Louis P. writes:
There is peer review and there is peer review. If you are part of the old
boy's network, you don't have to worry about being published. For example,
Ellen Meiksins Wood decided that John Bellamy Foster's tribute to Paul
Sweezy was unpublishable. She was overriden because of his long-standing
ties to Magdoff and Sweezy and she got canned herself. The in-grown
character of publications like Science and Society, MR, New Left Review,
etc. is largely a product of the kind of social networking that tenured
professors and established journalists have cultivated for many years. The
same sort of log-rolling goes on in other circles as well, from academic
departments to the literary world.
=====
But not Marxist computer programmers? What you report here is unavoidable
and probably rightly so. As social animals we tend to congregate within
certain communities that feed us and enable us to contribute. Openness to
the views of others can just as readily be interpreted as "selling out" or
"betraying" the cause, whatever that may be. One person's sectarianism can
be another's solidarity. Singling out academia (and including Monthly
Review, of all publications, within that) as a special case works only with
respect to the scientistic pretensions of some professors who would have
everyone believe that they are immune to such conventions.
=====
To crack into this world is a Kafka-esque venture, especially for those who
don't have the proper credentials. For example, I am friendly with Paul
Buhle who is probably the most respected and prolific historian of the US
left. Paul wanted me to write a guest column for him in Jim O'Connor's
journal. I supplied 4 different articles, all of which were tip-top. (One
finally made it into Foster's journal). But they were all rejected for no
good reason. The same thing goes on at MR. I can tell you one atrocity
story after another about articles that were much better than those that
ordinarily get published because the people submitting them were not
celebrities.
=====
Come off it. You're a bigger celebrity than most of these guys. Are you sure
you weren't simply trying to push the envelope by incorporating a few jokes
or digs, like you did with Wallerstein?
What constitutes "better"? Is there not a case that subscribers to MR, for
instance, should be able to rely on a certain view (or amalgam of views)
being articulated consistently? I can imagine the howls of protest were
Sweezy and Magdoff suddenly to give space to pomo analyses of contemporary
US media rather than those regularly served up by Robert McChesney, for
instance.
You might say that, as a member of an editorial advisory board, I have a
vested interest in defending the process. I do, to the extent that I would
like my students to have access to good quality scholarship that challenges
and informs in a manner that they themselves should emulate. I do also, to
the extent that I don't want to see RRPE awash with junk that will reduce
further its already depleted subscriber numbers. But I can also see the
problems of katheder residue that you highlight. The brusque manner in which
contributions can be treated is often thoughtless and very discouraging. But
I recall your brush with CNS, and I know Jim O'Connor's style myself.
Personally I think he's trying to be helpful, and I believe he is also
conscious of the need to reach beyond the confines not only of academe, but
also orthodox Marxism, however that may be construed. Maybe it comes across
differently, but I don't believe for a second that Jim would have terminated
any of your contributions with the extreme prejudice that sometimes passes
for peer review.
Michael K.
