Re: Nazi racial and economic theory (was Re: Michael Mann, again)

[Justin Schwartz <jschwart@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 12 Jan 1996, Louis N Proyect wrote:
>
> But Analytical Marxism, I don't know. I would assume that this current
> has been inspired by the so-called Analytical method in modern
> philosophy? Correct? Do I have to read John Roemer to get a handle on
> this? I studied analytical philosophy in the mid-60's at the New School
> and thought it was sterile and irrelevant. Hate to sound so ignorant, but
> of what use can the likes of AJ Ayer be for Marxism?

You probably wouldn't like AM, Louis, but if you want to get a handle on
it I suggest you look through those essays which strike you as interestin
in the John Roemer collection, Analytical Marxism (Cambridge U.P., 1986).
I wouldn't start right off with Roemer, who operates aginst the background
that his readers know a lot of mainstream economics; his Free to Lose
(Harvard U.P. 1988) is probably the most accessible thing he's written.
Elster is very accessible and quite infuriating. His Making Sense of Marx
is a fat farrago if brilliant insights and off-the-wall fallacies.

Analytical Marxists who are philosophers are analytical philosophers (like
me), but AM is not confined to philosophy. It includes economists like
Roemer, political scientists like Elster, historians like Robert Brenner,
sociologists like Eric Olin Wright, and people in virtually all of the
more "scientific" of the humanities and social scientists. Those who are
not philosophers are analytical in the sense that they attempt in their
work to use rigorous empirical research techniques, clearly formulating
testible hypotheses which they subject to scrutiny in the light of the
evidence.

AMs who are philosophers haven't much to dow ith A.J. Ayer, the
old populizer of logical positivism in its heyday; logical positivism has
been dead as a doornail in philosophy for thirty years or more. Analytical
philosophy retains the logical positivists' emphasis on clarity of
expression and explicitness of argument and their respect for science, but
has pretty much rejected the LP's critique of "metaphysics" and its narrow
philosophy of language. Most nonspecialists still find the work of
Analytical Philosophers dull and dry, and I think much of it is, but so is
muchof everything. But the better philosophers who are AMs are exciting
and accessible: G.A. Cohen, in his work on history and more recently
ethics; Richard Miller's Analysing Marx, Milton Fisk's genuinely great The
State and Justice, Kai Neilsen's Equality and Liberty, Richard Norman's
Freedom and Equality, and lots of other stuff.

In my view AM is the only tendency in Marxist theory that is really alive
and developing new and interesting work these days.

--Justin




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