In a capitalist world, the often-overlooked systems of technical standards offer a rare example of economic collaboration that prioritizes the public good over profit.
People around me will definitely conceive of a noncapitalist alternative because a significant number of them have lived in one.
That doesn’t mean they will approve of returning to the systems they experienced previously. In many cases those systems were demonstraby worse and less sustainable. Plus “from an European perspective”, the current system most of them live in is heavily social democratic, so again how we define those terms will be relevant.
If you want to argue that this is not the “default” human experience, then with all due respect that just sounds like ethnocentrism to me. On the authors’ (and Jameson’s) part, at least. Probably a bit of internalized cultural imperialism on our part. It’s not the first time I notice a lot of the European left is trying, and often failing, to import some US left concepts that don’t really apply.
People around me will definitely conceive of a noncapitalist alternative because a significant number of them have lived in one.
That doesn’t mean they will approve of returning to the systems they experienced previously. In many cases those systems were demonstraby worse and less sustainable. Plus “from an European perspective”, the current system most of them live in is heavily social democratic, so again how we define those terms will be relevant.
If you want to argue that this is not the “default” human experience, then with all due respect that just sounds like ethnocentrism to me. On the authors’ (and Jameson’s) part, at least. Probably a bit of internalized cultural imperialism on our part. It’s not the first time I notice a lot of the European left is trying, and often failing, to import some US left concepts that don’t really apply.