Date: 	Wed, 25 Sep 1996 01:30:26 -0400
Subject: Discrimination and the OPE list


Gerald Levy (Jerry) writes about himself by way of his hypothetical obituary:

>As an economist, he will be best remembered (?) as the organizer and
>coordinator of OPE-L, a small, closed Internet mailing list of Marxist
>economists which began in 1995.

I've been in the Marxism list from its very beginning. Up to the end of
1995 I had the habit of reading every post sent to the list. But I've never
seen here any public call to join the OPE list, nor even a concrete
announcement about its formation. Only some vague, rather mysterious,
comments from Jerry, concerning his intentions of leaving the list and
forming his own one, since at that time he was unconfortable with
everything that was going on here. So it seems most probable, and rather
obvious, that the members of the OPE list joined it by a direct invitation
>from Jerry. How did it come I was never invited to join it?

Perhaps, Jerry ignored my existence. But no. During 1994 and 1995 I was a
regular contributor to the discussions about scientific cognition as a
necessary concrete form of conscious revolutionary action, dialectics,
mathematics, the alienated and historical nature of philosophy and its
necessary end as scientific method develops its historically concrete form
of the reproduction of the concrete through the path of thought (Marx), as
opposed to theoretical representation, etc. Moreover, I discussed about the
historical nature of logical representation as the necessary historical
form of alienated scientific cognition in capitalism with Jerry himself.
And he was interested in renewing a discussion on my "style."

Perhaps Jerry ignored my interest in economic forms. But no. Currently, I
was one of the main participants in most of the discussions on these
matters: commodity, value, capital, surplus-value, the rate of profit, etc.

Perhaps Jerry considered my degree as a Licenciado en Economia from the
Universidad de Buenos Aires (about 120 credits according to US standards)
wasn't enough to enter a specialists' list. And, of course, like Doug
Henwood, I don't enjoy calling myself an economist. But no. Apparently,
Lisa Rogers was a member of the OPE list, and she didn't have any degree in
political economy, nor made any claim about being an economist, as far as I
know.

Perhaps Jerry considered I lacked the level of knowledge and original
thinking needed to participate in the OPE discussions. But no. According to
Jerry's own words, I am:

> you are a very sharp Marxist, ...

Perhaps Jerry believed I was a too frequent poster, that would flood the
OPE with my messages. But no, I hardly posted more than one, at most two or
three, messages a week, even while the discussions I participated in were
peaking.

Perhaps Jerry considered I am too bad-mannered and fond of "a rather
graphic language" (as Chris Burford called it once) to alternate with
academic economists, so not even getting Louis Proyect lending me his
opera-gala blue tuxedo would make me presentable at the OPE. But no. Most
probably, I would have met there people like Steve Keen or John Ernst, who
had such polite things to say about me as:

>You sound
>more like a religious fundamentalist predicting Armageddon on the basis of
>a reading of scriptures than a serious analyst of society.

>Your post reproduced below is simply absurd. You have just defended in
>your own unique fashion the ... You do not even know it. You mount some
>high horse about ideal and abstract and yammer away. Now that I have
>vented, let's return to basics.
>this accounts for a portion of my anger with you, ... I do think you do so
>not out of dishonesty ...

In fact, Jerry himself felt the urgency of muddying his discussion with me,
by turning me and "real workers" into two abstractions whose relationship
should be such a funny thing as to deserved to be videotaped for him to
enjoy later. And why? Just because he wasn't able to rationally deal with
the proofs about Marx's unconditioned rejection of logic for being a
necessary concrete form of alienated conscience that has to leave its place
to the reproduction of the real necessity in thought, I opposed to Jerry's
claims about "Marx's logic."

But wait. Perhaps my exclusion from the OPE list actually was due to my bad
manners according to academic standards. Or aren't bad manners in the
academic world to demand for a rational concrete reply without leaving the
discussion just go round and round in an endless abstraction, that is
thereafter presented as the "proof" that scientific cognition can't go
further than interpreting the world in different ways?

And, really, I was bad-mannered in this respect. For instance, I was
academically bad-mannered as to follow Steve Keen's fantasies about Marx
being the true source of Steve's theory about the means of production being
a source of surplus-value, not only to the point of making evident the true
apologetic content of Steve's attempt, but that he himself produced his
alleged Marx's self-contradiction by openly chopping a paragraph to change
the grammatical subject of a sentence for its opposite. Has this
falsification inhibited Jerry from inviting Steve to the OPE?

I was academically bad-mannered as to go on asking Allin Cottrell and Paul
Cockshott to develop their concrete definition of "value" beyond their
abstract "value=abstract labor," they needed to bring down all the specific
determinations of the social product that embodies at the same time the
general social relation among the private independent producers
(commodities, and therefore, capital), to a "shorthand way of saying" (sic)
_the attributes that are common to all the products of human labor
whichever their social form_. Of course, their "model of
socialism/communism," where a commodity producing society in which capital
has reached its complete concentration is represented as the realization of
human freedom, could be built only on such an inversion. Has their
impossibility to develop the concrete determinations of value (and
therefore, of self-valorizing value, capital) inhibited Jerry from inviting
Allin and Paul to the OPE?

I was academically bad-mannered as to go on asking John Ernst for the units
in which he claims to unequivocally measure the technical composition of
capital (a material relationship that is impossible to measure in that way)
to construct his model of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. And I
was equally bad-mannered to ask him for a reply to my mathematical
demonstration of how John's model brings down the organic determinations of
that tendency to a tautological mechanical relation inherent in its
mathematical structure, after starting by abstracting from the development
of value into its concrete forms by labeling this development a "religious"
approach, thus fulfilling its ideological determination as the perfect
partner of Neo-Ricardianism in some endless apparent discussions. Has the
open abstractness of John's models inhibited Jerry from inviting him to the
OPE?

Now, why do I care? In the first place, I don't belong to the academic
world. Which means, among many other things, that my writings probably will
never pass a "peer" refereeing (I have a collection of the most funny
reasons to justify their rejection, including one from Science and Society
stating that my arguments should be isolated from my "relentless logic"
(sic), as the only possible way of concluding that "there must be something
wrong" in them).

At the same time, I live in what could be properly considered "el culo del
mundo," both in the geographic and the Marxist scientific discussion sense.
To attend a scientific meeting were I can get engaged in a direct public
exchange with, for instance, Fred Moseley (who, in a recent paper, refers
his arguments to the detailed discussions held on the OPE list), means to
me paying a 1000 $ air ticket, to begin with (and recall I live on a third
world wage). If I wanted to get in touch with any journal or new book
published on Marxist economic theory, I have no way other than buying them
>from the publisher (add 8 $ per book for air mail freight). This sort of
books has ceased to be published in Spanish long ago, and they are not
available in public libraries here. I can only mitigate the problem thanks
to some good friends that send me photocopies, specially of journal's
articles.

With the opening of the Marxism list, a breath of fresh air came to me. It
offered me the possibility of engaging in open scientific discussions,
unrestricted by length or time limitations to develop one's arguments, and
free from "peer" censorship. It looked as an exceptional place to develop
(regardless to what degree) the necessarily collective task of developing
science as the necessary way of ruling conscious revolutionary action. In
this sense, my expectations about the Marxism list were no so far from
Louis Proyect's, albeit "conscious revolutionary action" has quite
different concrete meanings for each of us. And the same applies concerning
people with a strong scientific formation but outside, and solidly critic
to, the academic world, as Jim Miller. Furthermore, the same type of
expectations was shared by other members of the list that, for their own
reasons, preferred to manifest them in their personal posts. Even the (to
me and others) foreign language seemed a minor obstacle, under such
exceptional conditions.

But they were exceptional conditions, indeed. Academia doesn't exist just
because. It is a necessary concrete form taken by the capitalist regulation
of social life with respect to the production of scientific cognition. And
an open place were non-academic scientists criticized academic dogma and
false constructions that enjoy passing as the quintessence of social
criticism under the label of Marxism, to the extent of making evident their
emptiness (and actually ideological fullness), jeopardizes (again, in
whatever extent) the production of alienated conscience. So the time to
restore the monopoly on scientific cognition to the academic world reached
the Marxism list quite soon.

At first sight, the so-called activists that flood the list with an
abstract post after another (abstract since the most concrete real form is
turned into a pure abstraction as soon as it is isolated from its
determinations, as it is the norm in that sort of posts) appear as the
absolute opposite to academics. Yet, they are the two faces of the same
coin in this question of rebuilding the monopoly of academia on scientific
discussion on the Internet.

The flood in question is the most useless stuff concerning conscious
action. Still, it is better to have a 1000:1 "flame-war"/substantiated
posts ratio, to the close of the open substantiated discussion on the
single latter. But the flood of "flame-war" posts is a necessary condition
for the academics to close that discussion without unveiling their true
political determinations. The discussion must be closed, not because
academics are openly exposed as what they are, personifications of
capital's necessity to produce alienated conscience, but because "no
serious scientific discussion can be developed under such a noise"!

This was exactly the sort of argument Jerry used by the time he was, most
probably, building his private (that this is what something exclusive is,
in the most strict sense of the word) list. The situation reproduced itself
on a larger scale with the formation of Marxism 2. And since it became
visible that this was not enough, it exploded in the complete fragmentation
of M1 and M2 into a bunch of closed niches. Jerry's pioneering "admittance
only on invitation" and "restricted matters only" is now the general
emblem. At the same time, the remainings of the open list are constantly
presented under the leitmotif "recommended for flame-wars lover's only" or
"you will get what you deserve for being in that sort of list."

But, of course, no political intention underlies the Spoon's decision! It
is just the "rational decision" of a group of good-willed people to enhance
everyone's possibility of substantiated and profound discussion vis-a-vis
the endless flame-wars inherent in an unique open list! Provided you are
invited, admitted and not expelled following the "moderators"' disposition,
of course. Mierda!

Jerry is guilty of exercising political discrimination (against me, to
begin with and to be absolutely concrete), as he personifies capital's need
to exclude from scientific discussion the criticism of social forms beyond
appearances.

Like Marx, I'm not interested in "writing recipes for the cook-shops of the
future." Much less, in how Jerry "will be best remembered" after his death.
I'm interested in changing what exists now. From this point of view, Jerry
is today a concrete living head of the political action aimed at disarming
the open discussion about capitalist economic forms (therefore, about the
necessity itself of the proletariat's conscious revolutionary action) and
at pushing it into secluded environments as the OPE list.

Today, Jerry is best known to me as the economist that, as a part of the
authoritative structure of academy, exercises political discrimination,
therefore repression, against people like me that have the political aim of
developing science as the necessary concrete form of ruling conscious
revolutionary action. And, obviously, he is quite proud of it.

Could Jerry reply this post other than by opening the OPE list to anyone
interested in a substantiated and unconditioned scientific discussion in
it?

Juan Inigo
jinigo-AT-inscri.org.ar



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