> "Intellectually, the Left was too soft to resist the New Right coup
> of 1984. It was obsessed by social issues and by foreign affairs,
> and couldn't debate economic issues. In the early stages of
> Rogernomics, it tended to concede the big issues of economic policy
> in return for some concessions on foreign policy and social
> matters" (Jesson, April 1997: p.113).
^^^^^ CB: I critiqued what you call activistism in "Activist Materialism and the End of Philosophy" . http://www.marxmail.org/archives/may98/journal_theory.htm
However, in the part of the discussion from Jesson,he seems to reduce "intellectual" work to economics. That would seem to be a sort of "economism". Without revoloutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement. However, theory is not just economics , but political theory , philo, anthro, biology, physics, law et al. art even
And whenever comparing the left to the right, it has to be taken into account that the right may not do better intellectual work, but rather it has tens of thousands of times more money to turn its ideas into effective propaganda. It's not its economic ideas that are superior , but its idea economy that is richer. There's a reason that the ruling ideas of any age are the ideas of its ruling classes.
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