[lbo-talk] BDL on Sweezy

[Brad DeLong]

>Brad DeLong writes at: 
><http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/Index.html/>:
>
>>Paul Sweezy, 1910-2004.
>>
>>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.ŠIn 
>>the light of [Stalin's] explanationŠI would like to amend the 
>>statement which Mr. Kazahaya criticizes.Š[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 ________.
>
>Brad, this is a disgrace. What is the point of saying something so 
>cruel on the man's death? Is this a ham-handed attempt to police the 
>limits of acceptable discourse? It's worthy of Horowitz.
>
>Doug

I could say that the fact 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.

I could say that I approach this historical fact in a value-neutral 
manner: I make no 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 cruelty is yours as much as mine. And the true, primary cruelty 
is Sweezy's, for doing something that you regard to be criminal and 
contemptible.

"De mortuus nil nisi bonum" applies as little to Paul Sweezy as it 
does to Richard Nixon or Joe McCarthy or Paul De Man.

"Do not forgive, for truly it is not in your power to forgive
In the name of those who were betrayed at dawn."

					--Zbigniew Herbert

Yours,

Brad DeLong