Re: Shouldn't PEN-L members be working furiously to craft economic political rhetoric even more radical

[ALI KADRI <akadri_00@xxxxxxxxx>]

LONG AGO the theme was taking the university back to
the people, now it may be time to bring the people
back to universities. Both will be better off, for
people need a bit intellectual leisure and
universities need a shot of realism.
I do not think that there is a relative theoretical
cohesion on the list to devise an ideological program.
Not that this is bad or good. It is just that. And I
do not think that the differences are between ultra
left, humanist, althusarian or Hegelian Marxist; they
are between neo kantian empiricist, solopsist,  and
Marxist. In short there is no broad  theoretical
cohesion to provide a basis for an ideological
program.

Today?s discussion was that the left lost influence
because it lost, some two decades ago, the battle over
language, its conceptions went out and the right wing
conceptions commandeered the shaping of the
intellectual environment. Then the question becomes is
it ever possible for the left with the use of
malleable and probably populist language to infiltrate
the intellectutal debate or is the allowable language
under capitalism is that which downgrades the language
of class struggle to that which is harmless to the
bourgeoisie.

So let us presume just for the sake of exercise that
pen l issues a ten point program for recovery which
begins with bringing financial institutions under
democratic control and let  us say  ends with
narrowing the profit margin of industry for more jobs
or some measure of guaranteeing employment etc.

Something reformist, in that, it does not call for
outright nationalization. What headway will such a
program make. I bet you nothing, and  nothing begets
nothing.

The prognosis may be that: there is a crisis of a
working class ideology and party and probably it is
not just the language of the left that is outlawed but
everything else to do with it. Kowtowing a populist
arrangement may simply imply moving in the allowable
margin.
Strike when the iron is hot.

--- Charles Brown <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
> Shouldn't PEN-L members be working furiously to
> craft economic political rhetoric even more radical
> than Stiglitz and Krugman ?
>
> ((((((((
>  Renowned U.S. Economists Denounce Corporate-Led
> Globalization
> by Charles Brown
> 26 November 2001 01:29 UTC  < < <
> Thread Index
> > > >
>
> Renowned U.S. Economists Denounce Corporate-Led
> Globalization
>
> Published on Wednesday, November 21, 2001
> Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz and
> internationally acclaimed
> economist Paul Krugman decry undemocratic, unsound,
> and unethical
> corporate agenda
>
> by James L. Phelan
>
> It seems critics of corporate-led globalization have
> some new allies.
> Recent Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz, along
> with well-known
> economist Paul Krugman, have of late made a flurry
> of public
> statements critical of the policies and processes of
> the World Trade
> Organization (WTO), the World Bank / IMF, and the
> proposed Free Trade
> Area of the Americas (FTAA) ¯ while leaving plenty
> of harsh words for
> the blatantly pro-corporate actions of the Bush
> Administration. Both
> economists point to the disruptive and distorting
> influence of large
> corporate entities through their dominance over both
> domestic and
> international institutions.
>


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