[lbo-talk] BDL on Sweezy

[Brad DeLong]

>  > Brad DeLong writes at:
>>  >I would like Paul Sweezy to be remembered for the following passage:
>>  >
>>  >"The publication in 1952 of Stalin's Economic Problems of Socialism
>>  >in the USSR would make possible today a more satisfactory reply.SIn
>>  >the light of [Stalin's] explanationSI would like to amend the
>>  >statement which Mr. Kazahaya criticizes.S[The amended statement]
>>  >conveys my meaning more accurately than the original wording and is,
>>  >I think entirely in accord with Stalin's view." (Paul Sweezy (1953),
>>  >The Present as History (New York: Monthly Review Press), p. 352.)
>>  >
>>  >Paul Sweezy called himself an intellectual. Paul Sweezy publicly
>>  >revised his opinion on an analytical issue in order to agree with
>>  >the position taken by a genocidal tyrant. Fill in the blank: Paul
>  > >Sweezy was a ________...
>
>
>Disgraceful, indeed, and mega-stupid.  Many thoroughly decent radicals took
>until after 1956 to completely jettison Stalin.  Brad De Long will never
>produce a work with 1/100th the cutting power of Monopoly Capital, and he's
>a boob for drawing this dense conclusion.

That Sweezy pretended that he had been enlightened on matters of 
technical economics by reading that notable work of J.V. Stalin, 
_Economic Problems of Socialism_ is a historical fact. To pretend to 
be enlightened by Stalin on matters of technical economics is rather 
more than a failure to completely jettison Stalin.

My explicit approach to this historical fact is value-neutral: I make 
no explicit evaluative judgment of it, and that I in fact ask for 
possible judgments and responses without including any 
moral-evaluation words in my description of this historical fact (for 
"genocidal tyrant" is a factual and value-neutral description of J.V. 
Stalin).

You, however, clearly do make an evaluative judgment--a strongly 
negative one. If you did not strongly believe that Sweezy had done 
something criminal and contemptible in pretending to receive 
instruction in matters of technical economics from J.V. Stalin, you 
would not be upset.

The disgrace and mega-stupidity is yours, not mine.

(I do make an implicit evaluative judgment by mentioning the fact: 
res ipsa loquitur, after all.)

Brad DeLong