From: ope-admin@ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu
Date: Tue Oct 30 2007 - 14:07:11 EDT
--------------------- Original Message ---------------------------- Subject: Re: [OPE-L] class theory From: "Dave Zachariah" <davez@kth.se> Date: Tue, October 30, 2007 1:55 pm To: glevy@PRATT.EDU ------------------------------------------------------------------- If I may interject with a brief comment: I think it would be more accurate to say that theories -- scientific or not -- express ideologies rather than class interests. Either because they are formulated within an ideological framework or because they are used as means in an ideological struggle. Here I follow Göran Therborn's analysis of ideologies, which are not merely systematic doctrines, but rather sets of beliefs about (i) what exists/does not exist, (ii) what is possible/impossible and (iii) what is good/bad etc. A modern example is Keynesianism and Monetarism. They are social theories intimately linked with social-democracy and neoliberalism, respectively. And these two ideologies, in turn, expressed the economic interest of workers and rentiers, respectively. The principles of historical materialism should be applied in order to understand the functions social theories aquire in the ideological struggles of a class society. However, I reckon it is often counter-productive to invoke the class content of an opponent's theory in a debate.
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