Steve, Please don't take my failure to respond to this for a few days as any indication that I have been stumped by this challenge. Thanks, Rakesh >Rakesh, > >The key problem I have with your approach, and I *hope* that at least some >people on OPE share this concern, is that your procedure makes it >effectively impossible to put what you see as Marx's logic into a format in >which it can be tested for internal consistency. Popper described this kind >of behaviour as the hallmark of a pseudo-science. While the philosophy of >science has moved on a long way from Popper, his litmus test between a >science and a non-science--that the former makes statements which can be >falsified, whereas the latter makes it impossible to either verify or >disconfirm itself--is still accepted. > >In other words, in the name of saving Marx from what you see as unjustified >criticism, your approach effectively makes it impossible to make any >criticism at all. > >I for one do not wish to "save" Marx in this fashion. > >Steve >At 22:14 18/10/00 -0700, you wrote: >>Duncan K Foley (dkf2@columbia.edu) >>Mon, 15 Jan 1996 12:34:48 -0800 >> >> Messages sorted by: [ date ][ thread ][ subject ][ author ] >> Next message: glevy@acnet.pratt.edu: "[OPE-L:788] Re: More >Digression" >> Previous message: Iwao Kitamura: "[OPE-L:786] Re: Digression: >>two qestions and a proposal" >> >> >> >>If you write down an explicitly disequilibrium model with time subscripts >>differentiating commodities at different times, thus allowing for prices >>of inputs and outputs to differ, one solution will be the equilibrium >>prices where the inputs and outputs have the same (relative) prices. This >>is also the easiest solution to analyze, and its existence is a good >>indication that the equations make sense. As an historical aside, this >>seems to be the approach Marx took, for example, in his work on >>reproduction schemes. >>_____________ >>As I have tried to show in my previous post, this reference to >>equilibrium prices in the reproduction schemes turns a justifiable >>simpflying assumption (contant value) in the context of the analysis >>of a circulation problem into a controlling methodological postulate >>for all economic analysis. As I have already pointed out, Marx is >>explicitly talking about why prices of production change in vol 3, >>part 2: the first reason, a change in the general rate of profit, >>manifests itself clearly only in the long run, leaving us to assume >>that manifest shorter term changes in prices of production are caused >>by changes in the values of the commodities themselves. There are >>countless references to changes in productivity, making it >>unbelievable that Marx had not abandoned the assumption of constant >>value or unit prices. There is simply no methodological reason to >>import the completely unrealistic, albeit simplfying, conditions from >>vol 2 into volume 3. And if Marx's value-theoretic equations for r >>and prices of production make no sense due to the misuse of >>assumptions retained because they give us "the easiest solution to >>analyze", why should we leave Marx's value theory vulnerable on such >>(flimsy) grounds? >> >>Is it not possible to save honor all sides? There is indeed a >>transformation problem in terms of the easiest solution to analyze >>(equilibrium prices or simple reproduction); there need be no >>transformation problem in conditions which pay the least respect to >>reality, however more difficult these realistic conditions may be to >>analyze. >> >>Would any other theory but a revolutionary critique of bourgeois >>society be thought to have fatal logical problems if only the >>introduction of reality was needed for it to make sense? >> >> >>All the best, Rakesh >> >> >Dr. Steve Keen >Senior Lecturer >Economics & Finance >University of Western Sydney Macarthur >Building 11 Room 30, >Goldsmith Avenue, Campbelltown >PO Box 555 Campbelltown NSW 2560 >Australia >s.keen@uws.edu.au 61 2 4620-3016 Fax 61 2 4626-6683 >Home 02 9558-8018 Mobile 0409 716 088 >Home Page: http://bus.macarthur.uws.edu.au/steve-keen/
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