[PEN-L:1939] Re: Something completely different

[Louis N Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 13 Dec 1995 akliman@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
> It took Marx nearly 25 years to write _Capital_.  It's a great expression
>  of his serious concern with ideas and his patience in *developing* thought
>  in a painstaking, methodical way.  The Marxism list was not very
>  conducive to that.  Marx was by no means retreating or becoming an ivory-
> tower "academic" because he sat in the library and thought and read and
>  wrote--he certainly did not do it *instead* of political work, but as
> part of his political work, and to suggest that everyone who left the
>  Marxism list did so because they're retreating from politics is ludicrous

Louis: Andrew, the best place for you--and I told you this when I saw you
last-- *is* PEN-L. Your interest and work in LTV and FROP, etc., which I
have the highest regard for, is best done on a list like PEN-L which is
populated with serious economists like yourself.

However, when it comes to a discussion of issues such as Bosnia, fascism,
the Scargill proposal for a new labor party, the NEP and neo-NEP
formations, the Million Man March, etc., the Marxism is an exemplary place.
When, for example, you have political activists with decades of experience
from four continents trying to figure out what the prospects are for a new
worker's party are in England are, you see something that is unprecedented in
socialist politics. It could represent the embryonic form of a new
socialist international.

Now, as far as "unserious" contributions are concerned. MIM's Maoism was
pretty anti-Marxist, but I have to say that he or she was basically
saying the same sort of thing that Bill Mitchell has been saying about
the French strike. It is a variant on SDS/Weathermen politics from the late
60's. You know, white skin privilege and all that.

The problem with the Marxism list for someone like yourself is that it is
simply a *high-volume* list. I subscribed to an Opera list for one day
and was swamped. There's an art to learning how to get the most out of an
internet mailing-list. I don't read the NY Times from cover to cover.
Neither do I read every message on the Marxism list. I, for example,
would delete everything from MIM unread.

I do have a slight problem with somebody who is both on the Marxism and
PEN lists who once confided to me in private e-mail that he was fed up
with the Marxism list. He wanted to find articles on the LTV, but had to
wade through all that stuff about "revolution" and "class-struggle". I
have a feeling that that might be one of the reasons a tenured professor
who hasn't been to a demonstration in 20 years would get fed-up with the
Marxism list.