A piece that appeared in the Economic and Political Weekly (from Mumbai).
EPW Commentary July 22-28, 2000
Calcutta Diary
AM
Paul Sweezy is 90. To celebrate the event, Monthly Review has issued a
special number in which
eminences from all over have gone into raptures while describing Sweezys
contributions to the
social sciences. The contributors range from John Kenneth Galbraith and
Shigeto Tsuru to Noam
Chomsky and Robert Heilbroner, with a surprise in the form of Pete Seeger
thrown in the middle.
Seeger claims to have been Sweezys student at Harvard and is a devotee
ever since.
Most of the eminences, as is obvious, were not Marxists. Some of them hold
beliefs which are miles
distant from Sweezys own yet they thought it their duty to pay homage to
Sweezys integrity and
his indifference to the honours that could have been his if only he had
agreed to compromise with
the establishment even for a brief while. His faith in Marxism has
withstood each and every buffeting
over the past half a century and more. He treated with scorn the
McCarthyite attempts in the late
forties to scare him into conformity. Sweezy could not be cowed down, the
annals of his career
since then constitute a wondrous story of tenacity, fearlessness and
loyalty to ones creed.
A man like him generates inspiration in others. As a sequel to
developments in the last decade,
Marxian economics and sociology appear to have been rendered irrelevant.
It is possible to
hypothesise further and express doubts about the viability of economic
science itself as it has
evolved over the past two and a half centuries. It is not Marxian
economics alone which, in todays
context, would seem to be hopelessly obsolete. Even supposedly more
respectable branches of
economics would turn out to be equally out of gear with contemporary
reality. Traditional
macroeconomics, routinely taught in the classrooms for decades on end,
would now be considered
as of little use, and this judgment will also cover the general theory of
state intervention adumbrated
by John Maynard Keynes. The entire corpus of classical political economy
will be treated as a lot of
garbage, with the sole exception of the doctrine of comparative costs.
Much of microeconomics too
will come under deep suspicion. For instance, the assumed equilibrium
under conditions of perfect
competition will be brushed aside as of no consequence in todays world.
This is in fact somewhat
bizarre, for the pretenders started out by extolling the reign of the free
market liberated from all
categories of regulation. It is imperfect competition and the rule of
monopoly which are currently the
core of economic reality. Monopoly, it is vigorously maintained, is not
socially inequitous, it does
not reflect exploitation and coercing the helpless innocent members of the
community. Such infamy
of monopoly must be discarded. On the contrary, monopoly is the embodiment
of efficiency. A unit
which establishes itself as of superior efficiency compared to other units
will monopolise the market,
and we should all sing hallelujahs to it. The suggestion that it is total
control over a factor of
production which facilitates the growth of monopoly, and any inherent
efficiency has nothing to do
with it, will be treated with contempt. Efficiency, defined in a sectarian
manner, is taken to be the
principal architect of monopoly. The textbook lesson of how monopoly
equilibrium is to the left of
competitive equilibrium is to be considered as sterile wisdom. For
whatever the short-term
difficulties, capital accumulation facilitated by the growth of monopoly
will assure the future of
economic progress.
This is new economics, if it is to be regarded as economics at all.
Economic analysis as inspired by
the classical texts will not be reconcilable with this format of
reasoning. Even the assumption of
super-excellence of free market activities is negated with the advent of
monopoly, though a major
sleight of hand is involved. Free market activism is the beginning, but
the system ends up with
monopoly of the most aggressive order.
Paul Sweezy throughout his career has belonged to a microscopic minority.
Even when the Soviet
Union was in a high and mighty state and in a position to mount effective
opposition to the more
outrageous postures of the United States, Sweezy, in his nook of the
Monthly Review, was still a
minority specimen. For him, the daze of globalisation is not therefore an
additional source of alarm.
He could have slipped into the academic establishment and adorned a chair
at Harvard or the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, if only he would sign some sort of
a note of contrition for his
erstwhile wayward ways. He did not do so and refused to deviate from his
tenets. Such individuals
are a rare commodity and, in honouring Sweezy, his admirers are honouring
a person whose loyalty
to his ideology is non pareil. He has stuck to his faith and, through his
example, he has invited
thousands and thousands of academics and others to defy pessimism. Sweezy
has battled
throughout his life against the bane of monopoly capital. Nobody has, over
the past 60 years, dared
to ridicule him. And, hopefully, some of the professional heretics will,
sooner or later, sooner rather
than later, learn that sagacity derivable from economics occupies a much
wider space than what is
proclaimed by the haughty tribe of dim-witted efficiency-mongers.
Cliches such as hope and disappointment perhaps do not impress
personalities of the timber of
Sweezy. They remain ensconced in their integrity, and that is the reward
they enjoy most. The
social revolution they intensely wished to happen may not, they realise,
eventuate even in the
course of the next millennium. But such individuals too need not suffer
only the prospect of
pitch-dark skies. For conscience guided by reasoning in human beings is a
strange phenomenon.
Consider the recent letter to The New Republic by Joseph Stiglitz.
Stiglitz does not normally have
the reputation of being a friend of the Left. That has not prevented him
from speaking out when gross
improprieties take place. He was vice-president and chief economist of the
World Bank, and was
scandalised witnessing the shenanigans indulged in by the Banks sister
institution, the
International Monetary Fund, so as to do in the worlds poor. Stiglitz has
protested, publicly and
vociferously.
Paul Sweezy has lived his 90 years till now waiting to hear similar voices
of protest. The quiet
satisfaction he is bound to feel is his due.
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Anthony P. D'Costa
Associate Professor Ph: (253) 692-4462
Comparative International Development Fax: (253) 692-5718
University of Washington Box Number: 358436
1900 Commerce Street
Tacoma, WA 98402, USA
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