Gerry
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Alan (from OPE-L:285): "... the original proposal was 'the plans'...."
Alan is mistaken.
(etc)
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Excellent.
Does this mean we are happy to set the 'plan' issue on one side
for now (not forever)? In that case, I would like to put back on the agenda
two ideas (not necessarily contradictory) that I raised and (some)
others have responded positively to:
(a) that we look at Marx's order of enquiry as the starting point for
our own 'logical order' of enquiry. We might modify it, but we take
a glance at it.
(b) that we look at the double condition of today, namely, the most salient
features of the world economy (poverty, crisis, war) and the most salient
features of its representation in the political economy ot today, and try to
develop an order of enquiry that brings us via the critique of modern
political economy to an alternative analysis, based on Marx's methodology,
of these salient features (plus others that we decide to add after discussion)
The reason I don't think the two are necessarily contradictory is that in
looking for the causes of poverty, crisis and war, we will I am sure have
to retrace many of Marx's key steps. But it might provide more insipiration
and rationale, plus motivation for a certain amount of cross-paradigm
debate and mutual tolerance, if we identify the concrete manifestations
of reality that we all want to try and explain, in our different frameworks.
It might also provide for a certain amount of friendly competition if we adopt
the vaguely scientific approach (scientific in the sense I tried to put forward
in the MegaPost, pace Andrew) of seeing which theoretical approaches best
explain observed reality.
What do people think?
Alan