Brad, pen-l's resident contrarian, writes:
>I think that the line between Sweezy's attitude toward rock-and-roll and
>the suppression of the Czechoslovakian Jazz Section, or the bulldozing of
>Moscow modern art exhibits, is pretty clear.
Actually, the (disgusting) quote from MONOPOLY CAPITAL was by both Baran
_and_ Sweezy. Though as co-author of that book, Sweezy can't be totally
absolved of the horrible guilt of being against rock'n'roll, it fits better
with my understanding of Baran. I think of Paul B. as more Stalinist than
Paul S., though perhaps someone more familiar with all of their works than
I am can correct me. Also, I think Paul B. was more influenced by the
Frankfurt school. That school emphasized the cultural critique of
capitalism (much more than Paul S. did). It also emphasized the conflict
between what's real under capitalism and what's rational from the
Frankfurter perspective.
In the relevant passage of MONOPOLY CAPITALISM, there is no explicit call
for the suppression of rock'n'roll. So that's another thing that separates
Sweezy from the East Bloc Stalinists who suppressed the Czechoslovakian
Jazz Section, etc. Similarly, I don't like rap music, but that doesn't mean
that I advocate its suppression. I do like the idea of restrictions on the
volume of the music being blasted out of peoples' cars. But that would
simply be a liberal reform of the sort that is already in place in many
areas, not an example of Stalinist repression. For example, New York City
had anti-noise ordinances long before the resistible rise of Rudy Giuliani.
Since Baran & Sweezy explicitly are criticizing "the rock-and-roll that
blares at us" rather than rock'n'roll _per se_, someone who hasn't declared
an ideological war against Sweezy might allow for the possible
interpretation that it's the _blare_ which is important to their argument.
Sweezy, I know was very critical of the USSR and its "allies" of the East
Bloc when they were around. I guess he might have been disgusted by the
suppression of Jazz, but would have said "considering the way in which
capitalism keeps up its attacks on the USSR, the poverty that they started
with, etc., you can understand why they do such stupid things." Again, I
don't know what his exact position on this issue was (though I hope that
Brad has documentation here). Also, Sweezy's opinion on these issues has
changed over his life-time, just as everyone else's do. Just as we should
trash Brad for his youthful indiscretions (I can imagine that he inhaled),
we need to give Sweezy the benefit of the doubt rather than arbitrarily
dumping him in the dust-bin of history with the Soviet Commissars.
It's important to notice that suppression of culture is not a phenomenon
that is unique to the distorted socialism that grew up in poor countries
attacked by capitalist enemies and forced to become garrison states. Here
in California, where Brad also lives, we got an early taste of
neo-liberalism with governor Reagan's efforts to defund education and the
arts, a trend which has continued to the present day. Education has been
transformed more and more into "just the basics, ma'am," so that art and
culture are left to the commercial television networks (including PBS) to
purvey. This is just as much a crime against culture as was the Soviet
suppression of alternative culture.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine
