W speaks

[Peter K.]

>I notice a catastrophism slipping into a lot of left discourse. Gore
>Vidal, Alex Cockburn, John Gulick talking of the depression awaiting
>Clinton's successor. Katha Pollitt told me she doesn't see a left
>revival without a depression. What's that all about? People seem to
>be almost rooting for throwing 30 million out of work. Tight labor
>markets are good.
>
>Doug

I agree tight markets are good. In the U.S. (sorry Rob S.) there was a fair
amount of decent reforms in the 50s and 60s, but wasn't this also true of
the 30s?

I just skimmed last Saturday's (8.19) New York Times and thought it was odd
that Robert Brenner and Giovanni Arrighi were mentioned in one article in
the Arts and Ideas section, and "Frederic[sic] Jameson" was quoted in
another. From the first article, which was on the 95th annual meeting of the
American Sociologcial Association: "... Mr. Brenner was spurred into
uttering a few kind words for the Seattle protesters, but Mr. Arrighi
refused any crowd-pleasing. He expressed skepticism at the thinking behind
the antiglobal eruptions and went so far as to dismiss Marxist theory as a
muddle that was failing to catch up to the continuing transformation of
capitalism..."

Peter