Marxian vs. bourgeios categories [was Marx on Smith]

[Rakesh Bhandari]

Kelley, does it also not follow from your argument that causal theories of
social maladies that imply the impossibility of their solution through a
better "administration of things" (instead of class struggle) would fall
outside of the realm of the policy "sciences" or the regime of truth
generally--becoming a kind of 'soft' knowledge. The reduction of social
science to policy relevant 'science' or fitting Marxism into such a regime
of truth seems to be a fascinating history indeed (perhaps the latter is
really the history of Austro Marxism) . I know Peter Wagner has written
about in the Sociology of Modernity; there is a book Foucault and the
Critique of Political Reason; there is a new critical history of the
development of the social sciences in Germany (author escapes me). There is
an edited book by Skocpol and Rueschemeyer States, Social Knowledge and the
Origins of Modern Social Policy (great essay by Wagner in that book).
Desroisieres book on the Politics of Large Numbers is important. I have
been told that an author not to miss on the question of social science
methodology is Stephen P. Turner, whose ed. book on causality in the social
sciences I just ordered (Turner has written a very strong critique of Fritz
Ringer's book on Max Weber's Method of Social Science, which draws on
Wesley Salmon's ideas about causality). And there is there is a terrific
work of the Bhaskar inspired philosophers to free  explanation in the
social sciences from predictive burdens and policy relevance--Peter Manicas
and Andrew Sayer.

Thanks for raising this important question, Rakesh

Rakesh Bhandari wrote:


>hey rakesh,  now i buy this argument but how  exactly does the research
>clarify the tasks of class struggle?  seriously.  is this something that's
>profoundly confusing to marxists?  sure, we have debates about what to do,
>as carrol's post pointed out rather nicely. but those seem to be
>differences in flavor of marxism more than anything else.  i'm really quite
>interested in this argument because i'm of the position that theory and
>methodology and methods are inextricably intertwined and, not only that,
>but they shape the contours of political practice in important ways.  thus,
>my argument against both doug and roger/rakesh would be:  hypothetical
>deductive models of predictive social science produce knowledges that, in
>the end, maintain the status quo because they contribute to the development
>of a policy science--facts to be used for the administration of things.
>this is a complex argument and i can't do it justice until next week, but
>i'll get back to you.
>
>kelley