'get'em out by friday'

'unrestricted and grandiose developments of productive forces will render political revolution superfluous' - g. lukacs, goethe and his age. 

 it's not looking too bad outside. horsemouth has woken up with a mild headache something he puts down to either;
 A) the igor like deformation of vertebrae where it joins his skull,
B) the humongous quantites of wax filling his ears causing ear infections
C) his persistent under-caffeination.

of course lukacs isn't arguing for this - or inventing that particular wired-neo-liberal panglossianism (we may not live in the best of all possible worlds just yet but we will do soon and even then it will keep on getting better and better by means of smart design and total quality management). what he is doing is identifying it as the ideology of faust, in particular the faust of book two, faust the developer, or so marshall berman argues in his all that is solid melts into air. faust unites metropolis (heart and head) in himself but this still won't stop him from doing evil in the service of his plan, philemon and baucis (that delightful old couple from ovid) still survive on some prime real estate, the winkler has failed to get them out, faust despatches the heavies but says he doesn't want to know about it.


there is always a human price to be paid for development - a necessary sacrifice - this is the real faustian bargain (or so berman argues). lukacs writes on mandeville and the fable of the bees horsemouth will have to find this. horsemouth is back from his brother's - but he's back up there soon. he's now contactable by phone. in a bit he'll go for a wander and read some more berman.

work (having been renamed and re-organised) will begin again sometime after 8th september.