Message-ID: <3437CCA0.7390DCA3@cats.ucsc.edu>
Date: Sun, 05 Oct 1997 10:21:37 -0700
From: Christian <harlowc@cats.ucsc.edu>
Reply-To: harlowc@cats.ucsc.edu
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To: socgrad@csf.colorado.edu
Subject: Re: Marxian Theory: Continuing Validities
References: <1.5.4.16.19971006065442.3747f83e@pop.uvm.edu> <199710061659.MAA25375@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu>
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Thomas F Brown wrote:

> >It (sic)  not only creates massive dislocation, in
> >addition it creates and maintains undeniable/unexcusable inequality for regions
> >throughout the world.
>
> Capitalism also raises the economic standards of living wherever it is
> implemented. I am not making this observation as a defender of capitalism.
> But for every crude truism one can raise from a Marxist perspective, it
> is just as easy to raise an equally crude counter-truism from a libertarian
> perspective.
>

Wrong.  Your entire point here is flawed.  First off Capitalism isn't implemented
like some sort of social policy.  Capitalism emerged from Europ and incoroporated
the entire world through violent colonialism.  Do you honestly feel that this raised
the standard of living in those places.  If you do you have some pretty interesting
indicators of "standards of living".  You say that your problem with "some Marxist
theory" is that it is not a powerful enough analytic tool....Well give me a more
powerful one to discuss the systemic inequalities, dislocations, and violence in the
world and I'll use it....

> Personally, I find both Marxism and Libertarianism to be quite powerful
> theories, and I also find them both to be laughably irrelevant utopian
> political programs.

Liberterianism: i agree.  Marxism: disagree.  There is nothing inherently utopian
about utilizing marxian analysis to understand your political situation.  In the
face of neoliberalism and poststructural analyis, I find a marxist based perspective
to be one of the last relevant sociologies available for the politically aware
sociologist/activist.

Best,

Christian