tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26706564.post116051460913676697..comments2024-03-25T07:51:47.758-04:00Comments on Thoughts On Economics: On the Preface to Adam's FallacyRobert Vienneauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14748118392842775431noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26706564.post-1160890985264037532006-10-15T01:43:00.000-04:002006-10-15T01:43:00.000-04:00Well, as far as Sweezy and Chomsky go, Brad was ri...Well, as far as Sweezy and Chomsky go, Brad was right on the money. Sweezy WAS a "party hack", even though a very smart one who made very important contributions in economics (I was rooting for him throughout the Sweezy-Dobbs debate as I read it, though I thought the Japanese guy in that debate had some good points too). And Chomsky is a sleazeball, pure and simple. I remember reading an interview with him that he gave to a leftist newspaper in Poland in, oh, around 1991 or so. He kept insisting to the interviewer, a guy who spent a good deal of time in communist jails with all the beatings and torture that implied (for being the wrong kind of commie mostly, but still) that "you guys were better off under communism" (and he didn't mean this strictly in an economic sense either). The interviewer tried, as politely as possible, to explain, that, well, no, we weren't. Chomsky however insisted that he was right with the arrogance and ignorance that only a western intellectual can muster when speaking to inferior peoples. Sleazeball indeed.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26706564.post-1160826893742539122006-10-14T07:54:00.000-04:002006-10-14T07:54:00.000-04:00Thanks for the comment. I am aware of DeLong's rep...Thanks for the comment. I am aware of DeLong's reputation. You leave out how DeLong never addresses Marx, but only attacks a fantasy of one sort of another.<BR/><BR/>Anyways, I am not sure how clear I am about DeLong's misrepresentation of Foley. For example, DeLong presents a passage on page 44 as contradicting a passage on page xiii that we both quote. But DeLong does not quote the paragraph in the preface, which immediately introduces qualifications and distinctions ignored by DeLong. (The "premise" of the <I>Wealth</I>, versus where Smith "winds up"; what Smith may have said versus what "everyone" (an exaggeration) "comes away believing that Smith presents.") It seems to me, then, the passage quoted on page 44 is a reiteration of this prefactory passage of Foley's, not a contradiction. This does not seem like honesty on DeLong's part, whatever one may think about Foley's interpretation of Smith.<BR/><BR/>Some may think that Foley's work is weakened by his failure to discuss the "Adam Smith problem". Foley only once mentions the <I>Theory of Moral Sentiments</I>, in a biographical passage. I only know Smith works, other than the <I>Wealth</I>, through the secondary literature. But I gather some would say where Smith starts in the <I>Wealth</I> has something to do with where he ends up in the <I>Theory</I>. Although Foley is modest about his attainments in the history of economic thought and his book is not a straight history, his work would only have been strengthened if he had addressed these issues.Robert Vienneauhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14748118392842775431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26706564.post-1160571106755611852006-10-11T08:51:00.000-04:002006-10-11T08:51:00.000-04:00Well DeLong is notorious for misrepresenting the v...Well DeLong is notorious for misrepresenting the views of those who have perspectives on political economy, international relations etc. to the left of his own views. One need only visit the archives of his blog and lbo-talk to read the utterly deliberate and mendacious misrepresentations/attacks on Chomsky, Paul Sweezy and others whose intellectual capacities far exceed his own. Alas, arrogance is an interminable social pathology amongst many US self-selecting elites...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com