Friedrich Nietzsche said (I quote from memory) that the errors of great men (or women, I may add) are venerable because they are more fruitful than the truths of little men. That is certainly true of Marx as well as the _Monopoly Capital_.
The value of a great work of art or science is determined not by the qualities of the author, but by those of the audience. It is the audience who re-creates the work of science or art in its mind, both individually and collectively. The success of that work is measured by its capacity to inspire many individual minds and create collective synergy and further inspirations even after the person who first uttered it slipped into oblivion. It is the demand that validates the supply of intellectual commodity, not the other way around - if you will.
Marx was a mean-spirited, quarrelsome, and self-centered person (based on Francis Wheen's biography), his writing style tended to be dense and obtuse (a few memorable quotes notwithstanding), and his analysis of empirical phenomena - less than adequate. But the main value of his work was dethroning the myth of science that surrounded much of the economic writings of his time. His work demonstrated that if carried to their logical consequences - the brand of utilitarianism underlying the apologies of capitalism will undermine its own assumptions and produce maximum disutility rather than maximum utility, as its apologists claim.
Of course, logical contradictions cannot kill a fly, let alone annihilate the most powerful institutions that were even created in human history. But removing the aura of pseudo-scientific certainty opened that institution to challenges and gave rational legitimacy to those challenges. In the same vein, the Copernicus' theories were not accurate in the understanding of the modern astronomy. Their main value was to provide a rational challenge to a politically sanctioned myth, which eventually led to doing away with both the myth and the political powers that sanctioned it.
In the same vein, the _Monopoly capital_ challenged the central myth of
the US State Religion - that the US embodies the best possible
alternative. Baran and Sweezy showed in a rational way that it does
not, that it cannot deliver its main advertised special - maximum utlity
and rationality. In fact it produces substantial disutility and
irrationality -as demonstrated by the memorable (thus quoted from memory
:-) quote "its means are rational, its goals are mad."
Of course, Sweezy (and Baran) were but two of many who contributed to the demystification of the dogma of superior rationality of the US political-economic institutions, but their contributions are venerable because their challenge they mythology on its own turf - as opposed to outside denunciations of the entire discipline. They attacked the politically sanctioned myth of superior rationality with its own arguments and showed that it cannot deliver its advertised special. I was greatly influenced by that style of argument, not to mentions its empirical content of course. As an ancient Sufi proverb goes "a fool tries to convince me with his arguments, a wise man - with my own."
What I find particularly disconcerting about the US academia (and the post-modern brand of discourse in general, I presume) is its supply-side intellectualism. It is manifested, inter alia, by giving the entire credit for a fruitful idea to the person who was shrewd enough to obtain a patent, or monopoly rights if you will, on it. The demand side - or their impact on- and reinterpretations in a broader discourse - receive little or no attention. A flip side of this supply-side intellectualism is the use of ad hominems to discredit an idea - as it is widely practiced by intellectual figures of various statures diligently laboring to manufacture intellectual biographies of their adversaries by linking them to conventionally designated monsters (Hitler, Stalin, McCarthy, Osama bin Ladin, the archetypical 'Racist,' 'Holocaust Denier,' etc.). Portraying Sweezy as an intellectual heir of Stalin is a part of this sad trend.
Of course, that is nihil novi sub solem. These are the oldest tricks of inquisitors of various stripes and colors. The intensity of their efforts can be construed as indicator of the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the politically sanctioned myths they are trying to defend. The Inquisition emerged when the persuasive power of the Rome-sanctioned weltanschauung failed to keep the ascending monied and scribbling classes in line. The purges and the Gulag was a response to the Communist Party to win the "hearts and minds" of the intelligentsia. By the same token, the bashing of Marxist intellectuals is a sign of the intellectual bankruptcy of the US Brahmin class kept in power by political patronage and money.
However, regardless of what Sweezy's personal faults, perceived or actual, might have been, his work stands tall on its own. It is an important act of resistance against the tyranny of the market and its political backers and spin doctors.
Farewell, Comrade Sweezy.
Wojtek