Re: Subject: [Marxism] Popper

[Jim Farmelant <farmelantj@xxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, 01 Jan 2005 13:14:55 -0300 "Nestor Gorojovsky"
<nestorgoro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> Respuesta a: Re: Subject: [Marxism] Popper
> Remitido por: Jim Farmelant
> Fecha: Viernes 31 de Diciembre de 2004
> Hora: 21:40
> *****
>
> > Popper it should be noted, leaned towards to the Austrian
> > Social Democrats' anti-Marxist wing, which championed
> > the revisionism of Eduard Bernstein against the dominant
> > Austro-Marxism.
>
> Thus, and sorry if this sounds extremely harsh to those who respect
> him, he deserves the words that Lenin spit on the whole gang: "And
> is
> it you, who sent 16 million people to death, who dare to judge us?"

Bernstein, himself a pacifist, opposed the First World War, but the
kind of class-collabarationist politics that he championed
within the Social Democrats helped make it possible for
the majority of that party to rally to the Kaiser and the
Fatherland during that war.

>
> The links between social-democracy and fascism are more subtle than
> many may imagine.  Need I remind people on this list that it was the
>
> Social Democrat Walther Christaller who, during the Weimar Republic,
>
> drafted the plans for Autobahnen that Nazis would carry to
> realization and, most seriously yet, provided the theoretical base
> for their actions of territorial planning in Eastern Europe with his
>
> Central Place Theory?  And need I remind you that it was not a Neo
> Fascist, but a Social Democrat who, commenting on the current
> neocolonial expansion of the European Union on Central Eastern
> Europe, joyfully declared that "at last, Germany has obtained by
> peaceful means this that we strove to obtain through war two times,
> and failed"?
>
> This has little, if anything, to do not only with socialism but even
>
> with Bismarkian German nationalism (not to speak of Rhineland
> democratic nationalism such as proved its impotence in 1848).
>
> There are some excellent pages on Jorge Enea Spilimbergo's _La
> cuestión nacional en Marx_, which show that Hitlerian conceptions
> were rooted in the Austrian, not in the Bismarckian German,
> conception of society.  And, to be honest, I believe that there are
> lots of things we would learn from a thorough study of that rotten
> multinational empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was so
> influent on the current ideologists of today's Anglo Saxon powers,
> specially by way of émigré Social Democrats who fled to London and
> New York duirng the 30s.

There is no doubt that many of the strongest intellectual currents
that have prevailed in the Anglo-Saxon world over the past
half-century, owe much to the Austrians of the period between
the two world wars.  These include psychoanalysis and
the "Austrian School" in economics (especially Friedrich
Hayek and Ludwig von Mises), without which the
current vogue of neo-liberalism would be unthinkable.
Anglophone philosophy, as it exists today, would be
unthinkable without the influence of Wittgenstein,
as well as the Vienna Circle of Schlick, Carnap, and
Neurath, amongst others.

Also, it is interesting to note the intellectual, political,
and even personal relationships that existed between
the leading figures of these various currents.  Thus,
Popper's critiques of logical positivism were not
unrelated to his critiques of Marxism, given one
of his antagonists in both areas was Otto Neurath,
who was both a Marxist and a logical empiricist.
Neurath, was among other things, associated with
the Austro-Marxists, and indeed often wrote for
their journal, Der Kampf, which was edited by
by people like Otto Bauer, Max Adler, and Karl
Renner.  Most of the logical positivists, were
politically Social Democrats, with some like
Neurath and Carnap, quite far to the left.  On
the other hand, some members of the Vienna
Circle were much more conservative politically,
including Schlick and Richard von Mises, who
was the brother of the well known economist,
Ludwig von Mises.  Richard, seems to have
shared the political and economic views of
his economist brother.

Friedrich Hayek was a cousin of Wittgenstein
but I don't think the two men had much in
common as far as their political or philosophical
views were concerned.  Hayek was a friend
of Popper's and he did much to secure
Popper an academic post at the London
School of Economics, when the latter was
languishing at a third-rate university in
New Zealand. Hayek also seems to have
helped Popper to get his *The Open
Society* published.  While Popper's
political views at the time were well
to the left of Hayek's, Hayek recognized
that Popper's book could be a useful
weapon in the war against Marxism.

Members of the Vienna Circle also
had strong connection with leading
figures of some the major cultural
movements in Austria and Germany
at that time.  For instance they had
a close relationship with the
Bauhaus School.  This relationship
was mediated primarily through
Neurath who saw logical empiricism
as part of a wider-sweeping movement
to overturn conventional ideas in
philosophy, science, education,
the arts and politics.  Also, the
architect, Josef Frank who was
associated with the Bauhaus was a
brother of Philipp Frank, the
physicist-philosopher and
a member of the Vienna Circle.


>
> Many of the basic traits of our current world, from apartheid to
> extremist neo-liberal economics, can be traced back to that stinking
>
> Pandora's box of Central Europe.  Popper included.  I am completely
> against this, from same mail:
>
> "It turned out to be fortitious for Popper that the critique of
> Marxism which had originally been forged in the context of the
> debates of the Austrian Social Democrats turned out to
> especially useful for the cold warriors in waging ideological
> warfare
> against the Soviet Union."
>
> Not fortitious.  Not at all.

Not fortitious for us, but certainly fortitious for
Popper who became one of the favorite
philosophers of the bourgeoisie during
the cold war. (Popper on the other
hand was strongly anti-Zionist, something
that Hacohen discusses in some detail
in his Popper book, but which was
something that one did not hear
too much about when Popper was
still around).

>
>
> Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
> nestorgoro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
> "Sí, una sola debe ser la patria de los sudamericanos".
> Simón Bolívar al gobierno secesionista y disgregador de
> Buenos Aires, 1822
> _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
>
>
>
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