Dear Jerry, I hope I can answer in the following days when I'll find the time to some the other mails in this stream, and also to some of the points of content in this one. May I however suggest that this by Giussani TOO is a way NOT to debate? As it is clear from the whole letter by Giussani, it is made up of a 'battle' against imagined enemies, in the form of NOT wanting to engage in dialogue, debate, opposition with them, and with insults which are expressed in the form of distrust againt the others (I myself, for one, have read most of Giussani's papers, know that he is not a follower of TSS, have learned from him a lot, as I've learned from TSS people, without agreeing with all of their points of course: he presupposes the opposite). Just some examples: - I am classified, as others, as a "keynesian-sraffian" side: I am not (this can be shown referring to writing in Italian AND in English. May be Giussani, or TSS people (who hold the same charge: Carchedi did the same in a paper in Italian a couple of years ago, in the first version he made it, correctly, by name, I privately answered, he changed the paper so that there were no name, a thing which, against Giussani, I find wrong, now I see from a footnote in the book by Vitale that in that paper where all the reference to me were cancelled was criticising my positions ...) should recognize this. But they don't, of course. Of course, if I think there is something worthwhile in Keynes, or in Sraffa (and by the way, I thgink that Sraffa's was a comrade, who never wanted to speak against the labour theory of value, and say that there is the labour theory of value implicitly in Production of commodities, I immediately become a Sraffian or a Keynesian. Since I find something worthwhile in Schumpeter (btw, much more than in Sraffa or Keynes), and even in Mises and Hayek, please call me a keynesian-sraffian-schumpeterian-austrian (KSSA). It seems that I do not qualify as a Marxian. I can live with that, though I'll always say the opposite. - Giussani refers to "hate" and "social position": funny. Do you find this way of expressing it much better than Vitale? Do you understand it? I have no hate against him, and I don't understand the reference to "social position" (may be the same meaning as in Vitale, I.e. he refers as a criticism to the fact that somebody is an University professor: I confess, without any pride, that I am a non-algebraic academic ultra-heterodox Marxian: NAAUHM. so I am a KSSANAAUHM). I am sure that Vitale would agree with Giussani's words here. At the same time, as I said, I find Vitale's way of attacking personally by name much more transparent. And since we happily do not leave in places were Marxists won, I do not fear anything from the heat of words. The only point is: do you have the possibility to answer? [by the way: I would be happy to know where Giussani's answers to Vitale appeared, I would like to read them] - I, as many comrades, built a study group outside University with workers, high-shool teachers, etc. a group studying Capital, but differently from most other comrades studying this kind of stuff I never constructed the group to educate 'followers' of my position, so that most of the people in this group were, and are, more convinced by TSS people or by Giussani or by Moseley, in short by truly orthodox positions (though of course TSS would not recognize Fred as orthodox, as Fred would not recognize Sweezy as orthodox, etc.) and I encouraged them to read this orthodox literature. - I organised a conference in 1994 on Marx, and I was happy to invite Carchedi (I invited him to another one later on, and I would be happy to do that in the future), and I'm happy to accept all of the TSS people who wanted to intervene, and also I would have been happy to have in 1994 Gianfranco Pala (another one 'insulted' by Vitale, and who made a wonderful job on the transformation which is one of my reference-point, and who has a mastery on Sraffa's writings much better than most of other Marxists) and Giussani. I would know be happy to have a seminar by Giussani in the Bergamo Dept, and would have been happy to have him at the conference in 1994 (I tried to reach him). - Giussani says, and this should mean something, that that he has "nothing to do" with me. Probably you understand his point. I do not. Unfortunately, I still find interesting Giussani as Vitale. By the way: I think that discussing Desai's book is much more relevant that all the stuff OPE-L were discussing in the past. But of course I fear that people would immediately start criticising the book because of its theoretical and political way of putting argument, and because it wants to be provocative, or may be because now Desai is a Lord, or because of the twist of his political positions in the Labour Party. In my view, Desai's book, though obliquely, put forward the real issue now. Marx thought that the 'natural' development of capitalism, includings its tendency to globalization, creates its own grave-diggers, homogeneised and united. The end of XXth century shows the opposite: capital's accumulation going on, and the tendency to division winning over the tendency towards unification. This seems to me a much bigger problem than the transformation, even if this latter would have been perfectly resolved in the Master oeuvre. But I must be wrong, since I am a keynesian-sraffian. I am really sad I answered your letter about Vitale's. Probably I expressed badly my feeling that we should stop go on looking at the appearence of 'etiquette', or Sprach-Ethik if you wish, and should move forward to a more substantial respect, which means taking seriously the most further away from us of our opponents, first of all looking at what he is actually saying (and this, Rakesh, does not mean simply that the 'other' has to explain himself/herself clearly, it means also that we have to pay attention and that we should avoid to picture him without considering his/her own self-represention). rb At 20:51 +0000 10-05-2002, glevy@pop-b.pratt.edu wrote: >---------- Forwarded message ---------- >From: "Paolo Giussani" <106642.534@compuserve.com> >Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 20:30:53 +0200 >Subject: Re: [OPE-L:7136] 'Quaderni di Operai Contro' (Vitale) v. >Paolo Giussani > >----- Original Message ----- >From: <glevy@pop-b.pratt.edu> >To: <106642.534@compuserve.com> >Sent: Thursday, May 09, 2002 7:21 PM >Subject: Fw: [OPE-L:7136] 'Quaderni di Operai Contro' (Vitale) v. >Paolo Giussani > > >> >> Paolo: See enclosed OPE-L post. Riccardo B wrote a post in response. >You'll be able to read it at our archives tomorrow: >> http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/ope/archive >> Regards, Jerry >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: gerald_a_levy >> To: ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu >> Sent: Thursday, May 09, 2002 9:07 AM >> Subject: [OPE-L:7136] "Quaderni di Operai Contro" (Vitale) v. Paolo >Giussani >> >> >> For a good extreme example of how Marxists should >> *NOT* debate issues in political economy see: >> >> http://www.asloperaicontro.org/inglese/debate.htm >> >> where you can download articles from l997-l998 by >> A. Vitale -- debating former listmember Paolo Giussani -- >> from the journal "Quaderni di Operai Contro". >> >> Note the following expressions, from Vitale's articles: >> >> * "systematic demolition of his (Paolo's, JL) position"; >> >> * "personal hysteria" ; "foolishness" ; "his haughtiness, >> arrogance and presumption"; "his hysterical spite" ; >> >> * "reactionary anti-workers rage"; "belonging to Milan >> reactionary petty bourgeoisie"; >> >> * "collection of absurdities"; "anti-workers pieces of foolery"; >> >> * "based in the vulgar economics"; "the spokesman of the >> social capital"; >> >> * "understood quite nothing of the concept of value discovered >> by Marx, as a consequence he knows little or nothing about the >> way in which exchange takes place"; >> >> * Paolo G is described as "The thinker" ; "The technologist"; >> "a petty researcher" ; "a petty professor", "doctor Giussani"; >> "a very appreciated item on anti-worker thinkers' market"; >> >> * "a doctor of Algebraic Marxism" >> >> and: >> >> * "A boot-licker, no offense meant". >> >> (Paolo G, btw, left the list last Fall.) >> >> Are Vitale's remarks representative of how some groups on the >> Italian Left debate issues associated with political economy? > > >> Can anyone think of any "better" examples of how to *not* >> debate political economy in recent history? >> >> What accounts for this level of maliciousness? Couldn't Vitale >> have made all of his basic points _without_ resorting to personal >> abuse and extreme dismissive comments? >> >> In solidarity, Jerry >> > >Dear Jerry, > >I am really surprised in seeing that you are giving some kind of weight to >the stuff produced by people like Vitale. All the more so since you can't >know what happened here some years ago: I simply protested against a public >meeting he and his >sect hold against three persons BY NAME. My protest was against the fact >that a public meeting directed not against ideas but against some person was >allowed by the people managing the institution (a leftist place open to >everybody who needed it for conferences, meetings etc) where the meeting was >hosted. What followed (a mere series of insults) was only the consequence of >my protest. >Now, since you, Bellofiore and Cottrells belong to the keynesian-sraffian >side may feel a bit pleased (especially Riccardo Bellofiore, with whom I >have never had anyhting to do) seeing someone able to insulte people who you >see or believe as belonging to the "other" side (fundamental marxism or TSS >or whatever. Just for your information: I don't belong to any side and never >show up, as everybody knows very well, and have aboslutely nothing to do >with the kind of group created by Freeman, Kliman etc). But, believe me it >is something very far from being honorable from your side. > >Best. >Paolo > >PS1 Please don't expect a another word on this dirty matter from me, of >course. This the beginning and the end of all it. >I have only to inform you all (but especially Bellofiore) that Vitale's goal >(the 78% of whose writings are on average made by Marx's quotations: I made >myself the measure) was actually to defend Marx's works "word by word" >against myself and other bad revisionists, and that his first "work" (so to >speak), that you don't know -I suppose, was a booklet on Sraffa made of a >long series of insults to Sraffa, of course. Bellofiore, who has not read my >replies to Vitale but finds "very interesting what he says": this is really >unbelievable: hate and/or social positions can do a lot -I must say), has >chosen a very strange ally whom to teach some piece of style to master the >art to hide insults beneath a respectable form like all western properly >civilized gentleman should be do and which is one the essences of academic >everyday life. > >PS2 Jerry, I understand that you may wonder why I no longer am a member of >Ope-L. This has absolutely nothing to do with Freeman or the TSS or anything >like that. Only with the fact that I am not interested to the contents of >Ope-L. The are just not useful for my work. So long. -- Riccardo Bellofiore Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche Via dei Caniana 2 I-24127 Bergamo, Italy e-mail: bellofio@unibg.it, bellofio@cisi.unito.it direct +39-035-277545 secretary +39-035 277501 fax: +39 035 277549 homepage: http://www.unibg.it/dse/homebellofiore.htm
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