>These are people you haven't read and don't know personally, but you seem >very sure of what they're all about. Where do you get these magic powers? > >Doug I have to rely on secondary literature because of time limitations. Unlike most PEN-L'ers who post on a regular basis, I have a job which runs counter to my intellectual interests. As soon as I dash this off, I have to take a look at the ATCTransmit sybase stored procedure I have been assigned to maintain. I have found the following most useful: 1) various articles in Socialist Register and Monthly Review about postmodernism 2) Alex Callinicos, "Against Post Modernism : A Marxist Critique" (this covers Laclau-Mouffe in depth) 3) Christopher Norris, Uncritical Theory Postmodernism, Intellectuals and the Gulf War Ifocused on Baudrillard) 4) Ellen Meiksins Wood, "Retreat from Class" 5) Perry Anderson, "In the Tracks of Historical Materialism" 6) Terry Eagleton, "Postmodernist Illusions" 7) David Lehman, "Signs of the Times: Deconstruction and the fall of Paul De Man" In addition, I have spent many hours--too many, in point of fact--reading Deleuze-Guattari, Derrida, Lyotard, and Baudrillard. This is about as much of an investment I can afford in time and energy in coming to terms with what I have concluded is a reactionary trend. I must saty that it surprises me that you get in such a huff about what I've read and haven't read. Nothing holds you back from making uninformed judgements about "all the old Stalinoid base-determines-superstructure stuff", as you refer to it in the LBO article on Bourdieu's critique of television. One wonders, based on comments you've made on email lists, whether you are referring to Stalinist authors or Marx's historical materialism itself. After all, there are places in Marx where the base-superstructure model is emphasized, such as in the preface to Critique of Political Economy. But, leaving that aside momentarily, who are these "Stalinoid" figures you are referring to, or are they just figments of your imagination? Have you read Herbert Aptheker on the civil war? Have you read A.E. Morton's "People's History of England" or have even heard of it? Have you read Maurice Cornforth on philosophy? Are you familiar with the revisionist approach of Alan Wald to CP culture in the 1930s which makes the case that there was more to proletarian literature that its critics would have you believe? If anything, I have bent over backwards to understand poststructuralism and postmodernism, while for all your anxiousness to establish your Marxist credentials, there is little evidence that you are deeply involved with the Marxist intellectual tradition other than using Capital as a heuristic for analyzing finance capital. As Mark Jones has pointed out to you, this is nothing to be ashamed of. It is very important that tens of thousands of people have read your book and have had some illusions stripped from their eyes. What you have to realize, however, is that Marxism encompasses more than this particular aspect of Marx's work. Marx's work is fundamentally about understanding revolutions and how to make them. After Marx completed the major theoretical work represented by Capital, he went on to write speeches, articles and books that were accessible to ordinary working people. They were focused on the class struggle, including the fight to abolish slavery, czarism, semifeudalism in Europe, etc. He was also deeply involved with the practical work of forming socialist parties. This aspect of his career is totally at odds with what I have described as academic Marxism. Once again, I have to repeat that I don't object to people reading all the latest French theorists so that they can make clever bon mots at university or leftish publishing houses cocktail parties. Just don't confuse that with what Marx was all about. Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
