Re: [OPE-L] A startling quotation from Engels

From: Ian Wright (wrighti@ACM.ORG)
Date: Tue Aug 21 2007 - 16:48:04 EDT


> I also could express my doubts about your knowledge of Austrian and
> Liberal-Socialist economic literature. But it could embark us in a sterile
> mutual accusation.

Express your doubts since I know very little of the Austrian
literature and said so on your arrival on this list. But one rule I
think it wise to follow is to not pontificate on subjects one knows
little about, especially in the context of a scholarly debate.

In your contributions you are rather quick to characterize what
Marxists understand by the theory of value. But your characterizations
do not correspond to what I understand Marx's theory to be. It seems
more like caricature.

You expressed surprise by the Engel quote. And you are also surprised
"that the mismatch between the labour-embodied in a commodity and the
labour-commanded" don't worry me. Perhaps your repeated surprises are
due to the fact that you do not yet fully understand what is meant by
"the law of value".

Regarding the issue of the dynamic interaction between labour-embodied
and labour-commanded as an essential moment of the law of value then
you could read this paper
http://65.254.51.50/%7Ewright/sce.pdf
which is to appear in Review of Political Economy.

You have not responded to my introduction of the important distinction
between market prices and natural prices, and the difference between
laws operating in open and closed systems.


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