[Nettime-bold] Re: <nettime> In Defence of Cultural Studies

[Doug Henwood <dhenwood@panix.com>]

McKenzie Wark wrote:

>But I don't think the answer is (yet another) return to Marx.
>The political economy aproach is equally unable to deal
>with the vectoral form of media in its own terms. It is
>always reduced to an epiphenomenon of an economic
>process.
>
>In any case, one has to wake up to the fact that the cold war
>is over, and the Marxist side lost. Whatever nuggets of
>wisdom may still be there to be gleaned from Marx, the
>project as a whole was a failure of monsterous proportions.
>
>If one wants to understand the economy, one has to use all
>of the theoretical tools available. Not just Marx but Keynes,
>Marshall, and on into the late 20th century. Social democracy
>has to get over its romantic nostalgia for failed revolutions.
>And no matter how 'theoretically sophisticated' Debord may
>be, its pretty sterile as an approach to political action. People
>want results.

This is all very confused and confusing, leaving aside the creative 
spelling of monstrous. Few Marxists would disagree with you, starting 
with Marx himself, who "used" Smith and Ricardo, and filled notebooks 
with mocking evaluations of Malthus and Say. Few Marxists today would 
overlook Keynes or Marshall, especially Keynes, given the massive 
expansion of the financial sector, about which Marx himself wrote 
evocatively, but in little detail, given the relatively 
underdeveloped financial markets of the mid-19th century. (I wrote a 
lot about Keynes in my own Marxish take on finance, Wall Street: How 
it Works and for Whom.) Lots of Marxists use econometrics and game 
theory, too. So whom are you criticizing for not using all of the 
theoretical tools available?

I'd also like to know which social demicrats today are nostalgic for 
failed revolutions; most soc dems today are mild parliamentarians who 
define themselves against Lenin and Mao.

And what's with this equivalence of Marxism and the USSR? That's the 
kind of thing I'd expect of ignorant editorialists and FBI agents, 
but not distinguished globe-trotting professors of cultural studies. 
I guess this is of a piece with the equivalence of Marxism and crude 
economic determinism.

I'm sure after an afternoon of musing on "the vectoral form of median 
in its own terms" the phrase will give up its mysteries to me, so 
I'll refrain from comment until that magic moment arrives.

-- 

Doug Henwood
Left Business Observer
Village Station - PO Box 953
New York NY 10014-0704 USA
+1-212-741-9852 voice  +1-212-807-9152 fax
email: <mailto:dhenwood@panix.com>
web: <http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html>


_______________________________________________
Nettime-bold mailing list
Nettime-bold@nettime.org
http://www.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold