Overtime (was Re: happy autoworkers)

Michael Eisenscher meisenscher at igc.apc.org
Mon Jul 13 09:20:53 PDT 1998


At 08:51 AM 7/13/98 -0500, Carrol Cox wrote: [SNIP]
>Look, this medium of cyber exchanges is only a few years old, and it is
>not surprising that we haven't really mastered its scope and limits. I
>probably base my use of it too much on the model of intelligent
>conversation among equals, while others seem to see the political (or
>academic) journal as their model. There is room for the latter, and I have
>a good deal of both disk space and paper devoted to saving for more
>careful reading those posts that have really useful empirical or
>analytical content. I am damn sure not going to strain eye and neck
>muscles as well as my temper to try to read 10 screens of closely written
>fragments of labor history.
[SNIP]
>(Longer, primarily empirical posts must justify themselves by being worth
>printing up and filing in such a way that they remain available for later
>reading. I almost never read the whole of such posts on screen: I skim
>them to see if I should print them. If they aren't worth printing and
>remembering, they aren't worth the trial and trouble of reading them on
>screen.)
[SNIP]
>As a marxist I want to know why this history rather than that history is
>being presented, and why either is being presented: how does it
>illuminate strategy in the present. History is of tremendous importance,
>but you didn't give any history, you gave a sampling of facts that might
>or might not be shapable into marxist history.
>
>Carrol

Carrol,

Thank you for your considered (and considerate) response. Point taken.

Michael

(Was that brief enough?)



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