[Marxism] re Sweezy

[Michael Friedman]

With all due respect to Dick Levins (who has been an inspiration to me), I
would say it depends on whether or not the "part" has an organic
connection to the whole. To use an analogy from another ongoing discussion
on this list, simply because working class people pick up xenophobic and
racist ideologies does not give them "new properties". Or another, if I
transplant a pig's heart into a human, it won't become a human heart, nor
will the "whole" human function properly. And the idea of a "whole" is,
itself, relative and conditional. The whole working class? The whole
capitalist system? Just because Sweezy was a Marxist, doesn't transform
his Keynesian "part" into Marxism. Doesn't make him less of one, but he
could've been wrong, you know...


> Message: 3
> Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 21:20:21 -0430
> From: "michael a. lebowitz" <mlebowit at sfu.ca>
> Subject: [Marxism] re Sweezy
> To: marx <marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu>
> Message-ID: <4986515D.9010405 at sfu.ca>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> because he drew upon some of Ricardo's insights. What some who view
> themselves as untainted by Keynes and thus the only true Marxists may
> not understand is the basic principle of a dialectical worldview that
> [in the words of listmember Richard Levins] 'parts acquire properties by
> virtue of being parts of a particular whole, properties they do not have
> in isolation or as parts of another whole.' So, the question is what was
> the whole in which those parts were situated. As for Kalecki's
> influence, that came later--- but both he and Sweezy were influenced by
> Rosa Luxembourg [and the former's obscure essays working through the 2
> Dept model in the 30s preceded Keynes and, in my view, were superior].
>             michael.
>
> --
> Michael A. Lebowitz
> Professor Emeritus
> Economics Department
> Simon Fraser University
> Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6
>
> Director, Programme in 'Transformative Practice and Human Development'
> Centro Internacional Miranda, P.H.
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> mlebowit at sfu.ca



-- 
Michael Friedman
Ph.D. in Biology
City University of New York

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