"Brave New World" or "the Soul of Man underSocialism"?(was Re:Desire & Scarcity)

[Daniel F. Vukovich]

Michael,

My goodness, I did not mean to imply you were not "trained"!   That remark 
came in the context of a comment on the fact that, despite the name 
calling, etc., I like this list and learn from it and am "happy to be 
here."    I was trying to downplay our differences or our 
non-communication, and to show that I was not, in fact, being melodramatic, 
as you accused.

It is true that I was thinking of Max and others who post more often than 
you, but I certainly did not mean to somehow be criticizing you, or to be 
policing anyone's credentials. That would be a bizarre thing to see on 
Doug's list!   I thought it was clear  I am not even informally trained in 
real economics, but am in philosophy,  incl. in what is called "pomo" 
around here, and that therefore I myself benefit mostly, but not 
exclusively from the former people.  Looking back,  I should have thrown a 
transition in there to make it clear I was not casting aspersions, b/c in 
the previous paragraph I was being somewhat critical or arguing.  I did not 
think that my "praise" of them, would imply something about you.  If it 
did, it is in part because of the way this list operates, not b/c I was 
being nasty.

As a matter of fact, Michael, I think you do have the right to brag, if you 
wanted to.  I have read some of your work in MR over the past couple-three 
years, and I think it is excellent, high quality stuff. In addition to 
pieces on labor politics, I remember esp. your review essay of Braverman, 
which I think reminded us of how important and timely his work still is.  I 
remember thinking it would have been nice to have seen you discuss Lukacs 
and reification in there, but this is not a criticism. The idea that the 
labor market should *not* be the primary locus of class struggle, could not 
be any more important.  Alas, I think very few marxists and leftists 
realize this.  Moishe Postone's re-reading of Marx is I think excellent on 
this, too.  In a way, Doug's piece from Brecht Forum touches on this too.

Your piece on the labor market sounds very interesting, perhaps you could 
post some of it here.

I hope this has clarified our most recent misunderstanding.

--dfv

At 10:03 PM 1/30/00 -0500, you wrote:
>Daniel,
>
>Not to brag, far from it, but I am indeed a "trained economist," with
>more than 25 graduate course in economics and math through advanced
>calculus!! See my article, "The labor market is unlike any other," in an
>old issue of Monthly Review.  Maybe you'll learn something.
>
>Michael Yates

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Daniel F. Vukovich
Dept. of English; The Unit for Criticism
University of Illinois
Urbana, IL 61801
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