[PEN-L:3802] Re: Clarification on Cuba

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

          Jim O'C writes:
Marx got away with
doing both of these jobs because England roughly approximated both.  But
there is a sense in which Marx was "just" another 19th century social
theorists, like Weber who theorized the conditions of legitimate domination
and Durkheim who did the same for social solidarity...

.... If I remember right, the key failure of Limits to Capital, or so I thought
when it came out, was that it was useless to theorize really existing
struggles and movements;  that the method Harvey used was just not set up
to do this.  And I never understood why "Marxists" and Marxist-type theory
is useful if it doesn't illuminate something for people struggling for this
of that, or to offer a way for people to evaluate their goals, how they are
trying to reach their goals, and the effects of their actions (including
unintended effects).  If this in fact is Harvey's weakness it's the biggest
weakness any self-styled Marxist can have.
__________
Charles: A "Marxist-type" theory that is thoroughly useful to people struggling and practicing, etc. in the real world is Leninism. It has had extraordinary results in practice.  However, Marx himself said "philosophers have interpreted the world in a number of ways; the thing is to change it."  This differentiates the old man from Weber , Durkheim and other exclusively scholastic social theorists.

Charles Brown