I totally agree with Louis Proyect that Elster's presentation and critique of Marx is either almost or totally worthless. His opus, MAKING HASH OF MARX, seems nothing but a collection of errors. I haven't had the patience to read the whole book. But every time I have dug into it in order to get an understanding of some issue in Marx or Marxism, I find that Elster has misinterpreted Marx, usually seeing Marx as a Ricardian, a structural-functionalist, an Althusserian, or a crude advocate of Stalinist "histomat." Some of his errors are simply technical, like confusing the differences in the value-creating ability of different labors (that arise from skill differences) with the differences in the value of labor-power (that arise from skill differences among workers). However, when he stops considering Marx or Marxism, his ideas can sometimes be useful to helping us develop a more complete analysis. Though I wish he were a more fluid writer, THE CEMENT OF SOCIETY and NUTS AND BOLTS FOR THE SOCIAL SCIENCES are useful in this limited way, for dealing with issues concerning the "collective action problem." That problem seems quite relevant today: after all, the opposition to capitalism is very fragmented, indeed atomistic, in not only organization but consciousness, and it's damn hard to bring it all together. There's a big "free rider problem," where the incentive is to let other people struggle against the system and reap the benefits if they succeed. This is by no means a perfect description of reality (because people are _not_ totally individualistic, even in the kingdom of individualism, the US of A), but it does say something about reality. I understand that Elster has moved away from his extremely reductionist individualism in recent years. He has also moved away from his earlier (partial) sympathy with the Marxian project. I guess he's ended up moving in the "communitarian" direction, in which the emphasis is on the conflict between "moral cement of society" and individualism and the need to restrict the latter with the former. An extreme version of that view can be found in theocracy... On G.A. Cohen, I can't understand why he was ever popular. How could anyone defend histomat with such vigor? The only worthwhile stuff I could find in his "defense" of Marx's theory of history (how structural-functionalism might actually make some sense) turned out to have been presented by the mainstream sociologist Arthur Stinchecombe a decade or more previously. in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ. 7900 Loyola Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90045-8410 USA 310/338-2948 (daytime, during workweek); FAX: 310/338-1950 "It takes a busload of faith to get by." -- Lou Reed.
