We got offon the wrong foot, and that was bad. Let me apologize for insulting you, and I'll let the personal stuff slide, it's not productive. Btw, I rather doubt that we are that different in age from what you say. No matter.
>
But anyway, I happen to think that the way that different academic
disciplines organise themselves, in terms of their underlying scientific
philosophy, the way in which they delimit themselves from others, and the
procedures that are approved for research and argument are all important,
interesting and open to critique.
That's true, especially the last. Foucault's The Order of Things makes this point at great length, though not just in the way that I would.
>But often these are imbibed somewhat uncritically by those entering the
>discipline. I think that academic marxism has been shaped by its
>incorporation into these disciplines, and I think that this means that it
>becomes something quite different.
Also true. Analytical Marxism was in my view greatly enhanced by adopting ordinary standards of rigor, but also in many ways diminished, for example, in Roemer's uncritical adoption of neoclassical economics as a framework to work within.
> >
>You are so proprietary!
>
>Tahir: You, you you you...............
I didn't mean that as an insult. But one reason I do not call myself a Marxist is that I find it fruitless to engage in debates about whether something id "Marxist" rather than whether it is true, interesting, or useful. Many ideas of MArx and other Marxists, in my view, are all these things, which is why I am interested in them. It's not helpful to wonder about why someone who does not adopt the label would care. Suppose I said what I say and added, oh, btw, I'm a Marxist. What would that add?
>
>Who do I like? Analytical Marxists (Cohen, Roemer, Elster), Hegelian
>Marxism
>(Lukacs, Gramsci, Korsch), Walter Benjamin, Rosa Luxemburg, and of course
>the old man himself.
>
>Tahir: Except for all that silly stuff about communism that some of them
>still talk about.
Well, there's a lot in all these thinkers that I also reject, not just
thefeasibility of communism as a nonmarket form of organizing the economy.
>
>>
>Tahir: We agreed about this, but I insisted that there will still be a
>communist movement - that's the part that you don't like. Actually I would
>be thrilled if the two main parts of the movement, namely marxist and
>anarchist, could find their ways back together again.
But if thereis communist movement, it will not be a mass workers' movement as it once was. It wil be a dissident fringe isolated on the outskirts of whatever mass workers movement there is.
>
I said: That does not mean that a
>substantial part of the substantive propositions of historical materialism
>are false; I think they are in the main true,a nd explain,a momng other
>things, the collapse of the USSR.
>
>Tahir: Yes, I wouldn't mind if someone initiated a thread that takes up
>your very last point above. It's far from unimportant (or settled).
>
Quite. Jim F. thought we ought to discuss Gerry Cohen's account. Jim, care to post a summary, get us started?
>
>Even worse, I believe in constitutional democracy, representative
>government, competitive elections, an independent judiciary, extensive
>civil
>liberties, all kinds of reactionary nonsense.
>
>Tahir: Your sarcasm here is quite unnecesary. Everyone on this list I'm
>sure can agree that all those things are progressive in relation to what
>came before them AND that they can only be superceded if we come up with
>something better (not with another SU). I personally believe that this
>could only come about as a supra-national movement
Though why should we weant to supercede them? I mean, I reall am open if someone has a better idea, but I haven't heard one yet. Charles' defense of Brezhnevism (to put the most charitable light on it) doesn't come close, we agree on that, you and I.
>and that any notion of the 'socialist state' sitting in some or other
>corner of the world is rubbish.
Yes, it couldn't be smallerthan hemispheric outside the US.
>But the difference between us is that you apparently think that the changes
>that might be vital or revolutionary could come about within the framework
>that you sketch above.
No, I didn't say how it might come about. I said it wouldn't come about in the way it did in Russia in 1917. I am quite sure, as a historical materialist, that it could not come about by politics as usual. I don't know how it might come about, and I don't think anyone else does just now either.
>I don't, and I will never vote for a professional politician of any stripe
>or party.
>
Well, I vote for good state and local politicians of fairly conventional stripe to achieve or preserve worthy reforms. I don't delude myself taht this much advances the coming of a postcapitalsit society.
>Tahir: You may be right that my example [H&N] was ill-chosen - I don't know
>- but I kind of like the idea that people are saying we are communists and
>proud of it, that's all.
OK, but you have to look at what they mean by it. I mean, I have a Che shirt that I wear sometimes myself.
> I just [meant] that the best-selling status of people using the c-word in that way means that it is already taking on a different meaning, whereas you claimed it was forever linked to the old bureaucratic regimes.
Well, is it a revolutionary meaning?
>Tahir: Oh really. What are your favourite styles and colours. Natty blue
>with shiny black shoes? Sober brown? Italian cut three piece? As a lawyer
>you probably wouldn't wear the more sinister looking black shirt with your
>suit I guess. Pale blues and yellows in there somewhere perhaps?
Pretty conservative Brooks Brothers looks, blue shirts, sober ties, since
you ask.
>
>Actually most lawyers are pretty cynical about this stuffr, we see it too
>close up.
>
>Tahir: So you are atypical then?
Probably, actually, although I'm an Illinois lawyer, and that means that there is no variety of crookedness that I have not seen. But I am a bit starry eyed about liberal democracy, in a cynical sort of way.
jks
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