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This is a bit tangential to the thread, so busy readers may stop here. 
 
In the course of an otherwise interesting and thoughtful contribution, Tony 
Brewer wrote: 
> The best fit I can think of to either definition of Whig history is 
> Marxist history as done in communist countries (when there were such 
> things). Western Marxism (and Marx's) seems to be a variant - 
> justifying future, confidently anticipated, victory as inevitable. 
and later: 
 For the study of 
> classical and preclassical economics, perhaps Marxist-Whigs have 
> dominated, ... . 
 
Tony knows quite a lot about the development of Marx's thought, which will 
presumably give these off-the-cuff remarks some credence. However, as a 
generalisation across Marxist intellectual tendencies and historical time. In my 
own experience, Western Marxism - especially in economics - is dominated by a 
critique of capitalism, with little to offer to utopian sketches of the future. 
IMO, much the same could be said of the main body of Marx's own work. 
The internal logic of Tony's comment is also odd: according to it Marxism 
exhibits, not a Whiggish tendency to justify its intellectual position by its 
interpretation of the historical development of Marxist thought, but rather some 
claim to be able to predict the complex social future, presumably on the basis 
that its science of society is either 'true', or a good instrumental predictor. 
Neither position characterises the vast majority of the Marxist writings  of say 
the last 30 years, with which I am most familiar, nor the classic Marxist canon 
from which they draw inspiration. Such charges may have had more bite in the 
intervening period, and they certainly have characterised ignorant caricatures, 
both those used by Stalinist style political parties to legitimate their 
regimes, and those of social scientists who seem to have felt it necessary to 
construct a straw marxisant person in order to discredit viewpoints with which 
they knew the disagreed, but felt unable to successfully criticise by argument 
or evidence. 
I would not have thought Tony Brewer belonged in either of these camps, so I am 
not sure what he is up to. 
Michael 
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Dr Michael Williams 
"Books are Weapons" 
 
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