Date: Wed, 26 Feb 1997 14:46:30 -0500 (EST)
From: Louis Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: M-I: Marxists shifting rightward?


Barkley Rosser:

>     She always rejected a mechanical interpretation of the 
>Marxian labor theory of value, but as she became older, 
>Joan Robinson moved steadily leftward and became a strong 
>sympathizer of both Maoist China and North Korea in her old 
>age.  In the nineteenth century, John Stuart Mill moved 
>leftwards towards feminism and a mild social democracy from 
>a strongly pro-laissez faire position, although he could 
>never have been called a Marxist in any way shape or form.

Louis: Closely related to this question is one far more interesting. Why
have so few 60s radicals turned out to be professional red-baiters like
David Horowitz or Ronald Radosh.

Most people in their fifties are like me and Flanders. We don't belong to
any group but plod away at various leftist activities that are meaningful to
us. We constitute an impressive anti-capitalist constituency in American
society. You could have found us in the Central America solidarity, gay and
environmental movements throughout the 1980s and 90s. We were ex-Maoists and
ex-Trotskyists who managed to put ideology aside while working on common
projects. This, of course, is what united fronts should be all about.

In a curious way, the main reaction against the revolutionary thrust of the
1960s has not been to the right but toward a more chastened form of Marxism.
This of course is particularly true of academics. While studying Analytical
Marxism, I am struck by the degree to which it is an attempt to rid Marxism
of its revolutionary kernel. This is also true of post-Marxism but it takes
a different form. Instead of taking aim at the social movements of the
1960s, it simply accomodates themselves to them and rejects the underlying
challenge to class society that the more ideological expressions of the
1960s posed. Yes to feminism, they say. No to the Marxism that the feminist
movement leads toward logically.

One of the depressing things that I notice about the PEN-L list that I have
re-subscribed to out of morbid curiosity is the almost total lack of heated
political discussion. It is mainly left professors like Jerry Levy enquiring
about relevant research material for a paper they are preparing. These are
people who have forgotten about what got them into their research programs
to begin with: a desire to change the world.

Whatever you say about the Spoons lists, they certainly demonstrate the
passion people had about politics in the 1960s. I once worked with a Russian
emigree named Michael Lakhman at Goldman-Sachs. Everyday he would browse
through Ninja Warrior magazines. He was fixated on Japanese culture of the
middle ages.

Once he asked me, "Lou, if you could go back in history to any year with
time-machine, what year you choose." He expected me to say 1730 or something
like that I suppose.

My reply? 1967. Now that was a hell of a year.







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