Sparseness of Marxist Theory (was: Re: Vanishing Marxism on LBO-talk

loupaulsen at attbi.com loupaulsen at attbi.com
Tue Feb 18 11:01:19 PST 2003


Yoshie:
> >Changes of the sort that you mention above fall into the purview of
> >analyses of conjunctures ("thought"), rather than "theory."

Doug:
> You know, I've heard that one before. And there's often too much
> attention paid to how different things now than they ever were before
> at the expense of structural continuities. But this kind of statement
> reminds me of the ridiculous "analysis" of the Asian financial crisis
> of 1997/98 I heard from Paul Mattick Jr. (formerly Katha Pollitt's
> Last Marxist). Mattick started by saying he was going to abstract
> from states, financial markets, and capital flows, and get down to
> the heart of the crisis which was...the falling rate of profit! Gee,
> and why did the crisis happen when and where it did? A mere
> conjunctural concern.

Sorry to break ranks, Yoshie, but I think Doug has a point here, and I've sort of thought this for a long time.

First, on the terminological point: I don't care whether you use "theory" only for macrotheory and "thought" for middle-range theory and microtheory, or use some other set of terms. But on the substantive point: I would IDEALLY like a lot more Marxist theory, or thought, or scientific study and propositions and conclusions, whatever you call them, both economic and political and even social-psychological.

I would like a Marxist microeconomics, for example. I've been told a hundred times that you can't have a Marxist microeconomics, that all those propositions work only at the system level. Well, does that mean that you can use standard bourgeois microeconomics? Yes? No? If not, then what kind of microeconomics are we supposed to have? Please nobody tell me just not to bother what happens at the enterprise level.

And what difference does it make that in Capital everyone is using gold coins, whereas today we are using plastic, derivatives, and so on? How does it improve Capital if you use calculus and study flows and rates, instead of having the M-C-M and C-M-C cycles go to completion iteratively as if the capitalist sold all his commodities before he went and bought raw materials again?

If Marxist propositions are generally correct, and I believe that they are, then they interface with other scientific propositions in 'sociology' (taken in its correct broad sense, incorporating social-psychology, historical science, cultural anthropology, political science, and economics), and of course with the physical sciences as well, in the same way that the "germ theory of disease" must interface with microbiology, biochemistry, and physics. Where and how? What can we keep of 'bourgeois science' and what do we have to challenge or adapt?

Of course I used the term "IDEALLY" above in caps. We have a personnel shortage. We are busy writing anti-war leaflets etc. I would like to work on this stuff, but who's going to pay me? Who's going to be the Frederick Engels of today and subsidize the Marxes of today (whoever they are) from the profits of his/her family enterprise? In fact there is useful work being done in the academy, but who is going to filter it, interpret it, compile it, and transship it to the practical Marxists? There is a lot of very useful sociology which could be informing our work, but the practical Marxists never see it. Not because they're too stupid to understand it, but because they just don't have time to keep up with the literature. And if you think the Marxist section of the American Sociological Association is going to digest it and pass it on to them, well, not in this period.

Meanwhile the practical Marxists, in parties or whatever, are out there trying to use understandings which they think experience has proved to them, and which the academic Marxists never address, because they would never consider Marxist parties as a source of interesting propositions to test, no matter how well they might compare with some of the vague or irrelevant propositions which actually ARE tested in academe.

Maybe it's different outside the US .. ?

LP



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