>--- Willy Greenfields <filthydirtyunwashed at yahoo.com>
>wrote:
>
> >The reasons for the popularity of Messrs. Hardt and
>Negri's theory are not far to seek. Like Marxism, it
>is a theory of everything, purporting to explain the
>entire development of politics and economics after the
>Cold War.
>---
>
>When did Marxism claim to be a theory of everything?
>There is a Marxist analysis of celestial mechanics? A
>Marxist entomology?
There's a qualifier after the comma. It's typical to refer to Marx as a "grand theorist" doing "grand theory." This, in the context of what occured later, was indeed, an attempt to provide a theory of society, as opposed to a theory of macro economics or micro economics or a sociology of the family or a society of the economy or a theory of citizenship -- all more specialized attempts to theorize specific aspects of social life where social life has been cut up into spheres: politics, markets, civil society. blah blah blah.
Kelley
"We're in a fucking stagmire."
--Little Carmine, 'The Sopranos'