Re: [OPE] End

Jerry,

The main reason is simply practical. I just have too many other things to
do, among other things job-hunting, a legal dispute, editing a book by
Marcel van der Linden, Robin Blackburn et al., and so forth, possibly get
another place to live. The other reason is that I don't think I am going to
make any more scientific progress on this list. I can post more stuff that I
think is of interest to list members, but really it isn't what I should be
doing. Really what I ought to be doing academically, insofar as I have the
time for it, is to write up more stuff for publication, including the
Stiglitz critique and a book on the evolution of the state. I am not a paid
professional scholar with a safe, established job and a list of publications
as long as your arm, and everything I write, has to be written off-the-cuff
and "in between the scenes" in spare hours in the morning or at night, when
I am not in my paid fulltime job and not doing reading. It's not really
satisfactory, because really when you deal with big topics you should go
over issues much more carefully and thoroughly, but I just don't have the
time to write stuff up, and have to condense things down far too much, it
becomes like blogging. It is just not possible neurologically to sustain a
12 hour working day practically every day of the week, and I should be
looking at getting more pay for less work of a higher quality, and rest
more. In the second half of this year I was sick too often with flu viruses,
which doesn't make my employer particularly happy, and the surgeon
discovered I have a midriff hernia. So I have to be much more concerned with
attaining good health, a better lifestyle, and keeping it; when you are
young, you aren't concerned about these things too much but when you are 50
you do notice you just cannot do everything that you used to. Qua
interests, I am just not so much interested in Marxism anymore, and the more
I have studied Marx & Engels, the less convincing I have found Marxist
interpretations of their life and works. Since the list is basically a
Marxist list as Ian Wright notes, I don't really belong there, I just get
offside with people. And I nowadays am concerned much more really with new
types of analysis which go well beyond Marxist doctrines, and pick up topics
and issues that Marx never talked about, sort of like, Capital Volume 5.
This only gets Marxists' backs up, because it is a departure from orthodoxy,
and I want to avoid getting embroiled in the whole controversy about
orthodoxy, or whether something is Marxist or not Marxist. I am very
grateful as non-academic worker for having had the opportunity to be able to
discuss a bunch of topics on the list with sympathetic and generally patient
academics across 12 years, I learnt a lot from the experience, but I feel
now have to move on, and associate with things more productive to what I
need to achieve. I wish the list well, I hope I made a useful contribution,
and for the rest I'm sure that you will have plenty to discuss without me.

Best regards,

Jurriaan

----- Original Message -----
From: "GERALD LEVY" <gerald_a_levy@msn.com>
To: "Outline on Political Economy mailing list" <ope@lists.csuchico.edu>;
"Jurriaan Bendien" <adsl675281@telfort.nl>; "Alejandro Agafonow"
<alejandro_agafonow@yahoo.es>; "Dave Zachariah" <davez@kth.se>; "Ian Wright"
<iwright@gmail.com>; "Mike Schauerte" <mikeschauerte@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, December 05, 2009 7:33 PM
Subject: RE: [OPE] End

Jurriaan:

While you (just like all members) have the right to resign,
I think you at least owe an off-list explanation to the rest
of the Administrative Committee and myself.

In solidarity, Jerry

> I have decided to withdraw from OPE-L, and consequently I resign from the
> Advisory Committee. I thank discussants for their ideas, and wish everyone
> well.

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Received on Sat Dec 5 15:35:07 2009