----- Original Message ----- From: "Harry M. Cleaver" <hmcleave@eco.utexas.edu> Sent: Friday, April 19, 2002 9:35 AM Subject: Re: Fw: [OPE-L:7021] Re: Re: a boring question (for John H and others) > Thanks for forwarding this. One note below. > > On Fri, 19 Apr 2002, gerald_a_levy wrote: > > > > >What should be noted, though, connecting with something you wrote > > > >in [6877], is that *economics* (by which I mean here, bourgeois or > > > >'mainstream' economic theory) *is* boring. And this should be a > > > >significant conclusion of the critique of economics: i.e. it inverts what > > > >should be the vitally-important and fascinating comprehension of how > > > >systems of production, distribution, and exchange and class struggle > > > >impact peoples' lives into an eminently boring -- and trivial -- subject. > > > > > > I agree completely. > > I don't. For many years I have confronted this tendency on the part of > student critics of capitalism, especially Marxist students, to complain > about mainstream economics being boring and trivial and not worth the > trouble. During this time I have argued the following: while there are a > lot of boring technical details, especially as the profession sought more > and more sophisticated mathematics to accomplish more or less the same > things as in the past, in general the study of mainstream economics should > be taken on as an essential exercise in class espionage. Mainstream > economics is not just ideology and not just wrong; it is a key component > of capitalist strategy and is used to devise tactics against the rest of > us. To think that the enemy's thinking is boring and trivial is to risk > not taking it seriously and not learning to read it strategically and thus > not understanding the strategies and tactics being used against you. This > has, in fact, happened again and again. For example, go back and read > various Marxists on Keynes and see how they attacked Keynes as a mere > bourgeois apologist, as being wrong, how they belittled his theory because > it was based on psychology not "laws of motion", etc., all the while > failing to either recognize or confront the class politics of his > strategies and being blind to the significance of working class resistance > and subversion of them. Then compare all that with the Italian New Left > reading (Negri's for example) and the subsequent rereading in Zerowork > that moved the discussion of the crisis in the late 1960s and 1970s from > sterile debates about underconsumptions and falling rates of profit to a > class analysis of how working class struggle had ruptured the Keynesian > productivty deals (in factory and community) and how money was being used > in new ways to counter that subversion etc. etc. > > Read in the spirit of espionage and as an urgent task in the development > of counterstrategies in the class struggle, bourgeois economics is not > boring but as exciting as the investigation of enemy plans discovered on a > military battlefield. > > Harry > > ............................................................................ > Snail-mail: > Harry Cleaver > Department of Economics > University of Texas at Austin > Austin, Texas 78712-1173 USA > > Phone Numbers: > (hm) (512) 442-5036 > (off) (512) 475-8535 > Fax:(512) 471-3510 > > E-mail: > hmcleave@eco.utexas.edu > PGP Public Key: http://certserver.pgp.com:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=hmcleave > > Cleaver homepage: > http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/index2.html > > Chiapas95 homepage: > http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/chiapas95.html > > Accion Zapatista homepage: > http://www.utexas.edu/students/nave/ > ............................................................................
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