Date: Thu, 4 Aug 1994 17:14:22 +0700
From: djones-AT-uclink.berkeley.edu (donna jones)
Subject: rethinking pseudo-marxism




Comrades on the marxism line:

I will not be writing to the marxist line for some time. My exchange with
Trotter has convinced me that I have not yet understood marxism as a
revolutionary theory of working class self-emancipation. I think that I am
going to try to understand how Marx arrived at (and what was peculiar
about) his theory of class struggle and the abolition of classes thereby. 
I sense my ultra-leftism is an indication of contempt for and fear of the
proletariat as a unified and revolutionary class (though many of you have
been too polite to say so directly--politeness is not always beneficial!). 
So it is time for rethinking.  The proletariat has many too enemies among
its intellectual friends.

I am also going to try to write a dissertation comparing Schumpeter's
sociological theory of capitalist decline, Luxemburg's theory of
accumulation and catastrophism,  and Grossmann's theory of accumulation and
breakdown.  If anyone has any suggestions (including marxist critiques of
Schumpeter), please write me.

I am also very uneasy with the attempt to combat Stalinism with
Hayek--though the attempt is understandable. Chris' arguments remind me of
Thomas Sowell, who has also broken with Communism and embraced Hayek.
Sowell is also quite well-read in the classics and very decent in
argumentation. Perhaps out of this conflict between state-captitalism (as
Mattick called both fascism and bolshevism, including market socialism--I
beleive) and an ahistorical and untheoretical individualism will emerge a
collective working class making revolution based on its own needs and for
its own ends.

I will still be reading. So long for now. Don't keep hope alive.
d jones