[lit-ideas] Re: Beard's The Rise of American Civilization

  • From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 8 Feb 2006 08:06:13 -0500

> [Original Message]
> From: Robert Paul <robert.paul@xxxxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 2/8/2006 2:56:21 AM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Beard's The Rise of American Civilization
>
>
> To return to your second paragraph. Lawrence, you keep calling everyone 
> to the left of the Forbes family Marxists. (You and I have discussed 
> this in a past life.) I am not 'close to Marx.' I think Marx was an 
> idiot who managed to coin some snappy slogans and to shock le bourgeois 
> in a serious way. It doesn't follow, as you seem to have implied this 
> afternoon, that if Marx was for the eight hour day, the eight hour day 
> was a 'Marxist' idea. As far as I know, Irene is not 'close to Marx' 
> either. (Judy has already spoken for herself, but she did not claim that 
> there were no economic reasons for the American Civil War.)
>


I agree with everything you say.  I only disagree that Marx was an idiot. 
He was an economist, patterned to some extent on Vico.  His economics may
now be dated but for their time they were certainly reasonable.  The fact
that the Bolsheviks co-opted his theories and allegedly based a government
on them is what gives him a bad name.  But, it will never be known if even
the Bolshevik experiment was a failure, because it in turn was soon
co-opted by Stalin, who did major, major damage to that country, destroyed
it in no uncertain terms.  I think ultimately Marxist theories are more
compassionate than others.  I suspect one of the metaphysical reasons
underlying China's rise and our sinking is that the Chinese are smart
enough to take capitalism and base it on its proper base, the middle class,
while we here put capitalism as a good in its own right, oblivious to
plight of its engine, the middle class.  The Chinese Communists are NOT
inherently compassionate, but they do have the advantage of a historical
perspective into 19th century capitalism and its evolution.  We also have
that perspective, but we clearly don't learn from experience.  They have a
longer term perspective in general.  It's why they're getting friendly with
much of the world we disdain.  Metaphysically, we've sort of changed
places.  We squash the middle class and go in with guns blazing.  They
support the middle class and stroke their eventual suppliers/customers. 
For the record, I am NOT a Marxist.  Just a realist.  I see things, or like
to think I do, the way they are instead of the way they should be.



> It's a distraction from serious discussion to view people as belonging 
> to a group the members of which have been pre-judged. 'Well, you would 
> say that, because you're a Materialist (Cartesian, Behaviourist, 
> Methodist, a member of the milles feuilles, or the camicie nere).' It's 
> inevitable that people get sorted out this way in the media. But on 
> lit-ideas it might be more useful to take longer views.
>
> Robert Paul
> Strict Reconstructionist
> somewhere south of
> Reed College
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