Re: Brenner in context

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Lou:

>Yoshie:
>>You'd have to _demonstrate_ the long equation (or free association?)
>>that you want us to accept: a UCLA professor = Analytical Marxism =
>>G. A. Cohen = Stagism = the Second International = Social Darwinism =
>>Karl Kautsky = Georgi Plekhanov = an Enemy of the Revolution = Hal
>  >Draper = Solidarity = _Against the Current_ = Max Shachtman = a
>>theory of "State Capitalism" & "Bureaucratic Collectivism."  And then
>>you need to _demonstrate_ that all of the above is indeed synthesized
>>in Brenner's works, with textual evidence from them.
>
>This would be virtually impossible, since Brenner has been so adept at
>covering his tracks.

Or perhaps, the imprints of _all_ of the above on Brenner exist only
in your imagination.

It's hard to be a neo-Kautskyite & a left Shachtmanite & an
Analytical Marxist (not to mention the rest) at the same time. :)

>  >If we follow this line of reasoning, though, we must, to take just
>>one example, conclude that C. L. R. James was an enemy of the
>>Revolution, for he, unlike Robert Brenner, indeed wrote a book called
>>_State Capitalism and World Revolution_, with Raya Dunayevskaya &
>>Grace Lee.
>
>There's another side of CLR James that you are unfamiliar with apparently.
>In the final stages of his life, he became an enthusiastic supporter of
>Nkrumah and African socialism, black power, and--most importantly--the
>Cuban revolution.

Well, the early James also saw the revolutionary potential in
self-activities of black proletariat in diaspora, and his critique of
the CP line on the Negro Question was based upon it from the
beginning.  So, I see no sharp break in James' intellectual career in
this respect.

>At this
>stage in his life, James had largely dispensed with the "state capitalist"
>theories which were largely an expression of a healthy aversion to
>Stalinist bureaucracy and corruption.

The point is, however, that you are picking & choosing the best parts
from James' works while discarding the parts you find unnecessary for
today's politics.  Why can you not apply the same method to any other
thinker's work, including Brenner's?

Yoshie