[lbo-talk] Open letters from Stefano Kourkoulakos and Leo Panitch

D. T. Cochrane dtc at yorku.ca
Thu Nov 4 15:42:07 PDT 2010


Full disclosure: I am a student of Professor Nitzan's and one of the organizers of the 'Crisis of Capital, Crisis of Theory' conference. I can state that Kourkoulakos is not a student of Professor Nitzan and certainly was not asked to send the letter. His motivation was based on a presentation by Professor Nitzan at a Poli-Sci event last year that was not attended by any faculty and provoked no response from any faculty, despite the fact that Professor Nitzan was questioning some of the foundational bases for their analyses.

Given the purpose of N&B's work, it seems worthy of some sort of response. They are trying to address some central issues and problematic concepts within political economy.

To name just a few: Is Marx's value theory vital to his body of thought? Is that theory meant to explain prices? Is that theory meant to explain accumulation? Does it succeed in explaining prices and/or accumulation? If it does not, what does explain prices and accumulation?

D.T. Cochrane

On Thu, Nov 4, 2010 at 1:56 PM, Alan Rudy <alan.rudy at gmail.com> wrote:


> I am predisposed to be uninterested because I took the time to read some of
> the early self-promotional materials he sent to the list - a list he
> doesn't
> participate in but regularly advertises himself on - and found the
> characterization of Marx's work and the perspective w/r/t the role of
> "power" in Marx to be completely unrecognizable... I think I may even have
> posted a "what the heck, this seems to be predicated on a remarkable
> misreading of Marx" response, a reaction that garnered no reply from Nitzan
> or a defender of his work (but maybe I held my tongue/pen/fingers, I don't
> remember and don't feel like searching the archives).
>
> 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
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>



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