[Marxism] The NY Review of Books versus Marxism

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

In the ?Communist Manifesto,? Karl Marx wrote:

"A spectre is haunting Europe ? the spectre of communism. All the powers of 
old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope 
and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies."

Even though the Communist Manifesto is widely regarded in polite, academic 
circles as a kind of Victorian era relic, its spectre still seems to be 
haunting Tony Judt, a British-born professor at NYU. In the latest issue of 
the NY Review of Books, his reviews of Leszek Kolakowski?s ?Main Currents 
of Marxism? and ?My Correct Views on Everything?, and Jacques Attali?s 
?Karl Marx ou l?esprit du monde? provide an opportunity to exorcise this 
spectre one more time.

A word or two of introduction to Tony Judt might be in order since the NY 
Review has two big-time intellectuals whose first names that start with T 
and whose last name includes ?ud?:

1. Tony Judt: Specialist in French and European politics with a focus on 
the Marxist left; the continental equivalent of people like Harvey Klehr 
and John Earl Haynes.

2. Tim Judah: Spent most of the 1990s pushing for war on the Serbs, for 
which the NY Review played the same role that the Hearst press played in 
the Spanish-American war.

3. These two should not be confused with Timothy Garton Ash, another NY 
Review contributor, who is a blend of Judah and Judt. He writes 
Serb-bashing material like Judah but also finds time for the occasional 
?Marxism is dead? hackwork.

To compound the confusion, you have to remember that Michael Ignatieff and 
David Rieff are not the same person even though their last name ends in 
?ieff?. Both shared Ash and Judah?s enthusiasm for war on the dastardly 
Serbs throughout the 1990s but Rieff (son of Susan Sontag) seems to have 
joined the rest of the world recently in questioning whether US imperialism 
has any business meddling in the rest of the world. Ignatieff, on the other 
hand, still maintains an outlook like Niall Ferguson?s, namely that the 
savages need to be civilized at the point of a bayonet.

full: 
http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2006/09/03/the-ny-review-of-books-versus-marxism/


________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism