GH talk about the “logic of a practice” which
comprises the rules or grammar of the practice, as well as the conditions which make the practice both possible and vulnerable.
This definition of ‘logic’ and the way GH use it is hard to pin down. They give example of of they use the term logic, speaking about the logic of:
– logic of chess playing: 1) the dominant pattern of moves, strategies, counter-strategies, tactics and counter-tactics 2) Basic entities and types of relationships between pieces 3) rules of the game
– logic of the market: 1) compirses a particular set of subject positions, objects (commodities and means of exchange) 2) systems of relations and meanings connecting subjects and objects, insitutional parameters (legal system) 3) Also the conditions that make possible the continued operation of a partiuclar market practice, as well as its potential vulnerabilities. What political struggles preceded its institution? What processes ensure its maintenance or question its hegemonic status? Logics must also provide the means with which to answer these sorts of questions.
A social logic can characterize a practice or regime. Take the Thatcherite regime which can be characterized as a network of social logics: 1) a social logic of marketization and centralization, both of which were rooted in the philosophy of the New RIght … Once sedimented, the Thatcherite discourse signified the practices and aspiration of liberating the capitalist economy, with its attendant entrepreneurial practices, from the stranglehold of an overloaded and bureaucratic state, as well as from over-powerful trade unions which were smothering enterprise and innovation. On the other hand, Thatcherism came to represent a demand for a more restrictive, though more powerful, state that would regulate less, but more intensively. (137)