[lbo-talk] Pollin on Sweezy

[MICHAEL YATES]

At MR's 50th birthday party, my wife told Paul that he sure had been a handsome fellow.  He looked at her and said in a kind of wistful voice, utterly without a hint of rudeness, "Any chance I can cash in on that?"  An eye for the women til the end.  I remembered this while watching the fine Canadian film, "The Barbarian Invasions." The main character is a male professor dying of cancer.  He has had many affairs, and his best memories are of women.  He remembers the first woman (an actress I think) he ever fantasized about.  It is the memory he dies with. 

Michael Yates

  ----- Original Message ----- 

  From: Doug Henwood 

  To: lbo-talk 

  Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2004 2:54 PM

  Subject: [lbo-talk] Pollin on Sweezy

  <http://www.counterpunch.org/pollin03062004.html>

  Remembering Paul Sweezy

  "He was an Amazingly Great Man"

  By ROBERT POLLIN

  [...]

  There is no doubt that Paul was the leading Marxian economist in the 

  United States, and probably the world, during his lifetime. Certainly 

  he was the most widely recognized and respected. In my view, he made 

  four major intellectual/political contributions.

  [...]

  [and evidently John Mage isn't the only one...]

  Which brings up another point. Paul was legendarily handsome in his 

  younger years, and apparently the attraction for women remained 

  powerful. Some evidence: Paul Samuelson himself wrote about it, in an 

  article in Newsweek called, I believe, "When Gods Strode The Earth." 

  Samueulson was writing about a debate at Harvard between Schumpeter 

  and Sweezy in the midst of the Depression, when Samuelson was a 

  student there. In the article, as I recall, Sweezy, not Schumpeter, 

  was "the God"-he was so smart, so rich, so handsome, and so Marxist. 

  He apparently made mincemeat of the great Schumpeter, debating the 

  most burning issue of the time. More evidence: In the mid 1980s I was 

  at a small weekend retreat sponsored by MR. I happened to be talking 

  to woman professor at the conference, Patricia Fernandez-Kelly (used 

  to be at Johns Hopkins, not sure if she's still there). Anyway, I 

  noticed that she broke off our conversation and became transfixed for 

  almost a full minute. She then turned back to me and said, "Look at 

  Sweezy. He is so beautiful." And this is when Paul was in his mid 

  seventies.

  ___________________________________

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