Since you asked, maybe there's been no response, defense or critique because N&B come from such a different place that Panitch, other colleagues and I (? not that I have any legitimate claim to a status such as Panitch's or that of other folks I've met at York) that we wouldn't know where to start (and, therefore, figure we have other things to do)... the very reaction Leo reports Nitzan gave Panitch when the opportunity to review some of Leo's work was presented. Or maybe, given Leo's explanation of his travels last Spring and the structure of the recent conference, no explicit request has been made or converstation beyween 0f juxtaposition of perspectives has been suggested, scheduled and played out. I, of course, have no idea.
Most of all, I found Kourkoulakos' letter not to reflect well on him (and found it easy to wonder whether - not assume - the open letter might not have been his idea) and I found Panitch's response to reflect even worse on Kourkoulakos (since the response Panitch gave could, presumably, have been gleaned by a conversation with Nitzan, a look at the conference schedule and/or, a conversation with Panitch or the others openly accused of uncollegial, or implicitly accused of intellectually fearful, failure to publicly engage Nitzan's work). I also couldn't figure out why Nitzan would want to encourage the list to see Kourkoulakos that way or how he could fail to anticipate that others might read the exchange the way I did... particularly because I'd expect its widely known that a significant number of us know and respect Leo quite a bit for his intellectual openness and collegiality.
On Thu, Nov 4, 2010 at 9:51 AM, D. T. Cochrane <dtc at yorku.ca> wrote:
> Why are you predisposed to be uninterested in Nitzan & Bichler's work?
>
> Given what you consider a response from Panitch disfavourable to Nitzan,
> why
> is Nitzan's decision to publicize the letter a knock against him?
>
> Despite having published a provocative book about a year and a half ago,
> one
> which challenges some of the fundamental assumptions in the works of other
> political economists, including some of his colleagues, there has been no
> response, defence or critique. Kourkoulakos is questioning this silence.
>
> D.T. Cochrane
>
> On Thu, Nov 4, 2010 at 9:09 AM, Alan Rudy <alan.rudy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > All I can say is that - already predisposed to be uninterested in
> Nitzan's
> > work - this only intensifies it. What a supercilious, superior and
> snotty
> > first letter from Kourkoulakos, what an enlightening response from
> Panitch
> > and what a mystery that Nitzan thought this worth sending along -
> > particularly without commenting in a manner that would help us understand
> > more of what's going on behind the letters. Perhaps most stunning of
> all,
> > is the implicit suggestions that Marx was either right or wrong, that
> Marx
> > either wrote about economics OR economics and politics, that these were
> > issues not already debated for 125 years and that Panitch and others
> didn't
> > already have clear stances on them. It's as if everything from Gramsci
> to
> > Harvey, from Benjamin to Offe - much less all the debates around these
> > issues - didn't exist.
> >
> > My favorite unremarked moment is when Panitch tells us that Nitzan has
> > stated (at least in one exchange about one part of one text) that his
> work
> > is so qualitatively different from Panitch's that Nitzan wouldn't know
> > where
> > to start in addressing it... true or not, it is striking that Nitzan in
> > sending this along to us doesn't comment on it, or how it might have some
> > bearing - in addition to Panitch's explanation of why he wasn't at last
> > spring's seminar and how the conference last week was presented to him
> AND
> > it was scheduled - on the implicit accusations Koukoulakos makes about
> > Panitch et al., avoiding (out of fear?) addressing what Koukoulakos
> appears
> > to believe is Nitzan's excellent - or at least provocative work.
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Nov 4, 2010 at 8:20 AM, Jonathan Nitzan <nitzan at yorku.ca> wrote:
> >
> > > Open letters from Stefano Kourkoulakos and Leo Panitch
> > >
> > > On October 29-31, the Forum on Capital as Power held a three-day
> > conference
> > > at York University, dedicated to the subject of “Crisis of Capital,
> > Crisis
> > > of Theory.” Below is an open letter from Stefanos Kourkoulakos. It was
> > sent
> > > a day before the conference to Professors George Comninel, David
> McNally,
> > > Leo Pantich and Jonathan Nitzan who were to participate as Faculty
> Guest
> > > Speakers at the event. The letter is followed by a reply from Leo
> > Panitch.
> > > Both texts are posted with the permission of their authors.
> > >
> > > FULL TEXT: http://bnarchives.yorku.ca/303/
> > >
> > > ***
> > >
> > > Recent additions and updates to the Bichler & Nitzan Archives:
> > > http://bnarchives.yorku.ca/perl/latest
> > >
> > > Free to repost and circulate with due attribution under the Creative
> > > Commons License (attribution-noncommercial-no derivative). To
> > unsubscribe,
> > > reply to this email with "unsubscribe" in the subject field.
> > >
> > > ---
> > >
> > > Jonathan Nitzan
> > > Political Science
> > > York University
> > > 4700 Keele St.
> > > Toronto, Ontario, M3J-1P3
> > > Canada
> > > Voice: (416) 736-2100, ext. 88822
> > > Fax: (416) 736-5686
> > > Email: nitzan at yorku.ca
> > > Website:http://bnarchives.net
> > >
> > > ___________________________________
> > > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > *********************************************************
> > Alan P. Rudy
> > Dept. Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work
> > Central Michigan University
> > 124 Anspach Hall
> > Mt Pleasant, MI 48858
> > 517-881-6319
> > ___________________________________
> > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> >
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
-- ********************************************************* Alan P. Rudy Dept. Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work Central Michigan University 124 Anspach Hall Mt Pleasant, MI 48858 517-881-6319