When a prominent Marxist, like Alain Lipietz or Mario Cogoy, moves away from Marxist political economy to another perspective then I think it is useful to ask why. The more interesting question in this regard, I believe, is: what were they attracted to outside of Marxism that they didn't think they could find satisfactory answers to using a Marxist perspective? Lipietz answered that question -- why he became a Green instead of a Red -- in _Green Hopes_ (Polity Press, l995). Mario Cogoy did not answer that question directly -- at least that I know of. But, perhaps, we can get some clues by looking at his recent interests. See the following from l997: http://www.lancs.ac.uk/users/scistud/esf/cogoy.htm I have no information on his post-l997 interests or writings. Note in the above site that there is no mention of his prior interest in Marxism. In the above, one can clearly see that Mario's interests, like that of Alain's, have been to a great extent related to environmental economics. Thus, his interests in technology assessment and risk analysis especially in relation to the nuclear power industry, the environmental impacts of consumer behavior, and service-orientated processes of economic change and technological change in the "art of living". (It's unclear to me exactly what the "art of living" means in this context.) Ben Fine has been doing some work in recent years related to consumption and there are others such as J.B. Foster and OPE-L member Paul Burkett who have written on subjects related to environmental economics. What then is there then that some who move away from a Marxian perspective find in "Green Economics" that they don't think they can find within Marxism? Is this only a misunderstanding on their part or have Marxists failed in some ways to systematically integrate these subjects within a Marxian perspective on the global economy? In solidarity, Jerry
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sun Jun 02 2002 - 00:00:08 EDT