bottomless pits of want, compulsive disregarders-of-what-they-have-in-favor-of-what-they-have-not.
Romeo and Juliet -- all the acceptable matches in the world, and they have to condemn their families and themsleves to death because it's not enough, they must have the forbidden fruit.
And the great other romantics, Falstaff and Hal! Falstaff ever hungers, never sates. Hal has the throne of England -- not enough, he wants France.
A person who does not live in profound mental scarcity, is treated as kind of platonic ideal, not anyone who would seriously exist. Listen to Caesar talking of his ideal companion: "Let me have men about me that are fat / Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o' nights / Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look / He thinks too much: such men are dangerous."
posted by MattD at 3:56 PM on November 16, 2014 [7 favorites]
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posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 5:47 AM on November 16, 2014 [7 favorites]