Item — HN Reader

Thanks, I'll start with Wages of Destruction.

Lately Adam Tooze has been writing too much, his Javelin Chartbook post on Substack for example is ridiculous. But probably everyone has bad days.

I lived in West Berlin before and after the fall of the Wall and picked up quite a bit about Marxism / Historical Materialism. As far as I see, Tooze is miles away from orthodox Marxism.

Tooze knows both Europe and the US well and he has the historical knowledge, so I take his analyses seriously, e.g. (1).

But here I do not see a marxist anti-imperialist either.

On the contrary, he seems to be enthusiastic about the war of the good West, however many human lives it may cost.

(1) https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/04/us-len...

1 comments

Yes, he is one of the most well-known historical materialists out there...I am not sure what to tell you, I studied economic history, I have read all of his books inc. his PHd thesis, I know what conferences he attended because I know people who know him...and you are telling me I am wrong because you lived in Berlin? Only on HN.

Btw, I strongly suspect you still do not understand the difference between historical and political Marxism (nothing to do with "the war of the good West"...just read about historiography) but if you just consider the theme of Wages of Destruction, it should be extremely obvious to you that Tooze is a historical materialist (again though, I would consider whether you know enough about historiography and economics to understand the nuances of these points i.e. if you didn't study economic history to postgrad level, then you likely do not).

I've started "wages of destruction" too.

You are telling me I am wrong because you lived in Berlin? Only on HN -> Sounds like you're the one showing off buddy.

Thanks for your patience. This is new information for me and it didn't fit my priors.

(I do not claim understanding marxism, it's a vast field und marxists enjoy fighting each other. I actually took a marxism course in university - it mainly convinced me that Marx' economic theory is wrong (labour theory of value) and that this smart guy Sraffa in Cambridge could not fix it (or fixed it to death))