At 05:48 PM 1/19/99 -0800, Tom wrote: >Michael Perelman mentioned that Marx's statement that he was not a "Marxist" >was by way of disassociating himself with a pamphlet about laziness written >by his son-in-law. That presumably would be "The Right to be Lazy" by Paul >Lafargue. Reportedly, Lafargue wrote The Right to be Lazy in 1893, while in >prison. By that time Marx was not only "not a Marxist", he was quite >thoroughly dead (Keynes' "in the long run"). Hal Draper's massive KARL MARX'S THEORY OF REVOLUTION has a discussion of the "I am not a Marxist" quote in one of its appendices. (sorry for such a sketchy reference, but the volumes are at home.) The basic story does not concern Lafargue, though Karl was indeed a bit leery Paul (like most fathers-in-law about most sons-in-law, I would bet). It concerns the dogmatic application of Marx's ideas (by some Frenchmen) in the name of "Marxism" at a time Marx was still alive and thus creative rather than dogmatic. This is a problem that has plagued Great Thinkers since they started doing their stuff. I am sure that Sigmund once muttered "I am not a Freudian," though no one was around to record it. On another topic, Henry C.K. Liu writes: >I do not need to apologize for my posts on the Harvard Trade Union Program since my remarks are not attacks, but merely observations of the institutional contradictions of the arrangement. No remarks were made by me on the people involved in the program...< that's exactly what I would like to say on that subject, even if it makes me a Liuist. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/jdevine.html
