Afghans are cynical (and wise) enough to assume from past experience that the secrecy covers up facts too grisly for public airing. Aerial counterinsurgency was invented in the Pakistani-Afghan borderland and Iraq by the British in the 1920s. Then, as now, it was a means of fighting insurgency without public scrutiny. Then, as now, no one counted the dead.

Over 92 percent of the US aid money granted in previous years is being spent through the American NGOs resulting in the return of a fair portion of the financial assistance back to the donor country. The News investigation found that of the projects run through $1.05 billion assistance, the government agencies were granted an amount of $29.68 million (2.78% of the total amount), UN bodies received $50.80 million (4.8%) and US NGOs bagged projects of $960 million (92.30%). This coincides with Ambassador Holbrook’s disclosure about short-listing more than 1,000 NGOs for awarding contracts in Pakistan.

"The Sri Lankan government cannot get away with hiding what it did to civilians during the war," Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director for HRW, told Inter Press Service. "This report helps to show that. It compiles all of the information out there about what happened and it turns out there's a lot of sources ... If their goal was to win the war and not allow the world to see what was happening to civilian caught in the crossfire, then they failed."
The State Department also discusses reports of the killing of captives or combatants seeking to surrender by the Sri Lankan government and disappearances of Tamil civilians by government forces or government-supported paramilitaries.

graham and martin, "splintering urbanism"

---prologue and introduction---

(2): potable water problem, a la karachi -- poor pay much more, per litre

(4): the gated community

(5): "through such trends the physical fabric of many cities across the world is starting to fragment into giant cellular clusters -- packaged landscapes mad up of customised and carefully protected corporate, consumption, research, transit, exchange, domestic, and even health-care spaces..." [the question, of course, is how new is all of this? the tone of the paragraph implies that it is all a recent development. but if we read engels on manchester, we're unlikely to come away with anything that, at this high level of generality (spatial inequality), is much different]

(5-6): helicopters in sao paulo

(8): important--"when our analytical focus centres on how the wires, ducts, tunnels... that interface and infuse cities are constructed and used, modern urbanism emerges as an extraordinarily complex and dynamic sociotechnical process."

(8): something like harvey/sassen, fixity amid mobility: "In this perspective, cities and urban regions become, in a sense, staging posts in the perpetual flux of infrastructurally mediated flow, movement and exchange... The constant flux of this urban process is constituted through many superimposed, contested and interconnecting infrastructural landscapes."

(9): noting the incongruity between the ideology of 'equality of access' to public infrastructure (post WWII), and the cases being documented of the immense inequality of current systems of access (this is where the historical sequence is important).

(9): six parts

1. complex interdependencies of infrastructure networks and urban societies;
2. how contemporary urban change involves trends toward uneven global connection, combined with reinforcement of local boundaries;
3. failure of urban studies in this regard
4. ibid
5. exploring crisis in contemporary urban life;
6. toward a critical urbanism

(10): important--"our starting point... is the assertion that infrastructure networks are the key physical and technological assets of modern cities."

(10): four critical connections between infrastructure networks and contemporary urbanism--"the starting points of this book"

1. the sociotechnical process of networked infrastructure coordinates much of what goes on in cities
2. "infrastructure networks... unevenbly bind spaces together across cities, regions, nations, and international boundaries... the configurations of infrasturcture networks are inevitably imbued with biased strugles for social, economic, ecological, and political power..."
3. as sunk capital, represent "long-term accumulations of finance, technology... organizational and geopolitical power..."
4. delineate "urban culture"; "what Raymond Williams (1973) termed the 'structures of feeling' of modern urban life"

(13): what's unique about this era and today's networked infrastructures:

1. intensity, power, speed and reach of connections
2. pervasiveness of reliance on urban life
3. scale of technologically mediated urban life
4. duplicating, extending variety, density of networked infrastructures
5. speed of sophistication of the more powerful and advanced infrastructrues

(13): "much of the material and technological fabric of citeis, then, is networked infrastructure."

(13): KEY--as evidenced by their prologue, they are discussing the privatization of networked infrastructures, too (earlier, remember, they used the term "internationalizing capitalism.")

(14): the de-coupling of function from place? ("...information technologies may also support the 'renucleation' of work, home, and neighborhood services... activities that were often separated into single-use zones during the development of the industrial, functional city..."

(15): at the very least, they're foregrounding the inequality of this "networked society" ("selectively connecting together the most favored users and places")--see also quote from Castells

(16): unnevenness and inequality, they're arguing, force us to rethink the notion of "internal coherence" (which the ideology of post-war public infrastructure would have thought absolutely necessary)

(17-20): invisibility of "infrastructure" to the disciplines that have tackled the city

(21-22): against "technological determinsm"--"the problem with such approaches is that they tend to reify technologies as having overwhelming power in ushering in simple and discrete societal shifts which seem to amount to some natural process of urban evolution... once again, the forms and processes of city life tend to be simply read off as the deterministic result of the intrinsic nature of the new generation of technology..."

(28): graphite crystal bomb -- dropped by US in Kosovo

(30): "the aim of this book is to reveal the subtle and powerful ways in which networked infrastructrues are helping to define, shape, and structure the very nature of citeis, and, indeed, of civilisation. To begin the process, we would point to four crucial starting points for our task of constructing a critical urbanism of contemporary networked societies."

1. "chains of related innovations bind infrastructrue networks closely to broader technological systems; these, in turn, are seamlessly woven into the fabric of social, economic, and cultural life."
2. "technologies and infrastructure networks must therefore be considered as sociotechnical assemblies... rather than individual causal agents..."
3. synergies between old and new infrastructure systems
4. architectural importance of infrastructure networks
   

(33): KEY, summary passage--"...The book constructs a new and broad framework for exploring the relations between contemporary cities, new technologies and networked infrastructures. It argues that a parallel set of processes are under way within which infrastucture networks are being 'unbundled' in ways that help sustain the fragmentation of the social and material fabric of citeis. Such a shift, which we label with the umbrella term splintering urbanisms, requires a reconceptualization of the relations between infrastructrue services and the contemporary development of cities."

(34): important--"networked infrastructrues," and their development, as a window to power ("...much of contemporary urban life is precisely about the widening and intesnifying use of networkd infrastructures to extend social power, the study of the configuration, management and use of such networks needs to be at the center... of our analysis")

(35): importance of a global system, given the interconnectedness (even if uneven) of the world-system. and thus, "we do this by arguing that practices of splintering urbanism are starting to emerge in virtually all cities across the globe, whether in the developed, developing, newly industrializing or post-communist worlds, as local histories, cultures and modernities are enrolled into internationalizing capitalist political economies in various ways..."

---chapter 2---

(40): from 1850-1960, "there was a general movement... from the piecemeal and fragmented provision of networked infrastructures to an emphasis on centralized and standardized systems... At the same time, WEster powers imposed adapted versions of the ideal of the standardised infrastructure network across Africa, Latin America... but only for the urban spaces of the colonisers and their associated socioeconomic elites..." Process, they gone to say, that created the "new industrial metropolis" in place of the "older compact commercial city."

(41): the new networked infrastructures were instrumental for "the widespread application after World War I of Fordist notions of scientific management, rational organisation and the mass production of standardized goods..."

(41): summary paragraph, of sorts--"over the period 1850-1960, single, integrated and standardised road, water, waste, energy, and communications grids covering municipalities, cities, regions, and even nations. These were legitimised through notions of ubiquity of access, modernization and societal progress, all within the rubric of widening state power." Based, also, on notions of "rational, comprehensive planning--progress toward 'unitary' cities.

(42): the rational turn is being read through the imprint of networked infrastructures (networked infrastructures as a site in which we can see this broader turn in action)--"networked-based modernity thus promised the joys of perpetual trasnformation towards a scientifically rational and technologically intense urbanism."

(42): important--acknowledging the falsities of the ideology of standardization--in actual fact, "modernizing cities were always about rupture, contradiction, and inequality" [again, we are going to have to ask about what exactly this move to 'splintering urbanisms' consists in]

(43): the four pillars of the "modern infrastructural ideal"

1. ideologies of science that dictated "standardized infrastructure monopolies" (44-49)
2. modern urban planning's aceptance of this ideal (49-66)
3. how modern ideal became implicated in home-based consumption (66-73)
4. how modern municipalities and nation-states became founded on providing modern infrastructure to a territory (73-
   

(44): i am finding it very difficult to embrace the anti-modern logic of this pillorying of the 'rational', modern infrastructural ideal [isn't there, also, a place for struggle? w-class fight for decent life? rather than the unfolding of an entirely objective philosophical ideal? but we cannot overstate our point, either -- think paris]

(44): all this, they are arguing, gave "urban engineering" a value-free, rational air

(45): triumphalism of modern infrastructural ideal (legibility of progress)--"a pervasive age of technological optimism became concretised in grand technological visions for cities realized through integrated infrastructural and urban planning."

(47): "...laden with lustrous promises of modernity..."

(47): important--"central to this period, then, was the emerging dominance of the notion of the city as an abstract object to be managed and controlled."

(50-51): the telephone

(52-53): the idea of "urban cohesion"--"in the face of the apparently chaotic urbanization in nineteenth century industrial cities, as well as the miseries faced by the working classes, health crises, and uncoordinated infrastructures, urban planning was widely seen in this period as the means to realize technological progress..." the novelty of modern urban planning (vs. planning in pre-modern times), they're arguing, consists in the notion that "comprehensive, integrated networks of streets could be laid across whole urban areas..." [Haussman's 'regularization' of Paris, from 1853-1870]

(56): sewers and the de-odorized city

(56): not till the interwar period that "access to quality water and sewerage networks, at standard tarriffs, became normalizeed as part of the modernizing social world."

(59): the upside of the 'public' ideal, however modernist--the "private, gated streets" in London were eventually incorporated into the "unitary public street system."

(60): in the US, the rectilinear grid "became the norm for organizing metropolitan expansion."

(60): also, "functional planning" -- separation of 'work', 'housing', 'leisure', 'transport'... ("in this way, the emerging political economy of industrial capitalism would be manifested in a planned built environment."

(62): important--one obvious, important fallacy of this modern infrastructural ideal is that envisions a harmonious resolution of the "contradictory tendencies of capitalist urban development..." (city as a machine, or organism)

(64-65): Corbusier and the "straight-line"

(66): infrastructure and consumption--reaches its greatest intensity in the first half of the twentieth century; "Fordism" as legible through the "integrated energy, transport, water and connumications grids so central to the modern planning ideals of the time." [all must have access]

(66): "Fordism," too, "imposed considerable requirements upon urban inrastructure systems" -- due to 'territorial segregation' and 'dispersed production' (here, discussed as MoProduction, primarily)--"requirements were met by massive national and local state investment in standardized and dependable infrastructure services."

(67): important, Fordism goes to Europe/Japan ("interwar" in US)--"As the interwar practices of US Fordism diffused into Europe during postwar reconstruction, a twenty-five-year boom followed, based on the virtuous linkage of mass production techniques, mass consumption and advertising based on the nuclear family household, Taylorist work organization, collective wage bargaining, the hegemony of the large corporation, Keynesian demand management, the welfare staet and the mass production of standardized housing." [again, it is the unfolding of a rational, modernist ideal--rather than in any way the product of 'struggles on the ground']

(68): "urban rationalization" consolidated between the 1920s and 1960s -- "distance was less and less a barrier to interaction, mobility, and exchange..."

(68-69): tracing the impact of this development on gendered normative/cultural behavior (the nuclear family, the housewife as salesperson--linked, of course, to demand management)

(70): "gendered construction of the telephone"

(71): important--the decentralization that went hand-in-hand with the construction of the American suburban ideal was enabled by these technological revolutions in infrastructure provision (a technical condition of possibility, in other words)

(72): contemporary house as a 'machine for living' -- hooked up to the infrastructural network

(73): enter the State, and efforts to provide "near universal access" to infrastructure networks--and not simply sinister; this entailed a "fight against the vested interests of private capital."

(74): infrastructure networks as the 'connective tissue' of the new modern nation-state (here being dated to 1880-1950)--an attempted 'quantum leap to ubiquity', in the form of attempt to standardize access (here, example of "new Deal") [in sum, an important way in which the 'nation-state' congealed] (see also 77, where they cite also the Nazis and the autobahns)

(74): citing brenner to suggest, also, linkages between infrastructures and industrial policy--the former provide/enable the "general conditions of production."

(77-78): noting that, especially at the outset, owing to the high capital outlays and lumpy nature of investments involved, infrastructure provision was always considered the duty of 'natural monopolies.' little space for competition, commodification. furthermore, "the rationalization and the interconnection of local networks to create national 'grids' thus allowed economies of scale to be realized in all infrastructural domains." the nationally-regulated, large-scale, vertical enterprise was a must.

(80): considered also to be public goods, which carried with it three properties

1. 'joint supply', meaning supply to one person could be extended to others at little cost
2. 'non-excludability', meaning others could not be prevented from using the service (e.g., roads)
3. 'non-rejectability', meaning it must be equally consumed by all (e.g., traffic control system)
   

(80): State also needed to manage negative externalities

(81-87): the colonial question, which they divide into two phases:

1. formal colonialism (1820s-1930s) (82-84): "investments" designed to meet two objectives--first, export of primary materials; second, to create well serviced urban cores for political and administrative control/coordination
   
2. and neocolonialism (1940s-1980s) (84-87): for the most part, continuity (?)--nonetheless, the infrastructural networks were now taken as symbols of a country's having arrived ("the assertion of an embryonic national identity in the form of airports, four-lane highways..."). they're noting two approaches to infrastructural development, modernization theory (84-85) and ISI (85-87).
   

(82): spatial apartheid in the colonial city

(88): summary paragraph--"...variations of the modern infrastructural ideal were an essential component of the elaboration of modern nation states and urban planning movements. They were central to the construction of modern notions of time and space... the helped symbolically and materially to support the construction of national identies..."

---chapter 3---

(91): important--from the late 1960s, a series of critiques emerged that called the modern infrastructural ideal into question. they link this, immediately, to the end of "the long capitalist boom from the 1950s to 1970s." and ideologically, too. from the right: "in most contexts, it seems, politically neoliberal critiques of the 'inefficiencies' of centralized public control and ownership have fuelled a widespread wave of infrastructural liberalisation and privatisation which is still accelerating." from the 'left': "powerful social and cultural critiques have dramatically exposed its inadequacies... notions of urban planning and the city have also experienced radical overhaul..."

(92-136): five things that undermined the modern infrastructural ideal

1. the urban infrastructure 'crisis' (92-94)--speaking about actual physical crisis, which has been tied to the crisis of the 1970s, in general (physical deterioration of infrastructure, which was linked to the "widespread fiscal crisis at all levels of the US state.... expenditure was approaching the point at which it could barely maintain investment in net infrastructure" (94))
   
2. changing political economies of urban infrastructure development (94-103)--the internationalization of capitalism, coupled with widespread fiscal crisis of the State. "infrastructural privatization is a growing trend in all types of nation state..."as a result, seeing three features, mainly: a. retreat of state-backed provision / b. imperative of local competition / c. retreat of idea that networked services are 'public'. result, of course, is that "infrastructure provision" is prey to the whims of financial capital, which is interested only if"there are ways to guarantee certain rates of return" (97). they remind us, too, of the role of compulsion--debt repayment and the gutting of the public sector (99). all this, then, is obviously contributing to the process of splintering/unbundling, which assists Capital find steady, higher profits in providing for the Few (think, too, of the historical, political importance of cross-subsidizing and ideal of universal access, in the case of the 'modern infrastructural ideal'--see 103, the "position of the poor"). the city is being unwound; in its place are arising global-local linkages (100) amidst a sea of unevenness.
   
3. collapse of modern notion of comprehensive urban planning (103-114)--"the technocratic... styles of urban planning most closely allied with the rolling out of the modern infrastructural ideal have also found it difficult to survive the shift to an increasingly globalized political economy driven by liberalized flows of capital... it has also lost much of its legitimacy in Western nations as a result of... powerful 'postmodern' social and cultural critiques" (103); a shift to "projects," rather than "comprehensive plans." flux/change is putting the homogeneous, 'fixed' city to bed. and as far as the challenge from the left goes, "the instruments of modern planning, ostensibly developed to support coherence and urban egalitarianism, have often been appropriated to support fragmentation and social exclusion" (111).
   
4. physical growth of metropolitan regions (114-123)--shift from "core-dominated cities to polycentric and extended urban regions." the increasing importance of the urban periphery, and marginality. a 'single urban soup'. "the spectacular growth of urban peripheries tends geographically to eclipse or even isolate the networked cores that were the legacy of the modern infrastructural ideal" (116).
   
5. challenge of social movements (123-)--"the shift from the modern to the postmodern urban condition" -- "the ways in which a wide range of new social movements have brought resistance to bear on the technical and ideological assumptions that underpinned the establishment and propagation of the modern infrastructural ideal." the welfare state 'consensus', in other words, was not a 'consensus' at all. [but again, here we are going to try and be sensible--for all critiques are not equal, and we must move forward.]
   

(95): # of TNC's = 37,000 in 1990

(101): 're-infrastructuring' in the form of trade zones, export-processing areas, etc.

(102): "collective consumption" as a 'historically-specific phenomenon' -- though this raises, of course, the question of the conjunctural nature of neo-liberalism (what are we going to do with the swathes of humanity excluded from the mkt?)

(104): technocratic ideal was rocked by the "turmoil of social, economic, and cultural change between the 1960s and 1980s."

(108): referencing Jane Jacobs as progressive critique of the modern ideal

(108-109): robert moses and his "utopian new city of unified flow whose lifeblood was the automobile"--the purpose, of course, was "maximizing regional markets, productivity, and ease of circulation."

(110): i will just register that you don't, at all, need 'postmodernism' to critique the technocratic ideal -- the democratic ideal will do just fine (see 111).

(113-114): key, the 'city' as site of infrastructural development is being called into question--"...with the growing emphasis on global-local rather than intra-urban connections, the notion that the level of the city per se is the most appropriate scale at which to manage and articulate infrastructure is transcended..." [echoes of sassen's point about the global city as a subset of the conventional urban]--however, cities as "increasingly powerful actors" at the same time? "cities remain as places where significant and potent power exists to plan and act to address complex and ambivalent position of place within globalizing vectors of flow..."

(117-121): the role of the car in fracturing the urban landscape, even as it began as a key innovation of the 'modern infrastructural ideal': "a central paradox of processes of splintering urbanism is that the extension of standardised highways and roads across and beyond the metropolitan region -- ostensibly to support metropolitan ingegration -- has tended in practice to support the partitioning and fragmentation of urban space..." (118, see also 121) the car has supported the notion that personal enclosure is private freedom (119). it stretches the 'urban space', creating distances that can no longer be crossed by those without a car.

(121-122): the prospects of the 'infinite city' [but this needs interrogation; can we speak of unevenness and exclusion, yet also be prepared to accept that everyone is going to be 'urbanized' in the same way?]

(122): now, "position and centrality are configured less by geographical location with respect to 'downtown' than by the conditions of buildings and places with respect to global-local networked infrastructrues like international airports, high-speed rail and port terminals..."

(124-128): the feminist critique -- profoundly gendered sense in which the construction of urban infrastructure networks unfolded.

(126): despite technological innovations, time spent on housework changed very little from the 1920s to the 1960s

(128-129): failure of modernization or ISI in developing cities, as well. no 'trickle down'

(130): relevant, the 'fixity' of 'infrastuctural networks'--"at independence, colonial states faced massive problems as they inherited infrastructure networks designed to serve metropolitan rather than local needs... physically-embedded networks could not simply be rerouted to link bypassed regions... virtually all railways built in Africa since independence have replicated the colonial pattern of linking enclaves with the nearest port..."

(131-132): water systems as a site of "negative redistribution of income."

(133-135): the environmental movement -- advancing environmental standards, an attack on the 'large-scale centralized technologies surrounding the modern infrastructural ideal'

(135): pushing back, too, against "standardization."

(136): KEY PAGE--the 'profound ambivalence' with which they greet the collapse of the modern ideal. this is deeply disapponting--encapsulates the tension obvious in their treatment thus far. they lament the collapse of 'universal access,' but make a gesture towards the possibly liberatory aspects of this new attentiveness to "urban diversity". the poor and the dispossed may win out in these new markets tailored to their needs? what the fuck? clear that here we are seeing the possibly scary start of shared libertarian proclivities?

---chapter 4---

(138): framing of infrastructural unbundling--two tasks: (1) how it works in practice; (2) how it reshapes social and spatial relations in cities.

(140-141): "new technical capabilities"--tracing different, small-scale alternatives to the infrastructural ideal, most of which have come around as a result of technological and demand changes, it seems (but the idea that these will 'provide to the poor' is not really disputed very fundamentally, here? something odd is going on...).

(141): three forms of network unbundling:

1. virtual segmentation: "division of vertically integrated infrastructure networks"
2. horizontal segmentation: division into regional monopolies
3. virtual segmentation: layered divisions onto existing infrastructure (differential lanes on the highways, for example)

(145): four characteristics that influence marketability of infrastructure

1. character of the service (public good, private good)
2. conditions of production (extent to which its production is contestable)
3. environmental externalities
4. character of users' demand

(146): public goods (air traffic control) --> common pool goods (rural water systems) --> toll goods (toll highways) --> private goods (electricity generation/distribution)

(147): (1) "main deterrent to competition in infrastructure provision is the magnitude of sunk costs in the event of exit from the market. the costs are sunk to the extent that they cannot be recovered for other uses..." (2) related restriction is need for co-ordination. and (3), of course, "high economies of scale."

(149): opposed to conceiving of this transition as "privatization" or "deregulation" -- "the process is actually much more complex and 'messy'" (see 150-151 for their typology)

(152-161): in place of public/private, seven possible pathways:

1. the status quo--increasing untenable, as pressure is put on developing countries to reform public infrastructure
2. commercialised infrastructure--still run by gov't, but objective is that it runs on its revenues.
   
3. delegated infrastructure--suppliers competing for the right to supply a market (governments creating market conditions)
4. privatized infrastructure (ownership and operation)
5. privatized infrastructure (private competitors)--here, a "combination of technological and regulatory change is making competition possible..."
6. community infrastructure--"devolution of infrastructure planning and management, with a higher degree of user and community involvement."
   

(154): example of Guinea and the water sector -- is this book really becoming an apologists' guide to privatization? "the benefits of privatization are ambiguous... many studies show short-term benefits to producers, consumers, and employees(!), but longer-term effects have not been demonstrated..." (156)

(156): "between 1988 and 1993, the global value of infrastructure privatization was over US$ 30 billion... over 60 per cent of all infrastructure privatization by value has taken place in Latin America... "

(159): "evidence from the united states points to substantial economic gains from deregulation"!!! what is happening to this book?

(166): "imaginative ways are being developed to facilitate competition in different elements of the networks [of water/waste] or for the right to supply the market." [the tone is neutral at best] "public regulation is necessary to ensure access for low-income customers..."

(166): summary passage, these six pathways lead to two main conclusions:

1. only a limited number of options require unbundling; only two create competition.
   
2. a huge degree of diversity in the pathways away from integrated networks...

(167): important--"we believe that the key to developing an understanding of complex connections between unbundling and urban restrucuring is to explore the uneven nature of three forms of what we call 'infrastructural bypass'" (1. local bypass (168-171), which connects valued users and places; 2. 'glocal' bypass (171-173), which connects valued locals to global circuits; 3. virtual network bypass (173-175), use of new information/communication technologies to distribute competitive infrastructure services over a single physically integrated network(?))

(168): under heading of 'local bypass', noting (1) the creation of parallel infrastructure networks which arise to provide for "valued zones and users"; (2) segmentation of existing infrastructure networks; (3) coping strategies of the "least valued" users--inadequate treatment, i should think. here their own value-freeness is to be indicted.

(171): "glocal bypass often coexists with major physical planning schemes that link the customisation of places targeted at meeting the needs of global capital and foreign direct investment"

(174): certainly not benign--innovations towards the virtual network bypass can "be used to plan the construction of new physical networks and support the development of strategies used to effect disengagement from the least valued users."

(176-178): five conclusions from these preliminary discussions of "splintering urbanism"

1. "process of inrastructural unbundling analyzed above are likely to reshape dramatically relations between cities and their networked infrastructures... This is a multiscalar process... generally, it involves intensifying the connections between most valued users and places while simultaneously weakening the connections with least valued users and places."
2. infrastructural unbundling is not a simple process, but can take many different forms
3. not easy to characterize the trajectories of individual cities along pathways of unbundling...
   
4. "crucial to stress that changing infrastructural landscapes of cities are more complex than the displacement of the old by the new..."
5. "all infrastructures have not been unbundled... they lack the private sector interest in providing services..."
   

---chapter 5---

(179): to understand why we are seeing what we're seeing, we will need to engage "four strands of theory"

1. theories of large technical systems (180-184)--marked by growth, stabilization and then decline; "the large technical perspective therefore helps demonstrate how systemic changes appear in the whole technological fabric of society..." "instead of being static material artefacts to be relied on without much thought, they are, in effect, processes that have to be worked towards..." "precarious achievements" (182)
   
2. actor network theory (184-190)--"contemporary life is seen to be made up of complext and heterogeneous assemblies of both social and technological actors..." "so--and this is of crucial importance--unbundled infrastructure networks and fragmented cities emerge as two sides of the same overarching societal process." [ok, so what--i could have told you that, already; why the hell do we need bruno latour?]
   
3. political economy of capitalist infrastructure (190-202)--[see below]
   
4. relational theories of contemporary cities (202-)--first, reject idea that space, place, and time have any essential, predefined, or fixed meaning--worked out through social action, in dynamic ways (203). second, they lack any essential order or coherence (204).
   

(179): important, ontology of city/infrastructure-- "we aim to do this in a parallel way which does not overprivilege cities over infrastructure, or infrastructure over cities. in fact, we want to avoid the problem that has beset so much literature in the field, that of separating the ontological status of 'infrastructure' or 'technology' from the 'urban' or the 'city', as though they stand in a state of simple distinction."--"seamlessly coproduced"

(187): "city as cyborg"(!)

(190-): seven key arguments of spatial political economy

1. "infrastructure as fixed supports for the space-time mobilities of capitalism" (190)--"production of infrastructure networks to transcend time and space barriers simultaneously requires those infrastructure networks to be geographically fixed in space."
2. "the differing time-space capabilities of infrastructure networks" (193)
3. "as locally dependent capital (193)--"materially embedded in territory," require capital to be sunk--making it expensive, uncertain and risky investment.
   
4. "time-space compression," which is very uneven and partial (194)
5. "strategic localism" (197)--"changing geometries of infrastructural power tend to be bound up with internationalization, liberalization... such transformations mean that the modern nation state... is tending to leak its power..." spatial scale itself, as a historical product. with brenner, noting, in particular, the ascendancy of the 'glocal' scale.
6. "the pay per revolution" (199)--"redistributive role of infrastructure networks in modern welfare states is under severe strain." commodification.
7. towards hubs and spokes and tunnel effects (200)--increasing punctures and ruptures, in place of "homogenizing infrastructures"

(204): the move from a 'uniplex' to a 'multiplex' city

(208): "terminal architectures"

(209-210): Castells' dystopic 'network society' -- high value, glocal connections; whole swathes becoming redundant [but this is so obviously overstated, even if it gets at some truth, unintentionally]

(210): mike davis, and LA

(210-211): the 'figured' and 'disfigured' city

(214-216): four key conclusions

1. the seamless interdependence of the city and infrastructure networks
2. urban infrastructure networks are only ever temporarily stabilized, and always involve constant effort (in flux, never fixed)
3. the appearance of the 'glcoal', and the '"reduction of emphasis on standardized connective fabrics within cities"--unevenness
4. the need to work through social structures in action, rather than assuming fixity

[YAWN]

--chapter 6--

(220): three key aspects of 'infrastructural unbundling': 1. "wider trends toward social polarization" / 2. withdrawal of cross-subsidies / 3. socially polarizing effects of information and communication technologies.

(221): supporting trends: broader shift towards social and geographic polarization (estimate that roughly 30-40 percent of the population in the core is effectively 'tenured' within the global economy; less in developing countries--otherwised a chunk of casualized workers and about half who are structurally excluded).

(222): 'secessionary networked spaces' (malls, business parks, highways, gated communities) [what they are also calling 'rebundling']

(226): 'air-conditioning'

(227): "clear production-side forces are shaping the packaging of urban landscapes and the rebundling of cities. in all the above cases, local and international real estate interests seem to be intent on packaging together larger and larger luxury spaces...; at the same time, they work harder to secure such spaces from incursion... from the new urban poor" [here, interestingly, citing Logan 1993--is this a place to ground, historically, the "urban growth machine"?]

(228): key, networked infrastructures have molded to the secessionary space--"the logic of unbundled infrastructure networks helps such spaces to connect very closely with the highly capable.. infrastructure networks necessary to support and sustain their operation."

(232): important, the death of "public space" and the escalation of "public control"--the "other" side of the narrative--the degree to which splintering urbanism has been matched by the intensifying attempt to exercise social control over a given 'public' space (what they call 'normative ecologies' of who belongs).

(233): the end of cross-subsidies, which were so crucial to the goals of the "modern infrastructural ideal" -- replaced by a project-by-project logic, and the notion of 'fiscal equivalence' (234)

(234): "infrastructures and services start to be developed on the basis of the price of delivery and the desire for maximum profits: explicit social redistribution tends to be withdrawn from the equation." (aka, the 'rebalancing of tarriffs')

(236): important, the 'end' of the formal citizen: "there has been a notable shift from treating the user population as a largely homogeneous group of citizens, with notional or formal rights, to a heterogeneous group of consumers, carefully differentiated according to how lucrative they are to serve." [an interesting point to raise the question of the affinity between left- and right- libertarianism]

(236): at&t making 80 percent of their profits from 20 percent of their customers

(240): the ACORN classification(!)

(243): again, advances in technology enable this "unbundling"--the possibility, then, of a "new biology of control" (biometric scanning in san francisco, in gaza)

(244-246): the internet as 'global ghetto'; UNDP's figures are 2% of global population (the figures are outdated, but the principle is certainly not--latest figures say 24.7%, though UNDP may want to measure a subset of this population)

(246): yes--the "public" gets reduced to a cosmpolitan, resolutely bourgeois 'public' sphere.

(249): the seven (six?) spaces of seduction: 1. privatized highways (249)--social bias of the private highway (254) /2. remodeling of the internet into a corporately dominated communications medium (251) / 3. splintering streetscapes (256)--the private, air-conditioned walkway / 4. theme park/business improvement district, "malls without walls" (261) / 5. the gated community (267), which rely on replicating high-quality public services through private means ('privatopia') / 6. at the level of the home (284), secession from "immediate urban environments."

(264): the concept of a normative 'space-time' ecology

(266): "themed places" as 'large-scale urban control zones'

(269): widespread absence of pedestrian sidewalks in suburban malls

(271): disney and a "private political structure."

(275): "...of all secessionary network spaces, the risk of common interest developments prompting the collapse of the overarching municipal tax system is perhaps strongest..."

(281): gated communities and secession in johannesburg, after the breaking down of the pass-law system

(288): wacquant and "advanced marginality" -- "we need to recognize that marginalization from the ability to use and configure networked infrastructures and technologies is as central to the experience of poverty as lack of food, money or formal employment."

(289): important-- "marginalized groups often remain heavily dependent on whatever public, welfare and social services exist... but, under the influence of wider shifts away from universal, Keynesian welfare regimes to neoliberal, individualist ones, these, in turn, may be 'reconverted into instruments of surveillance and policing of a surplus population..." [here, parenti's argument about the prison system is very appropriate]

(290): four cases of exclusion: 1. transport in splintered metropolis (290)--"for many low-income people the social experience of life in marginalized places is one of being tightly confined by time and space barriers rather than being liberated from them." / 2. exclusion from IT networks (291) / 3. water provision in the"Developing World" [why caps?] (296), where "prospects for major extension seem weak" / 4. + 5. fuel and power resources (297)

(292): homelessness and the "sanitization" of the urban space in the US ('out of sight', 'out of mind')

(296): here, an interesting, telling aside -- that "even" the modern infrastructural ideal was better than neoliberalism at dealing with informal settlements [might tell you a thing or so about the common system that undergirds the two, no?]

(297): "in jakarta... over half the population still obtain their water from vendors, at as much as thirteen times the cost of the piped water used to irrigate the golf courses and landscaped gardens of the extending new town complexes..." [goodness.]

(298): pre-payment reduces the public image costs of "disconnection"

(302): SUMMARY--"these new urban forms have major implications for the democratic possibilities of the city. they seem to signal the collapse of the coordinated public nterprise of interlinked infrastructural monopolies and comprehensive public city planning. they mean the effective abandomnet of the (always problematic) ideal of the cohesive, integrated and open city that can be characterized as having some organic unity. we are clearly losing the 'ideal of the city as a special place: the center of democratic exchange...' highly uneven commodified competition of the production of both networks and spaces becomes the single dominant ethos of the city; increasingly you are what the market dictates for you."

---chapter 7---


(305): the 'archipelago' economy -- "glocalization"

(306): ash amin and nigel thrift "argue, however, that it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to generate 'artificially ' such self-sustaining international economic nodes..."

(307): neil brenner and "de-linking"

(307): important--"the key result of these trends is that all cities, whether they be 'global cities... [or other cities]... seem to be facing variations of the same broad logics of development." [this, though, is not true--last week's conversation about shenzen, case-in-point -- but they have a framework which can assimilate this -- seen next page "we suggest that the intersections between globalization, liberalization, new technologies and infrastructural practices have crucial iplications for the development of urban economies in [all places] alike..." we just need to make explicit the correct way to deploy this.]

(308): the seven types of places that are emerging: 1. global financial service cities (new york, london) /2. development enclaves in 'megacities' / 3. emerging enclaves of innovation / 4. industrial spaces for innovation and production /5. spaces configured for inward investment in manufacturing... / 6. 'back office' enclaves for data processing / 7. spaces configured as 'logistics zones'. [this is key, actually -- demonstrates, really, that glocalization's unit is no longer the 'city', but, more, a kind of 'space' that is not 'local']

(309): moreover, they want to highlight four key supports for the economic changes being documented in this book: 1. changing role of states, "increasingly entrepreneurial" (309--citing brenner) /2. urban municipalities (310), pursuing 'glocal' strategies /3. infrastructure capital (311) /4. corporate capital

(327): aspiring "global cities" in the third world

(344-345): utilities advertised to foreign investors ("glocal infrastructure provision")

(348-349): pearl river delta as case in-point--"such spaces are specifically built for foreign capital..."

(363): interesting, export processing zones--"emblematic of the use of corporate networks to exploit spatial separation and geographical division.. 'we make computes, but we don't know how to operate computers'..." "export processing zones are therefore logistics enclaves whose high levels of infrastructural servicing, and connectivity elsewhere, tend to contrast sharply with their disconnection from their surrounding city or region and its poor infrastructure..."

(372): two choices, re: what lies beyond the 'glocalized' world: 1. accept the deteriorating world of the modern infrastructural ideal / 2. "to take action to splinter oneself and one's space away from the modern, monopolistic infrastructure network, in the hope of achieving more suitable higher-quality or more reliable connections that way"[???] [and a very poor discussion, here]

(377): BUT--"as we shall see in Part Three, cities continue to be mixed economic and social spaces... attempts at economic and technological secession are ambivalent, contradictory practices that are open to resistance and challenge. as we shall see then, such continued mixity and ambivalence offer a key hop.e to any attempt at working towards the economic democratization of the twenty-first century splintering metropolis."

---conclusion/epilogue---

(384): calling for a "series of caveats" in their analysis; themselves recognizing that they don't want to overstate their points. two tasks: 1. wider, historical context / 2. the necessary limits of 'splintering urbanism'.

(385): recognizing the risk of "overgeneralization" -- there is no simple, 'function' fit between the city and the needs of global capitalism.

(386): important, they recognize also that "the dialectic of privacy and closure versus openness and mixing has been played out since the very beginning of urban life." .. "the modern infrastuctural ideal was never materially achieved in practice. it was always as much a symbolic and discursive construction as a technological reality. it was closely bound up with the wider legitimation of modern national and local states... unevenness and bias... remained in all cities..."

(387): noam chomsky citation, out of nowhere!

(387): important, "we should be cautious not to fall into the trap of romanticizing the modern infrastructural idea... the normative concept of the networked city that was at the root of the modern idea was totalizing and centralized..." [again, the critiques were raised earlier--isn't this far too totalizing? even criticizing re-distribution as "paternalistic". we don't need to rehabilitate the welfare state to avoid this trap. to the ramparts!]

(388): secession, similar to the modern infrastructural ideal, as a "dream" - "just as unrealisable as the fantasies of clearn, functional, and perfectly geometric order promulgated by modernist visionaries... we therefore need to be wary of assuming the easy emergence of utterly separated premium network spaces..."

(388): six reasons why this is more messier than they'd like: 1. always 'open' and 'porous', in practice / 2. must maintain connectivity with wider public networks (like labor, for example) /3. sheer diversity cannot be parcelled out so easily, multiple spillover effects. / 4. spaces continue to exist where resistance can be constructed. spaces of 'public mixing' (392) still exist.

(393): merrifield's response to davis' dystopia.

(394): we cannot forget the creativity and sheer inventiveness of urban inhabitants [a bit hokey, all this]

( 395): "most practices of resistance are more prosaic and quotidian...", transgression and rebellion [uh-oh; this is not promising, in the least... skateboarders as the new vanguard]

(396): struggles against the 'representations' of the periphery. [PLEASE!]

(397): the very cursory mention of actual movements is refreshing.

(397): kaliski and the prospect of finding 'public' in the privatized.

(400): NGO's in nepal and colombia; Orangi Pilot Project [uh-oh.]

(405): interesting, the conjuncture: "we would therefore expect social and political tensiosn within many cities to increase. A central theme of urban politics... in the first decades of the new millenium will therefore centre on the struggle between the 'glocal' forces... versus the imperatives of infrastructrual, urban, and technological democratization and the need for more egalitarian and democratized practices and principles of development."

(406): towards a 'spatial imaginary', which can bridge the multiple heterogeneities without suppressing difference (here they cite harvey)

(407): "urban democratization" -- "heterogeneous interaction and continued mixing"

(408): an urban politics of difference that is not an urban politics of segregation, which is willing/ready to come to terms with "the common experience of the contemporary, capitalist urban condition." [recalls Lefebvre]

(409): and YES -- they bring the State back. "new forms of intervention by state and public institutions... are required directly to encourage democratic practices..."

(411): the "tyranny of spatial scale" -- "the assumption that the urban scale must, necessarily, be the dominant scale of action and organization... we must recognize that real democratization must be pursued [at different levels]"

(417-419): questions for further urban research.

goodwin and hetland, LGBT and capitalism

(2): "We show, however, that the dynamics of capitalism have in fact mattered significantly, and in a variety of ways, for the LGBT movement. We conclude that movement scholars, including scholars of new social movements, need to pay—or, more accurately, re-pay—greater attention to the dynamics of capitalism. It is time to bring capitalism back into social movement studies."

(3-4): [why and how was capitalism important, in the opinion of the 1970s scholars?] "The authors of these groundbreaking works believed that capitalism was crucial for understanding movements because of a variety of important causal mechanisms: Capitalist institutions (factories, railroads, banks, etc.) or institutions that capitalists may come to control (e.g., legislatures, courts, police, etc.) are often the source or target of popular grievances, especially (but not only) during times of economic crisis; these institutions, moreover, shape collective identities and solidarities—and not just class solidarities—in particular ways; they also distribute power and resources unevenly to different social classes and class fractions; they both facilitate and inhibit specific group alliances based on common or divergent interests; class divisions, furthermore, often penetrate and fracture particular movements; and ideologies and cultural assumptions linked to capitalism powerfully shape movement strategies and demands. The effects of capitalism on collective action, for these authors, are both direct and indirect (i.e., mediated by other processes) and are the result of both short- and long-term processes."

(5): for the civil rights movement, as written about by McAdams, capitalism and its shifting dynamics were a condition of possibility (the move, i.e., of many numbers of african-americans from the South to the North)

(6): "Instead, recent scholarship tends to focus on short-term shifts in “cultural framings,” social networks, and especially “political opportunities,” rarely examining the deeper causes of such shifts; in fact, most movement scholars now treat this last set of factors as independent variables, neglecting the ways in which they may be powerfully shaped by capitalism."

(10): maybe an opportunity, here, to elaborate on the paper's theoretical position?--"Indeed, they seem to justify this with the claim that “collective action does not spring automatically from structural tensions,” and so the bulk of their book is “dedicated to the mechanisms which contribute to an explanation of the shift from structure to action”—mechanisms having to do with “the availability of organizational resources, the ability of movement leaders to produce appropriate ideological representations, and the presence of a favorable political context” (della Porta and Diani 2006: 63). But this seems to assume that such resources, ideologies, and political contexts are substantially if not wholly detached from the dynamic structure and practices of capitalism, a view we would of course challenge"

(12): "What happened? What might account for this strange disappearance of capitalism from social movement studies? Here, we can only speculate, but we would argue that this transformation is the result of several linked factors, including the waning after the 1970s of Marxism in the social sciences, the so-called “cultural turn” in academia, and a growing emphasis on micro- and meso-level analysis—including framing and network analysis—in social movement studies proper. Our aim here is not of course to criticize cultural, framing, or network analysis, but simply to point out that these have effectively—and unnecessarily—“crowded out” a concern with political economy in the field. As a result, a number of promising causal mechanisms linked to the dynamics of capitalism are no longer even considered worthy of attention by movement scholars."

(13): "For us, in any event, the key question is not so much why capitalism has disappeared from movement studies, but whether the analysis of movements has suffered as a result. We believe it has."

(13-14): Our reading of the literature on this and other movements suggests that the dynamics of capitalism and political-economic factors potentially matter for all movements in at least four specific ways:

1. Capitalist dynamics alternately inhibit or facilitate the formation of new collective identities and solidarities, including both class and non-class identities. In this way, capitalism shapes the very conditions of existence of many social movements.
2. The balance of class forces in a society powerfully shapes the way movements evolve over time and what they can win for their constituents.
3. Class divisions generated by capitalism may unevenly penetrate and fracture movements. The balance of class forces within movements—sometimes more and sometimes less organized and self-conscious—may powerfully shape movement goals and strategies.
4. Finally, ideologies and cultural idioms closely linked to capitalist institutions and practices may strongly influence movement strategies and goals.

(17): first specific way, for the LGBT movement--"According to D’Emilio, the initial emergence of a collective and publicly visible gay and lesbian identity in the United States was dependent—just as for the African-American civil rights movement—upon the expansion of wage labor. This process of “proletarianization” diminished the economic importance of the family unit, thereby undermining the material basis for “traditional” heteronormative sexual relations and creating at least the possibility for more fluid sexual practices and identities (see also Therborn 2004). The urbanization that resulted from capitalist industrialization, furthermore, facilitated the formation of communities based on sexualities and lifestyles. The large, anonymous cities created by capitalist industrialization made possible the emergence of hidden, “underground” gay and lesbian subcultures, typically centered around commercial bars, clubs, and other establishments."

(19-20): second specific way, for the LGBT movement--"the strength the organized labor movement—especially what Hunt terms “the extent of [its] historical commitment to ‘social unionism’” (1999b:7)—has been of crucial importance for LGBT movements over time, across a variety of national contexts, and at the sub- and transnational levels... the character of welfare states have had an important influence on LGBT movements... Rayside finds that the rights of LGBT populations have advanced the furthest in northern European nations, such as the Netherlands, Norway and Denmark, which are also, not coincidentally, countries where social-democratic or labor parties have been strongest... Rayside also finds that individual union support for LGBT issues is often greatest when unions (1) I and (2) are confronted with significant membership losses and demographic shifts." [interesting, especially this latter point]

(21): "While there are of course many “non-material” factors to consider here, including the stigma and psychological costs of exclusion from a central cultural rite, analysts of same-sex marriage should not underestimate the importance of the economic benefits that attach to marriage in the United States. One recent study found that the price of being a gay couple in the U.S. can amount during a lifetime to over $467,000..." [question of the status of the 'non-material' in the analysis not being made explicit. there's a strong argument, which would suggest that it can ALL be explained. and then a weaker argument. is that fair?]

(24): third specific way, for LGBT movement: "As Hollibaugh points out, this is but one example of many ways in which class divides the LGBT movement: “Much of the gay movement, in my experience, has been willing to forego substantive discussion about anything of concern to anyone but a privileged and small part of homosexuality in this culture. The politics of these gay movements are determined by the economic position of those who own the movement” (2001:74)."

(25-27): fourth specific way, for LGBT movement: "We turn, finally, to a brief discussion of the pervasive and, for us, insidious role of capitalist ideology in the LGBT “workplace” movement in the U.S. )... [T]he extension of benefits and workplace rights to LGBT employees is most often explained through what Raeburn calls an “ideology of profits” (2004: 250). In this “profit-centered account,” the explanation for why corporations extend benefits to LGBT employees rests on the “bottom line”—that is, the reason corporations adopt LGBT-friendly policies is not because of social movements, but because it is profitable to do so... As Raeburn demonstrates, in contexts like the contemporary United States, where market ideology is pervasive, the efficacy of social movement activists can come to depend upon their ability to successfully frame movement success in market-friendly terms."

(26): interesting question about 'isomorphic' pressure (given summers' argument, that is): "These factors include changes in the external political environment, isomorphic pressure from competing companies, and internal pressure from LGBT activist networks operating within a given firm. Raeburn sees this last factor as the most important of all (although she notes that isomorphic pressure within a given industry may increase in importance over time)."

(28): is this not one of the most gross generalizations? shouldn't it be framed differently? ("Typically, whether one employs a Marxian or Weberian framework, capitalism is treated as a purely economic system (Marx 1992 [1867]; Weber 2003 [1923]). But the concept of “political economy” underscores the need to examine the political role of the state within the economy, a role that has of course grown considerably over the past two centuries.")

(28): the need for a more 'sociological' view of capitalism--fair enough, but isn't this theorized non-rigorously? or, perhaps, this framing should have been incorporated better into the rest of the paper -- there's a sense in which it this 'sociological' view is not explicit or implicit at the outset. "Introducing a more “society-centric” view of capitalism, in which issues of culture and ideology assume an important role, does not necessitate abandoning economic and political analysis. It does, however, suggest the need to reverse the direction of our causal arrow, investigating not only how capitalism shapes the LGBT and other social movements, but also the reverse, how the LGBT and other social movements shape capitalism as well—as Raeburn’s study powerfully demonstrates."

saskia sassen, the global city

xix-xxii: the seven hypotheses

(1) - geographic dispersal of economic activities is a key factor feeding the importance of central corporate functions;
(2) - central functions are so complex that large global firms are compelled to outsource them to 'highly specialized service firms.'
(3) - these highly specialized service firms are 'subject to agglomeration economies.' as a result, "global cities are, in this regard, production sites for the leading information industries of our time."
(4) - the more headquarters outsource their most complex functions, "the freer they are to opt for any location" for the work actually done in their headquarters;
(5) - specialized service firms are engaged in providing a 'global service,' which encourages global city-global city partnership;
(6) - a growing number of high level professionals in cities "have the effect of raising the degree of spatial and socioeconomic inequality evident in these cities."
(7) - the dynamics described in hypothesis six lead to "the growing informalization of a range of economic activities..."

(3): cities' four-fold new functions: (1) highly concentrated command points; key locations for finance; (3) sites of production of innovations; (4) markets for the products and innovations of this new services economy.

(5): "the fundamental dynamic posited here is that the more globalized the economy becomes, the higher the agglomeration of central functions in a relatively few sites, that is, in global cities... there is a new logic of concentration."

(5): the "global city" as a site of production of "highly specialized services and financial goods" [note, this does not tell us anything about cities, in general--in that sense the explanandum is not the "urban," but an atypical subset]

(6): wanting to focus on the "practice" of global control--"the work of producing and reproducing the organization and management of a global production system and a global marketplace for finance," a process in which the "global city" has a critical role. [she is less interested, she says, in the 'familiar issues' of the power of larger corporations. but is this simply an excuse to dull the heinousness of what she's describing?]

(8): question, also, about the relationship between the city and the nation-state

(10): and finally, the morphology of the new service sector--what about the low-wage jobs that supply this high-wage service sector?

(12): important--here some reflections on why this transition has happened, and how to theorize it. it is not the case that new industries have emerged to replace old ones; at least it is not that simple. what has happened, instead, is a "deep structural process of decline," in which "growth" and "decline" have to be theorized more holistically. simply and specifically, i guess, this is the idea that we are seeing the geographic dispersal of manufacturing, which has engendered the need for the new. [the question, though, is why we need to see the 80's and 90's as "high-flying," rather than periods of stagnation. this motivates a question re: whether the change she is documenting can be attributed to technological shifts, as is somewhat implied, or whether there's something else, more internal to the pure dynamics of capitalism, which has spurred it. i suppose the two theorizations are not mutually exclusive, but there is a sense in which sassen has evacuated the latter paradigm from her analysis.]

(12-13): more on the systemic connection between 'decline' and 'growth'. four working hypotheses:
(1) geographic dispersal of manufacturing, which contributed to the decline of old industrial center [and] [created] a demand for expanded central management...
(2) the growth of the financial industry... benefited from policies and conditions often harmful to other industrial sectors, notably manufacturing (do we mean hiking the interest rates in '79?)
(3) "a transformation in the economic relationships among global cities, the nation states where they are located, and the world economy..."
(4) a "new class alignment" in the global city [a species of "structured coherence," perhaps?]

(19): it might be important to clarify the causal connections between these three observations, because elsewhere it seems to be distinct from what she is proposing here: "a leading argument in this book is that the spatial dispersion of economic activities and the reorganization of the financial industry are two processes that have contributed to new forms of centralization insofar as they have occurred under conditions of continued concentration in ownership or control." [recall panitch and gindin, in other words, who suggest that 'the reorganization of the financial industry' was necessary for Capital to come to terms with 'transnationalization'. also, is the last clause suggesting a positive, normative project--that this process could (and should) have happened under different "conditions [of] ... ownership [and] control."

(20): what we have seen, in effect, is a de-centering of transnational banks (and the TNC's, of course), and the concomitant rise of the "major centers of finance."

(19): interesting, if cryptic sentence: "whether internationalization is essential to the major outcomes, notably the acute pressure, toward agglomeration in leading cities, is difficult to establish and is perhaps a question of theory." [what to make of this? we can have the global city without globalization? unlikely. but this is why her doing the work of theory would be immensely helpful; is she eschewing that task even though she thinks it worthwhile?]

(20): question of the concept of "productive innovation" in finance, insofar as she is anticipating the possibility of "non-productive innovation." what is the distinction? hasn't recent history proven the fallacies of celebrating precisely this same fact of innovation, insofar as it has proved to be 'smoke' and 'mirrors'? or are we speaking of a subset of the kind of innovation that she wants to speak about. [my position seems justified--"innovations" are made explicit on page 21 as "derivatives" and "hedge funds"]

(21): explicitly naming the 'long wave' objection (what is different about this round of 'financialization' from what transpired at the turn of the century?)

chapter two

(23): "capital mobility" is not simply the ability of capital to move across space; the concept must also assimilate the fact of increasing centralization.

(26): mention of 'transnationalization' as a political strategy to break 'fordism', but also a technical consequence of new strategies that were "designed to separate low-wage, routine tasks from highly skilled tasks..."

(28-29): seems too lumpy -- discussing "transnationalization" at the same time as mentioning how many women work from their suburban homes? i understand the affinity, but could this not be said to be symptomatic of some larger failings to systematize data with an appropriately theoretical frame?

(30): sassen's notion of the "redeployment of growth poles," which helps us observe that geographic dispersal has gone hand-in-hand with increasing concentration of capital ["such a parallel decentralization of ownership has not taken place. The large size of firms has made it possible to internalize transaction and circulation costs, thereby reducing the barriers to capital circulation and raising capital's ability to equalize the profit rate." [marxist commitments, clearly...]

(31): perhaps we can start, here, to ask what "productive innovation" in finance might mean? "opening up of regional markets"; "offshore banking" --> all leading to a "renewed concentration in and orientation toward major financial centers, beginning in the early 1980s... not mere geographic retrenchment but was in fact associated with new forms of capital mobility..." "The central activity is now the buying and selling of instruments over and over again, thereby maximizing the circulation of financial capital.."

(32): "increased capital mobility has brought about a homogenization of economic space..." [but, in a way compatible with uneven development, of course.]

(32): important--quite bleak implication for one type of development strategy, here. peripheral labor can now be employed without ever escaping its peripherality. no more "labor aristocracy," which she identifies as a very specific historical phenomenon. technological/communication revolution has enabled high-tech industries to incorporate sweatshop labor. this tendency towards dispersal, she's implying, "neutralizes the politico-economic consequences that Marx associated with the generalized increase in the capital intensity of production..."

(33): labor in this service economy, more mobile/transnational/unequal -- (1) both highly trained personnel, and (2) unskilled service labor

(33-36): useful summary of argument of chapter 2

chapter 10: a new urban regime?

(329): "the most pronounced development is the massive increase in the volume of transactions of the financial industry, by far the most significant international industry."

(330): "most foreign direct investment is now in services."

(331): "the weight of economic activity since the 1980s has shifted from production places, such as Detroit and Manchester, to centers of finance and highly specialized services."

(331): her central amendment to a traditional 'world-systems' narrative--the need for 'control'/'organization' is not inherent in fragmentation ("cannot be taken for granted") but needs to be produced.

(331): "global cities as sites for the production of global control capability."

(332): a list of the kind of firms that comprise this "global control capability"--isn't this a bit underwhelming, if we're honest? -- "advertising, accounting, legal services, business services, certain types of banking, engineering, and architectural services."

(332): hmm--on the one hand she is drawing attention to the enormous importance of finance, as service. but on the other hand, she doesn't want to include the production of financial instruments as a "service." the question, then, is obvious: is the popular narrative that it is these instruments and the games they play that account for the enormity of financial activity? or is it actually true that the services that actually comprise global control capability dominate the world economy? the latter seems very counter-intuitive, especially if you consider the amount of money that was trading on the derivatives market (220 trillion dollars, or something like this...), and all this. having said this, it does seem like she acknowledges this, to an extent; i would only say that what i've read of her argument does not foreground the parasitism of this fact.

(332): the potential for other global cities, besides the trinity -- the possibility of regional and national markets that need a more locally-oriented site of control capability.

(333): and KEY--her larger argument assimilates the understanding that manufacture and the proletariat, in fact, HAVE NOT declined. "I argue it is these transformations that constitute the shift to a service-dominated economy, rather than the mere fact of a shift in employment from manufacturing to services, a process usually centered on the growth of consumer services. On the contrary, I posit that the period of massive growth of consumer services is associated with the expansion of mass production in manufacturing." [but this does raise the question: why do we need to speak about this as "an economic system dominated by such management, servicing, and financial activities? see page 334] see also discussion below

(333): between the global cities, the emergence of a "transterritorial economy" [though not, at all, a self-sufficient economy, remember--it could not exist without manufacturing]

(334): important--an explicit consideration of the place of manufacturing economy. and again, the implications are bleak, insofar as they portend an increasing divergence between the fortunes of the global city and the nation. "Yes, manufacturing matters, but from the perspective of finance and producer services, it does not have to be national... One of the key points developed in this book is that much of the new growth rests on the decline of what were once significant sectors of the national economy, notably key branches of manufacturing that were the leading force in the national economy and promoted the formation and expansion of strong middle class."

(335): MOST IMPORTANT--new, more severe forms of "increased social and economic polarization" associated with this transformation. and this, of course, may one day call into question the foundations of the new growth, too. "At what point do these tensions become unbearable? At what point is the fact of homelessness a cost also for the leading growth sectors? How many times do high-income executives have to step over the bodies of homeless people till this becomes an unacceptable fact or discomfort? At what point does the increasing poverty of large numbers of workers begin to interfere with the performance of the core industries either directly or indirectly? It is perhaps the social involution that this mode of growth brings about in significant sectors of a national economy that may be more devastating to its own growth than the decline of manufacturing at the national level, since there is significant manufacturing growth globally, and in that sense there is grist for the mill of the producer services complex."

(335-336): and then, also, the obvious tension between the "growth of these leading 'industries'" and the decline of the health of the nation-state (in burgeoning budget deficits due to the decline of national economic sectors)

(336): barriers to entry, which is critical for the absurd hacks who want to transform this into a normative project ("And most cities lack the mix of resources which creates organizational complexity in leading cities. We are entering a whole new phase in the development of urban economic cities.")

(337-338): narrative of suburbanization and the rise of the middle-class in the US; in UK, "social provisioning" in the form of a "national public health system" and "public housing"; in Japan, "massive reinvestment to expand the infrastructure for production rather than that for social reproduction."

(339): a move away from production for internal consumer markets, and towards international markets as symptomatic of the larger shift away from the Fordist phase.

(340): IMPORTANT, even if she doesn't answer it, she is asking exactly the right question, here: "This development [away from Fordism] raises a number of questions about the intersection of economics and politics and about the 'natural' tendencies of capitalist economies. Was the social compact of the postwar period the result of the weight of local politics in a phase of economic development that gave local claims unusual powers? And is what we are seeing today--increased economic and social polarization--the 'natural' outcome of the operation of the economic system when political claims carry little weight?"

(340): identifiying an "ideology of globalism," within which "localities are seen as powerless in an era of global economic forces."

(340-341): important--high-income workers vs. management of these service industries--argument, here, is that there is an important distinction to be drawn between the two. the former have no claims over their places of work; they can be fired at the drop of the hat. they are tied to it through "conspicuous consumption," which "serves a strong ideological function of securing the alliance of these workers." [many questions, of course, but perhaps useful to use this as a way into the question of "productive" and "unproductive" labor -- the argument is that "they are ultimately a stratum of extremely hard-working people whose alliance to the system leads them to produce far more profit than they get back in their admittedly very high salaries and bonuses." but how? is their labor not more destructive, than productive, insofar as they're engaged in the re-distribution of surplus value? or are they actually 'facilitating' the creation of 'surplus-value'? or perhaps these two are not mutually exclusive?

(341): let's not overplay the role of these people, as a mass, in the larger population. she acknolwedges that they are "numerically small", but seems to peg the prominence of a "new social aesthetic" to their rise, nonetheless. i suppose we'll have to admit that this culture exists, of course; though it's prominence is open to contestation. they are certainly not involved in an active "war of position." they don't care about winning "hearts and minds." clearly, with sassen, we are still justified in deriding this as the culture of an unaccountable and seceding elite.

(343): all this, again, seems to represent a "new urban regime" [what does this mean, though--theoretically--for questions re: its stability?]

(344): again, engaging the earlier question of the role of finance--how to make sense of this, exactly? ("This is not to say that finance was unimportant then and manufacturing is unimportant today. Nor is it simply that the financial industry has replaced the auto industry as the leading economic force.

epilogue

(346): there are six sets of debates
(1) re: the global city as model (347-355);
(2) re: place and role of finance
(3) producer services;
(4) relations among cities;
(5) inequality in global cities;
(6) are global cities a new spatial order?

(347): concept of "incipient de-nationalization" -- is this helpful? elites willingly surrendering the state to capital?

(348): no such entity as a single global city--"the global city is a function of cross border network of strategic sites... The global city network is the operational scaffolding of that other fuzzy notion, the global economy."

(349): she is not assuming homogenization--rather, her point is "the development and partial importation of a set of specialized functions and the direct and indirect effects this may have on the larger city."

(349): what work does this distinction do, exactly--"It is not simply a matter of global coordination but one of the production of global control capacities."

(349): she is concerned, after all, with a "whole infrastructure of jobs typically not marked as belonging to the corporate sector of the economy."

(350): "The place-ness of the global city is a crucial theoretical and methodological issue in my work. Theoretically it captures Harvey's notion of capital fixity as necessary for hypermobility."

(350): important--she understands herself as making a "distinction between what is encompassed by the global city model and the larger urban entity called New York... What may have not been stated with adequate clarity... is that the effort... was to understand the impact of the global city function on the larger city, to see whether this impact is beneficial for a larg sector of the population or not..." [i think we can push this much, much further than she has--and then, having done that, doesn't it destabilize much of what is 'formally' advertised in this book?]

(351): one answer to why this prism of the global city is useful (again, though, not because it might tell us about cities, but because it tells us something specific about the global economy): "The concept of the global city introduces a far stronger emphasis on strategic components of the global economy, and hence on questions of power... Overall, I would say, the concept of the global city is more attuned to questions of power and inequality."

(354): speaking, explicitly, of "the global city," as it exists today, as a construction of today--"one of the marking features of the organizational architecture of the current phase" of capitalism.

(358): "indeed it let me to start a major new multiyear project on the role of the state in globalization and the impact of the latter in altering the logic explaining whose claims become legitimate"

(358): acknowledging that 1980s and 1990s "increasingly delinked finance from its role as servicing the 'real' economy." and also that financial turn "is not the first time this happens in recent Western history..." "But in my reading there are distinctive features that differentiate the current phase rom earlier phases."

(360): KEY, responds to the questions I posed earlier--"what is specific about the shift to services is not merely the growth in service jobs but, most importantly, the growing service intensity in the organization of advanced economies: firms in all industries, from mining to wholesale buy more accounting, legal, advertising, financial, economic forecasting services, and so on, today than they did twenty years ago... Cities emerge as important production sites for what are key inputs for firms in all industries."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

neil brenner critique in "review of international political economy" (1,1, 1998)-- reference point of sassen's concept of "systemic discontinuity" is a static nation-space; she has not seen how the reconfiguration of the state, itself, is concomitant to the same processes that have shaped the city. thus her conclusions about the state suffer because they reify an earlier, temporary form, in effect (he is drawing attention, instead, to regional configurations--not unlike taylor).

peter taylor critique in "review of international political economy" (1, 2, 1994)--sassen misses three things: (1) the focus on three cities is inadequate for an understanding of the world urban hierarchy; (2) her theorization of the state is absent, rigid, inadequate--he wants to mention the possibility that different states will take different tactics re: the production of the global city; (3) her theorization of the 1980s runs roughshod over the realization problem; in effect, taylor is drawing attention to the contradiction of neoliberal restructuring (capital will still need to find a market for its goods). this is why he thinks it is the 1980s that are temporary, rather than the social democratic solution of yesteryear.

max weber, the protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism

I--THE PROBLEM

(1-8): DOMINATION AND SOCIAL STRATIFICATION

(2): KEY--weber here suggests that casting off the fetters of the catholic church not be read as a casting off of 'authority'--but, in fact, the "replacement of the previous form of authority with a different one." in fact, a more strict one--protestants cast off the diktats of pope and priest, only to submit their will to an ethic that was more taxing and more severe.

(3,4): protestants more likely to pursue technical/commercial education, more likely to move from craftwork to skilled work/management (whereas catholics prefer to become master craftsmen)

(4): weber mentions that he would have expected them to, as a minority, have a greater proportion of their leaders in business (since the State is closed to them).

(4): in observing that jews and poles and others have done precisely what catholics are proving unable to do, it seems like this is becoming an argument about protestantism, only implicitly. even though it is early going, yet, this ought to say something about the contingency of the thesis?

(5-6): not 'unworldliness' of one vs. 'worldliness' of other -- too meaningless

(7): KEY--the ethic is not connected to the "enlightenment" or "progress," he wants to stress. as such, "if an inner affinity is... found..., we must try... to seek it not in its more or less materialistic... enjoyment of life, but rather in its purely religious features." [in other words, to 'fit' the modern world it has been adapted, in a sense; it is not marked with 'modernity,' at all]

(8-28): THE SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM

(8-9): this is important and interesting--he is committed, explicitly, to a methodology soaked in history. absolutely anti-positivist, in this sense [a "definition" is not possible, but only a "provisional illustration"]

(11): here we see the first mention of 'instrumental rationality'--"the increase of his wealth... is assumed to be an end in itself." appended to this, then, is also a sense in the ethical correctness of this position, though only in an unapologetically "utilitarian" sense (wherein "the appearence of virtue" is an appropriate substitute for "virtue," because it is all about the result and effect obtained)

(12): but note: this is entirely detached from hedonism or whatever else. it is so "purely thought of as an end in itself."

(12-13): the concept of diligence "in one's calling" makes an appearance, as an "essential element"--weber is even pointing out its familiar but non-obvious nature. important.

(13): important--not so concerned with the re-generation of this kind of an 'ethic', today (as in, it is not even an option if you'd like to compete on a market). this is, primarily it seems, an inquiry into its origins ("it obviously first had to come into being... as an attitude held in common") (see also 18)

(13): first mention of "naive historical materialism."

(14): here, a point to hang a critique on--in MA, the spirit of capitalism preceded "capitalist development." [for one, it's not clear that the spirit of capitalism need only exist in fully-fledged capitalism for historical materialism to be helpful--it seems like it would be might helpful for the yeomanry]

(14): it's not greed that is the explanandum, he's reminding us -- this he sees everywhere. it's something much more specific.

(16): already, we are specifying the object of study, further than the term itself implies (for Weber here is seeing persistent 'precapitalist' modes of behaviour amongst laborers; an alternative, of course, is that these are their own kind of spirits of capitalism)

(18): here the nature of evidence is downright pathetic ("a relative told me" that pietist girls are more conscientious, "as a result of a religious upbringing").

(19): specifying what exactly "traditionalism" means in this narrative--something like werner sombardt's argument, but different. roughly, here, a subsistence economy oriented to "traditional needs."

(19): a provisional definition--"We shall nevertheless provisionally use the expression 'spirit of capitalism' for that attitude which, in the pursuit of a calling, strives systematically for profit for its own sake in the manner exemplified by Benjamin Franklin."

(19-20): a summary passage, of sorts: "We do this [i.e., the above] for the historical reason that this attitude has found its most adequate expression in the capitalist enterprise, and conversely the capitalist enterprise has found in this attitude its most adequate spiritual motivation."

(20): a point to interrogate, here--what does he mean when he says that 'big banks' and businesses, in general, can be run in a 'traditionalist' spirit? it must be historically-specific, since he has earlier discussed the sink or swim character of the economy.

(20): the "peasants" were the craftsman's principal clients?

(21): this is CRUCIAL, to his argument (this history)--he is depicting a capitalist 'form' of organization (the craftshop, and the putter-out), but run in a thoroughly 'traditionalist' spirit (easy working hours, amount of work, the traditional clientele). in other words, here we have capitalism, weber thinks, without the spirit of capitalism. the key change that he wants to to document, then, is not the formal changes that he admits will come later--but before those formal changes, a change in spirit [but isn't the objection obvious?]

(21-22): here one person is the catalyst--it is strange, because the 'spirit of capitalism' is only necessary in the way in which he wants it to be, at one very critical moment' (at a turning point). from there, everything works itself out, without it.

(22): KEY--the thesis: "In such cases (and this is the main point), it was not normally an influx of new money that brought about this revolution--in a number of cases known to me as the entire 'revolutionizing process' was set in motion with a few thousand marks capital borrowed from relatives: it was the new spirit at work--the 'spirit of capitalism.'"

(23): anticipates one of my objections, which is that this new 'spirit' is defined more by what is not (i.e., a loss of respect for the Church, etc.), though he is here only acknowledging its importance.

(24): irrationality of this spirit--"whereby a man exists for his business, not vice versa."

(24): the capitalist entrepreneur "ideal type" (marked, in particular, by asceticism)

(25): Ben Franklin would have been unthinkable, as an ethical ideal, in early years

(26): here, again, noting that Ben Franlkin ideal type emerged in a virtually non-commercial economy (this takes us back to the question of evolution of capitalist 'form')

(26): "To speak of a 'reflection' of the 'material' conditions in the 'superstructure of ideas' would be sheer nonsense here." [but (a) the evidence is shaky; (b) this is not really the proposition of historical materialism (fields and 'propaganda')]

(27): not as simple as seeing development of this 'spirit' as part of the total development of 'rationalist' spirit (this seems to be part of the larger re-reading of the role of the Enlightenment)

(27): this is critical to the argument--we must speak of different forms that rationalism can take ("It is possible to 'rationalize' life from extremely varied ultimate standpoints and in very different dirctions.")

(28-36): LUTHER'S CONCEPTION OF THE CALLING

(29): KEY--"What was definitely new was the estimation of fulfillment of duty within secular callings as being of the absolutely highest level possible for moral activity" (i.e., with the Reformation)

(29-33): exposition of Luther's views within larger theological context starts here. and importantly here it is made clear that Luther, himself, did not deliver a 'rational'/modern reading of the Bible--his was traditionalist. it's only the concept of the 'calling' which gets picked up on, that is potentially anti-traditional. to be clear, though, the calling as deployed by Luther is traditional, insofar as it accepts 'destiny.'

(33): "What we are looking for... cannot be directly derived from Luther's position..."

(33): on to Calvin--the "real enemy" of Catholicism (the "ethical pecularity" of Calvinism)

(35): an important note, which has been made before--we are not looking for an intentional exposition of the spirit of capitalism (indeed, what it became was largely 'unforseen' and even 'unwished for', he says--obviously for Luther but also for Calvin)

(36): another jibe at the materialist doctrine.

(36): here, KEY clarification of the bounds of his investigation: "We have no intention of defending any such foolishly doctrinaire thesis asthat the 'capitalist spirit)... let alone capitalism itslf, could only arise as a result of certain influences of the Reformation. The very fact that certain important forms of capitalist business are considerably older than the Reformation would invalidate such a thesis. We intend, rather, to establish whether and to what extent religious influences have in fact been partially responsible for the qualitative shaping and the quantitative expansion of that 'spirit' across the world, and what concrete aspects of capitalist culture originate from them." ["elective affinities" -- (1) this parsing of the object of analysis is important, but is it sufficient? it gives Weber an all-too-easy theoretical escape point, where his objective, now, is essentially to closely investigate the somewhat 'banal'; (2) there is an important investigation to be conducted into the nature of the capitalist 'form' -- here he speaks about old, 'capitalist' business preceding the spirit of capitalism. but what does this term mean, exactly? he has not yet given us a clear definition]

(46): tsk, tsk -- again, anectodal evidence

(48): not just in dialogue with Marxist materialism (Sombardt claims this ethical aspect is a 'product')

(49): overheard at SDP conferences ('anyone who doesn't toe the line will be kicked out')--"Party discipline is the reflection of factory discipline."

(50): alluding to need for 'discipline' (this is explicitly different, though, from the sense of the calling as it exists in the entrepreneur. we should in fact inquire more closely into the precise class position of the explanandum--see pg. 51: "it was the rising petite bourgeoisie... who were the 'typical' bearers of capitalist and Calvinist church polity.")

(61): Cromwell and the Irish--justified invasion on basis of English Capital having educated Irish in the habits of work(!)

II--THE IDEA OF THE CALLING IN ASCETIC PROTESTANTISM

(67-69): THE RELIGIOUS FOUNDATIONS OF INNERWORLDLY ASCETICISM

(67): the four historical bearers of "ascetic protestantism": 1. Calvinism; 2. Pietism; 3. Methodism; 4. Bapitst sects

(69): not looking so much for explicit moral imperatives--but, rather, the "pyschological drives" which led people to behave in a certain way (this obviously relates to the discussion of rational/irrational)

(69): 'ideal type' technique as dialectical?

(69-87): CALVINISM

(69-70): the docrine of 'election by grace', whose importance consists in its 'effects' on cultural history. "it was primarily this aspect of Ca;vonism which was felt to be a danger to the state and was attacked by the authorities."

(72): first of two paths to this doctrine consists in knowledge of our total impotence and sinfulness. thus, it is only by god's grace that i could be redeemed, and not through my own action (i am insignificant, again) [Weber is noting that this doctrine faded from Luther, but was amplified in Calvin)

(72): "God was not there for the sake of men, but men were there for the sake of God... only a small proportion of humanity was called to salvation..."

(73): "...his decrees could only be understood or known in any way to the extent that he had seen fit to reveal them to us."

(73): goodness!--"For every creature was separated from God by an unbridgeable gulf and deserved only eternal death except in so far as he, for the greater glory of his majesty, had willed differently." [and it can't be that you can do good deeds and be saved--for that would mean humans had influenced God!]

(73): important--the principal consequence of this doctrine, weber's arguing, was to engender a profound sense of "loneliness" ("no one and nothing could help him.")

(74): this, he adds, was the basis "for the absolutely negative attitude of Puritanism towards all sensual and emotional elements in culture and subjective religiosity" [the asceticism--rejection of "every kind of culture of the senses"]

(74): here, a contrast between the "individualism" this engeders, and the Englightenment's view of men (which was decidedly more optimistic). "The Calvinist's relationship with his God was carried on in profound inner isolation."

(75): important--tracing how we get to the "calling," from this condition of "inner isolation." "The world was desinted to serve the self-glorification of God, and the Christian existed to do his part to increase the praise of God in the world..." more or less, then, because you find yourself in a vocation that God has willed, for you.

(76): "...labor in the service of this social usefulness furthers the divine glory and is willed by God."

(76-77): here arises the question re: 'my' election--how will i know? this, for the ordinary believer, became the question of "overriding importance."

(77): KEY: aside from belieiving in one's state of grace as 'duty', "tireless labor in a calling was urged as the best possible means of attaining this self-assurance."

(78): "The communion of God with the recipients of his grace cnan only take place and be consciously experienced by God's working in them and by their becoming conscious of this..."

(79): and thus, by being sure that his conduct is "based on a strength dwelling within him which is capable of increasing the glory of God... he attains that supreme prize... the certainty of grace." works, even if not sufficient, are still 'indispensable for salvation.'

(79): this means, then, that God will only help those who help themselves; the Calvinist 'creates' the certainty of salvation himself.

(79-80): KEY--elucidating the difference with catholicism: "It further means that what he crates cannot consist, as in Catholicism, in a gradual storing up of meritorious individual achievements; instead, it consists in a form of systematic self-examination which is constantly faced with the question: elect or reprobate?" in other words, it is not 'individual, atypical good works' that are desired by God--but a kind of 'santctification by works' that is being "raised up to the level of a system"

(80-82): the ascetic character of Reformed sects comes in this domination of life by the quest for certainty of salvation (this, he describes as its rationalization)--"the goal of asceticism was... to be able to lead a watchful, aware, alert life."

(82): the key difference between this asceticism and Catholic monastic asceticism consists in the fact that the former leads you into the world (into "secular everyday life"), whereas the latter takes you out of it.

(83): Calvinism contributes, also, a positive motive to this asceticism: the idea that one must "put one's faith to the test." And this, for the larger discussion, will be key, Weber's saying (see 86)

(83): weber is suggesting that this fervent commitment leads Calvinists to view others as God's enemies (yet it is unclear, really, why this follows, uniquely)

(84): importance of Old, and not New, Testament to the formation of these beliefs.

(85-87): KEY--Calvinism takes the "systematization of the ethical conduct of life" to a new level--Christianity permeates the "whole of existence." The key point, then, is that Lutheranism could not do this--it's doctrine of 'faith alone' could not provide the powerful psychological impulse "to be systematic in the conduct of life, and thus to enforce the methodical rationalization of life." Calvin's doctrine of predestination was only one of a number of ways in which this psychological impulse was generated. Now we move to the others.

(87-95): PIETISM

(88):"The movement aims to draw the invisible church of the 'saints' visibly together on earth... to lead a life which is dead to the influences of the world and based on the will of God in every detail, so that the daily outward signs manifest in their conduct may make them sure of their regenerate state."

(88-89): but the key difference between Pietism and Calvinism consists in the former's view of the "emotional side"--it "directs the practice of religion toward the enjoyment of bliss in this world instead of the ascetic struggle to secure a future in the next."

(89): however, this is not practically manifested, he's arguing (i am not following the argument for why, exactly--seems contingent, see 90). rather, "the practical effect of Pietist principles is merely an even stricter ascetic control of morality in the calling than that which is provided by the mere worldly 'respectability' of the normal Reformed Christian..."

(93): nonetheless, the basis of Pietism's asceticism "falls well short of the iron consistency of Calvinism."

(93): a summary passage of Calvinist spirit--useful.

(95-98): METHODISM

(95-96): anglo-american equivalent to continental pietism--a similar emphasis on the 'emotional', on the 'feeling of being certain of grace and God.

(96): "joyful assurance" in place of the "morose" anxiety of the Calvinists

(97): important--at the same time, however, something less than Pietism is going on: "The emotional act of conversion was brought about methodically, but its achievement was not followed by a pious enjoyment of communion with God in the style of the emotional Pietism... instead, the emotion thereby awakened was immediately directd into the path of the rational striving for perfection."

(98): BUT--he concludes by identifying its irrelevance wrt to the establishment of the idea of the calling; methodism will only be important for the "manner of its organization," which is where its particularity lies.

(98-105): THE BAPTIST MOVEMENT

(98): this has a more important place in our argument, since the middle two were sort of secondary, derived phenomena: "A second autonomous bearer of Protestant asceticism alongside Calvinism is the Baptist movement."

(99-100): the church as tightly-knit group--as "sect" -- the 'old' baptist attitude, then, consists in 'shunning' the world. this entails, like the Calvinists, a renunciation of all the pleasures of the world, too.

(101): important--entails, as well, "absolute subordination to the authority of God... the corresponding manner of life is thus a condition of salvation." they reject predestination--and thus, the "specifically methodical character of Baptist morality rests above all on the idea of 'waiitng' upon the working of the spirit..." effected practically, this translates into a "supremely conscientious character."

(103): summary passage: Bapitist and Quaker asceticism manifests itself in capitalist ethics of 'honesty is best policy' a la benjamin franklin. for the Calvinists, we see more he "unleashing of the individual's economic energy in the pursuit of private gain." but these will be systematized more clearly in the next section.

(103): we are interested, here, not in Church discipline--but in "the effects of the subjective appropriation of ascetic religiosity on the conduct of the individual."

(103): we are speaking of a kind of regulation, yes (as was argued at the outset) -- but a regulation that is eminently individual (not State or Church-mediated)

(104): best summary of the argument, thus far--"The consequence for the individual was the drive to keep a methodical check on his state of grace as shown in how he conducted his life and thus to ensure that his life was imbued with asceticism. This ascetic style of life, however... meant a rational shaping of one's whole existence in obedience to God's will... This rationalization of the conduct of life in the world with a view to the beyond is the idea of the calling characteristic of ascetic Protestantism."

(105-122): ASCETICISM AND THE CAPITALIST SPIRIT

(106): Calvin (vs. Baxter), on wealth. But, he's arguing, that Baxter despises wealth only insofar as it is correlated to a kind sloth--"What is really reprehensible is resting on one's posessions... to be sure of his state of grace, man must 'do the works of him who sent him...'"

(107): "every lost hour means one less hour devoted to labor in the service of God's glory."

(107): "Above and beyond this, however, work is the end and purpose of life commanded by God" (entirely different interpretation of the Pauline Principle--as compared to Thomas Aquinas, see 108)

(108): "the calling" as a "command of God to the individual to work to his glory" (as against Lutheranism, which sees it more as a destiny to which one must submit)

(108-109): but here, is this not evidence for the flimsiness of the thesis, in general? for lots of things can be deduced from the 'idea of a calling,' including a deeply anti-capitalist ethic that my station now is, and ought to be, my station forever. is this not symbolic of the kind of reading that is being done, throughout? perhaps the defense, though, would be that the preceding is particularly true of Lutheranism, but not so much in this ascetic Protestantism, where work is not a destiny but a proving-ground. though is that sufficient (see 110, addressed there)? ("The Puritan idea of the calling always emphasizes the methodical character of the asceticisim of the calling, and not, as with Luther, submission to the destiny which God apportions.")

(110): threefold usefulness of a 'calling'--(1) its morality; (2) its usefulness to the community; (3) its profitability

(110): "striving for riches is only dangerous when it is done with the aim of later leading a carefree life of pleasure... to want to be poor, it was often argued, was the same as wanting to be ill."

(111): "and thus, the plain middle-class self-made man enjoys ethical approval in full pressure" (but lots of confusion lies behind this middle-class moniker--are we talking principally of the petit bourgesoisie? or big bourgeoisie as well?)

(111-112): bringing Old Testament norms, back

(112-113): honing in on the argument--"We shall now highlight those particular points in which the Puritan concept of the calling and the insistence on an ascetic conduct of life directly influenced the development of the capitalist style of life."

(113): asceticism, of course, "turns all its force against one thing in particular: the uninhibited enjoyment of life and of the pleasures it has to offer" (Puritans vs. sports on Sunday--'sports' can be tolerated insofar as they "serve the rational purpose of providing sufficient recreation to maintain physical fitness" -- an excellent example of rationalization)

(115): and the spiritual foundation of being a scrooge: "Man was merely the steward of the gifts granted him by God's grace; he, like the wicked servant in the Bible, must give an account of every penny, and it is as the very least dubious whether he should expend any of this money for a purpose which serves not God's glory, but his own pleasure."

(115): summary passage, again: "If we may sum up what has been said so far..." innerworldly Protestant asceticism (1) prohibits enjoyment of posessions, (2) discourages consumption, and (3) liberates the aquisition of wealth from the inhibitions of traditionalist ethics.

(116): opposed, though, to the "striving for wealth for the ultimate purpose of being wealthy." and that is important.

(116-117): KEY--"a religious value was placed on ceaseless, constant, systematic labor in a secular calling as the very highest ascetic path... This was inevitably the most powerful lever imaginable with which to bring about hte spread of that philosophy of life which we have here termed the 'spirit' of capitalism." the restraint on consumption combines with the freedom to pursue profit to produced the creation of capital through the ascetic compulsion to save. [just a note: is a necessary corollary the idea that feelings that are 'spiritual' in nature are also more durable 'psychological drives,' than those that are secular?]

(117): Puritans and the birth of the rational, anti-feudal farmer.

(118): here, he is noting the fact that the wealthier got, the more they were tempted (and prepared) to break with the asceticism of their old ideals--it "...only developed [its] full economic effect after the pinnacle of religious enthusiasm had been left behind..." its principal virtue seems to have been the granting of a clear conscience to the money-maker. "A specifically middle-class ethic of the calling arose."

(119): are we talking about the man's workers, too? this is where I think the explanandum is poorly specified (strategically so).

(119): "he was given the comforting assurance that the unequal distribution of this world's goods was the special work of the providence of God..." interesting--he adds that this, eventually, becomes secularized into the economic doctrine of the "productivity" of low wages (that people will be compelled to work harder if they are poorer)

(119-120): he is answering directly the question about the working-class disciple--that he is content with low-wage work because God has made it so (but this is precisely what i was asking earlier? there is an ambiguity about the ascetic ethic that allows him to explain both the unceasing, instrumental pursuit of wealth and this resignation to low wages. he is having his cake and eating it to). in his defense, i suppose, he adds that this latter phenomenon is not produced by protestantism, but is a feature of the broader ascetic doctrine. though he still maintains that protestantism reinforces this resignation with the idea of the "calling."

(120): IMPORTANT--Weber, and Goethe: here we see the coded lament, I think (as in, he is letting Goethe speak for him). Goethe noted "the basic ascetic motive of hte middle-class style of life," which signaled the 'abandonment of the Faustian universality of humankind..." 'Deed' and 'renunciation' are bound together. "For him this recognition meant a resigned farewell to a period of full and fine humanity, the likes of which we shall not see again in the course of our cultural development..."

(120): "The Puritans wanted to be men of the calling--we, on the other hand, must be."

(121): Weber and Peak Oil!?

(121): important--in a sense, asceticism ended in its opposite: a doctrine which shunned goods (and accepted them only as fruits of God's will; as evidence of God's will, of salvation), has long left us. we now see the dominance of the "outward goods of this world." "Today its spirit ahas fled from this shell... Certainly, victorious capitalism has no further need for this support..."

(121): Weber's clear lament--these people are the pinnacles of cultural development?

(121): and he stops himself, for this historical study was meant to be valueless. interesting relationship to positivism, perhaps--his, at least, is not the standard critique of positivism which foregrounds the necessary subjectivity of the observer, even though his method is certainly anti-positivist.

(122): interesting--what was ostensibly, at the outset, an 'attack' on the materialist doctrine ends up ambivalently (clearly, as he admits, he never purported to replace that reading with a 'spiritual' doctrine). he puts the decision down to future work--it will not be possible, he argues, to begin with the conclusion of the investigation. but here we see the positivist fallacy: "Neither will serve historical truth if they claim to be the conclusion of the investigation rather than merely the preliminary work for it."