(OPE-l) Paul M. Sweezy at the New School

["Gerald A. Levy" <Gerald_A_Levy@xxxxxxx>]

A brief remembrance and appreciation:

 

In the Fall of 1975, while still a Senior at New York University,

I sat-in on a class entitled "Reading and Using Capital" taught

at the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research

by a visiting faculty member -- Paul M. Sweezy.

 

Sweezy  agreed to teach this course to fill in a temporary but

devastating void in the New School Economics Department

caused by the death of  Stephen H. Hymer, 39,  in an automobile

accident in February, 1974. 

 

The course was unlike any other course I have ever taken. It

was a phenomenon and a reflection of a time decades ago when

the enthusiasm for studying Marx and Marxist political economy

was very high.  It was also an exclamation point concerning the

high regard that students of political economy had for Sweezy.

 

Let you tell you a little bit about it.  To begin with,  there was no

classroom in the 5th Avenue Graduate Faculty building that was

big enough so a huge classroom -- which, if I recall correctly, had

been a cafeteria -- on 12th St.  was booked.  I don't recall how

many students were in the class -- at least one hundred and fifty

(150).  Maybe two-hundred (200).  I had to sneak my way into

the classroom by flashing a  computer card  that I found discarded

near the NYU computer lab  which resembled the card required

for admittance.   I  don't recall any other class at the New School

where they asked that you show an admittance card  before they let

you into a classroom.  There had never been a class so large before

-- or, I believe, since -- offered by the New School Economics

Department.  This wasn't  just a class, it was an  _event_.

 

I don't recall how many study groups there were -- perhaps a

dozen.  I met and later became friends with Paul's Teaching

Assistant -- (OPE-L member) John Ernst.  There was some

irony here because John had previously studied with Paul Mattick,

Sr..

 

There wasn't a lot of time for discussion and Sweezy relied heavily

on the study group leaders to assist students in their study of

_Capital_ (Volume I).  It was such a huge class very few students

were able to receive individualized instruction from Paul.  What I

recall most vividly about the class is that most students weren't simply taking

notes, they were practically _dictating word-for-word Sweezy's lecture_.

One has to remember that this was at the very height of the influence

of the "_Monthly Review_ school".   The overwhelming amount of students

simply _adored_ him. 

 

I didn't find his lecturing style to be particularly impressive.  Judging by

the reactions of other students, they disagreed.  He was very ... well ...

_professorial_ in style.  He certainly wasn't a public speaker like

Luxemburg, Lenin, or Trotsky.  But, in his own way, he was a living

legend.  He was among the very few Marxists in academe in the US

who maintained their political and personal integrity during the dark

years of McCarthyism.  He, along with the late Leo Huberman,

created a journal in 1949 that helped to keep the flame of Marxism alive

in the US during  this period of repression.  And he showed on many

occasions that he was willing to re-think his positions after events

demonstrated that a re-thinking was necessary.  He was _not_ a

dogmatist.  He was a scholar. He encouraged other Marxists to think

for themselves and stand up for what they believed in.  He will be sorely

missed.

 

In solidarity, Jerry