----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- Hi Pat--always a pleasure arguing with you ;-). In answer to your questions: 1) By "motivated ideological interpretation," I DO NOT mean "intentional distortion of the true meaning?". "true meaning" is itself probably the biggest "motivated ideological interpretation" in Western intellectual thought (Derrida traces it to Plato attempting to establish the non-rhetorical foundation of knowledge in his attacks against the Sophists-- mostly in the Protagoras I think). What I do mean by "motivated ideological interpretation" is simply the ideological (conscious or not) component of ANY interpretation (see any number of texts by Warren Samuels for the economics implications of this). 2) By the "Enronization of society" I was attempting precisely NOT to be specific & to capture a wide range of socio-economic phenomena in a single catchy phrase (I believe this is an efficient & appropriate style for a list such as this). We've had the same kind of arguments on the IPE list concerning the "Talibanization" of Israeli society ;-). Since it comes up in the context of Smith's Invisible Hand, I assumed that readers are familiar with the growing body of work re-interpreting (certainly with a motivated ideology) Smiths ideas. Thus "Enronization" was supposed to capture what Smith had predicted would happen to a market society who's Enlightened (the era; not a judgment) civic ethical institutions (external & internalized) no longer function effectively as a constraint on individualistic accumulation. Let me know if I'm still unclear Ben ------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]