From: Howard Engelskirchen (howarde@TWCNY.RR.COM)
Date: Fri Jul 21 2006 - 13:56:59 EDT
Hi Jerry and all, Others on the list are more knowledgeable about the details of Bettelheim's life and work, I'm sure, and I would welcome their appraisals. In the post war period Bettelheim offered an important analysis of the economy of nazi facism and its significance for capitalism and he contributed also to third world development studies. These remained an important theme throughout his life. He wrote a book on Indian economic development and was involved with the development planning of other third world countries, notably Nasser's Eygpt. Cuba after the revolution was also such a country and he contributed broadly to the analysis of socialist planning and the problems of the transition to socialism. He wrote on the construction of socialism in China and contributed to an appreciation of the place and significance of Mao Tse Tung's ideas to the development of Marxist Leninist thought. His small book on The Cultural Revolution and Industrial Organization in China offers I think still an inspiring glimpse of a possible future, though I haven't looked at it in years. He participated in an important exchange with Paul Sweezy on the transition to socialism which appeared in the pages of Monthly Review. His work was practical and politically engaged and his theoretical contributions came out of, and were worked out in response to, that practical engagement. The theoretical significance of his book on Economic Calculation and the Forms of Property -- its continuing theoretical significance -- seems to me underappreciated still. He contributed also, of course, to an understanding of the concept of the restoration of capitalism and wrote Class Struggles in the USSR. As a young man he lived and studied in the Soviet Union. His lectures in Paris in the early 70s were hugely attended and full of life -- they had the feel of a highly original working out of theory in an intensely political context. He had an enormous influence on others. The questions Bettelheim raised seem swallowed by history, but it's impossible to imagine we're done with them. We will find ourselves returning to this body of work, I have no doubt. Howard ----- Original Message ----- From: <glevy@PRATT.EDU> To: <OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU> Sent: Friday, July 21, 2006 10:21 AM Subject: Re: [OPE-L] Charles Bettelheim > Hi Howard: > > I'm sorry to hear this news, even though he led a long and full life. > Thanks for letting us know. > > > He has made an indelible contribution. > > Yes, I'm sure you're right. But, lest we forget, what were > those contributions? > > In solidarity, Jerry >
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