Lou,
Monthly Review has an impact on politics
that S&S or CNS does not? Where?
Of course the standard response to you
(which you have heard a million times) is what
about Marx's own writings? Now there were a
few put out as pamphlets or for more general
consumption. But most certainly were not, much
as Marx might have wished that they be widely
read, although after the Bolshevik Revolution a
lot of school children were made to read The
Communist Manifesto.
Is it the fault of academics that their stuff is
not widely read? Hey, most of us would love to
have more people read our stuff, and not just
because we would get more money or career
enhancement. Of course, some academics do
write for the Wall Street Journal or work for campaigns
where they end up........ (gosh, like Max Sawicky.... )
With regard to O'Connor in particular, I don't know
to what extent his writings and his journal have played
an enormous part, but there certainly is a major movement
going on now to link Marxism and ecological considerations
that is one of the more important things going down right now,
as I think you yourself believe. O'Connor certainly played a
part in this, whatever the current state of his writings, or
influence, or manners in rejecting articles by would-be authors.
Barkley Rosser
-----Original Message-----
From: Louis Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Tuesday, May 25, 1999 12:00 PM
Subject: [PEN-L:7204] jim o'connor on harvey review
>Michael Perelman:
>>Academic publishing, like posting to the Internet, only goes beyond
personal
>>gratification if it serves some larger purpose. In that sense, I think
>that we
>>might do well to pursue the matter.
>
>Okay, Michael. Here's the problem. As much as I admire the books you've
>produced over the years, isn't a serious problem that virtually nobody
>outside the academic world except someone like myself reads them? If I had
>not stumbled across PEN-L and discovered all these academic Marxist debates
>(and that's really what they are), how would an ordinary socialist activist
>find out about them? Your books are not for sale in places like Revolution
>Books. Nor are journals like Rethinking Marxism or CNS. One finds out about
>them through the network of academic conferences which form the basis for
>professional collaboration, as is the case for all such disciplines. The
>MLA is to literature as the Amherst conferences are to Marxism. If anybody
>thinks different, they are deluding themselves. All the PhDs who publish in
>S&S or for Guilford are basically writing for each other. No ordinary
>working people read this material. Furthermore, it is not even directed to
>them. Except for Monthly Review and the party presses, this world is
>self-contained and with virtually no impact on politics in the outside
world.
>
>Louis Proyect
>
>(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
>
>
