One can never be a good activist unless one is intellectually engaged - beyond spins and slogans - with the issue(s). By the same token, one can never be a good social (including economics) theorist or a (social) researcher, unless one is engaged empirically with the issue (s) one theorizes about or studies. Look at the few names whose thoughts influence anyone who thinks seriously about the Society. Adam Smith (intellectual, moral philosopher - Smith would NOT have called himself economist because to him Economics would look like nothing more than a set of narrow techniques of house plumbing, devoid of any serious human thoughts and humanism - tutor, and British Treasury official), Karl Marx (revolutionary, intellectual, philosopher, journalist, exile), Antonio Gramsci (labor organizer, Communist, prisoner, intellectual) and John Maynard Keynes (literature student, stock market player, investor and theorist of economy), Michele Michel Foucault (gay rights activist, philosopher, theorist). .
Posted on: Fri, 09 May 2014 09:02:00 +0000