I left the "Marxism" list. I work as an academic, but I'm a Marxist and an activist. I resent the notion that one is not much of a Marxist or an ivory-tower type if one leaves the list because of its "grittiness" and "informality." I do not think that Dana Thorpe and MIM are just examples of "informality." They are the worst examples, but a lot of junk clogged up my mailbox. It became too *time-consuming* to sort through all the junk in order to find the one or two messages of the day (out of maybe 30) that had something interesting to say. And once a good discussion did get going, it would tend to degenerate very quickly--sometimes through name-calling, but mostly because some people on the list were so unserious as to fixate on a tangent in other people's discussions and divert the whole thing. It took Marx nearly 25 years to write _Capital_. It's a great expression of his serious concern with ideas and his patience in *developing* thought in a painstaking, methodical way. The Marxism list was not very conducive to that. Marx was by no means retreating or becoming an ivory- tower "academic" because he sat in the library and thought and read and wrote--he certainly did not do it *instead* of political work, but as part of his political work, and to suggest that everyone who left the Marxism list did so because they're retreating from politics is ludicrous (although in some instances it's undoubtedly true). Had Marx thought of spending his time on things like the Marxism list, would there have been _Capital_? Would there have been an International? Or would the whole thing have gone up in flames ;-)? Andrew Kliman
