http://www.revolutionbythebook.akpress.org/an-interview-with-howard-zinn-on-anarchism-rebels-against-tyranny/

Does Zinn think that from this place alternative structures can be created sufficient to supplant Capitalism? For that matter, while Zinn is an unequivocal critic of Capitalism, does he think Capitalism needs to be supplanted – as Communists/Socialists do – or does he believe in the creation of a kinder, gentler Capitalism – or something else entirely different, though I’m not sure what that would be – by means of the movements to which you refer?

Bearing on this, the question just occurred to me: How would Zinn – or does he somewhere – evaluate the civil rights movement in which he played such a meaningful role? Despite its successes – e.g. legislatively, culturally – to what factors would he attribute its failures – e.g. lingering racial bias, inequality and historical amnesia? Not that if his theory had been different then things would be different today, of course, but might he retrospectively see, in light of the rolling back of civil rights in recent decades, the inadequacy of his theory?

I’m raising here, in a slightly different way than I did elsewhere – his participation in the electoral process – the question of whether there ultimately is a disconnect between Zinn’s anti-Capitalist rhetoric and praxis.

This comes out here in his view of political economy, but it also comes out in how he views history and the specific history of the U.S.

It is that place where anarchism and a kind of radical democratism meet.

I agree with your take on Zinn though he doesn’t exactly encourage others to dig deeply into the more technical aspects of Marx. But as Zinn, who was at least always publicly very humorously self-effacing, writes in the article: “my poor head at the age of nineteen swam, or rather drowned, with ground rent and differential rent, the falling rate of profit and the organic composition of capital…” I don’t know but maybe Zinn didn’t get all of that but got enough for the narrative he felt he needed to convey.

I loved Wittgenstein partly for the same general reason Zinn loves Marx: that he didn’t just sit around philosophizing but took risks as an active agent of change. That appreciation always supplemented my weakness in being able to deeply explicate the Tractatus Logico Philosophicus. But with each it was their philosophical contribution which overwhelmingly has had the greater impact.

I was particularly taken aback by this statement: “He was unnecessarily dense in his economic analysis (too much education in German universities, maybe) when his clear, simple insight into exploitation was enough: that no matter how valuable were the things workers produced, those who controlled the economy could pay them as little as they liked, and enrich themselves with the difference.”

Actually, a deep understanding of society does require that degree of density. I am often struck by how people accept a high level of abstraction and complexity, and even specialized inaccessible language, when it comes to physical science, but when it comes to social analysis, it’s assumed that one can use everyday vernacular and there is no need for training or rigor.

On the surface, this appears democratic since everyone can partake in the critique and transformation of society, but it conceals an [unintended] acceptance of scientism*, of which one result is an unspoken assumption that a significant area of human activity, science, is and should be left to experts, which can be constrained by the masses, but can never be within their intellectual grasp. I don’t believe this is Zinn’s intent, but I think it’s worth asking why some endeavors are considered too elitist but not others, and what this kind of division may lead to.

Another example: “His critique of capitalism in those Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts did not need any mathematical proofs of “surplus value.” It simply stated (but did not state it simply) that the capitalist system violates whatever it means to be a human.” Imagine arguing that Isaac Newton’s formulations of the laws of gravity were unnecessary when all we need to know is “what goes up must come down.”

Although I don’t quite agree with some of his take on Marx’s thought, Zinn was right to highlight the value of Marx’s internationalism and his commitment to connect to human experience with its various intricacies. This something I have also always admired about Zinn himself.

*Scientism is the belief that the natural science has ultimate authority over all other interpretations of the world.

I’m curious as to where’s your evidence for this. I didn’t notice such an oversight on Zinn’s part, let alone that it seems such an obvious point for him to have missed. Are you quite sure he doesn’t get this?