Re: [Marxism] re Sweezy

[Jim Farmelant <farmelantj@xxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 01 Feb 2009 18:16:21 -0430 "michael a. lebowitz"
<mlebowit@xxxxxx> writes:
> Lots of problems in Jim Farmelant's note on Paul Sweezy. See my piece 
> on 
> him, reprinted in Monthly Review and part of a new collection 
> ['Following Marx: Method, Critique and Crisis'] that Brill will 
> bring 
> out shortly:
> http://www.monthlyreview.org/1004lebowitz.htm
>           michael

Mike,

I am sure there were lots of problems in my
brief note on Sweezy although it would
have been nice to mentioned at least one
or two of them.  On the other hand, it
seems to me, that your MR piece on
Sweezy, supports most of the points
that I made including the importance
of Keynes for Sweezy.  As I am
sure that you are well aware, the
Keynesian influence on Sweezy
has always been a bone of contention
for other Marxists.  Back in the late
1960s, Paul Mattick wrote a critique
of Keynesianism, in which Sweezy,
was at least by implication, one of his
targets.  Marc Linder et al. in their
book *Anti-Samuelson*, while
primarily (as the title suggests)
targeting Paul Samuelson's
brand of Keynesianism, also took 
time out to critique Sweezy precisely
for his Keynesianism.

Of course as Sweezy's economic
thought matured, the problem of
monopoly loomed larger and
larger.  But here too, his thinking
was both congruent with and indeed
influenced by what contemporary
left Keynesians like Joan Robinson
and Michal Kalecki were doing in
that area.  And Joan Robinson
had famously rejected the thesis
that Keyensianism could be reconciled
to neoclassical economics in the way
that people like Samuelson were
pushing.

> 
> -- 
> 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.
> Residencias Anauco Suites, Parque Central, final Av. Bolivar
> Caracas, Venezuela
> fax: 0212 5768274/0212 5777231
> www.centrointernacionalmiranda.gob.ve
> mlebowit@xxxxxx
> 
> 
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