COMMENT
Plus
~a
change.
...
One of the most apt examples of the old
aphorism,
plus
fa
change .
. .
is the response of some of the left
to
the
movement for democracy and a free market in Eastern Europe. It is
summed up by Samuel Bowles, a professor of economics at the University of
Massachusetts at Amherst, who describes himself as a leftist, in a recent
comment in
The Chronicle of Higher Education
(April 4, 1990).
Bowles's piece is a reply to the question he says he frequently has
been asked, "How are you coping with the dethroning of Marxism and the
demise of communism in Eastern Europe?" His answer, which is truly
astonishing, is: "I do not believe that recent events in Eastern Europe will
reverse the impressive growth that has taken place since the late 1960s in
the number ofleftist facu lty members in universities and in the outpouring of
scholarship critical ofAmerican capitalism."
Bowles goes on to say that Marxism has been proven to be right about
America and to deny that the countries of Eastern Europe are moving to–
ward a free enterprise system and a Western type of democracy. He is
vaguer on what he thinks these countries are headed towards and what
American socialists have been advocating. Bowles claims that Eastern Eu–
rope shou ld have as its role models the countries of Sweden, Norway, and
Austria. But they are full-blown capitalist nations - with a form of the wel–
fare state - which indeed characterizes most of the major European coun–
tries. As for what American socialists have stood for, Bowles is difficult to
make out, as he goes in for some political equivocation, saying that public
ownership and the end of the free market were the "means" and not the
"objective" of the socialists. What does this mean?
Essentially, Bowles seems to be arguing that the revolt against social–
ism has not affected the thinking ofAmerican socialists. In fact, he insists it
has strengthened them. Surely, this is one of the most remarkable reversals
of political logic we have seen since the time of Stalinist double-think.
But it really is not very interesting to argue with these unreconstructed
rationalizations. T he more interesting question is how to account for them.
Surely we cannot d ismiss all the Marxist scholars Bowles proudly refers to
as stupid. Many, like Bowles himself, are agile and accomplished academics.
What then are the reasons for this intellectual freeze? It seems to me that
they constitute a combination of ideological and practical motives. Ideologi-
