Re: [OPE] The organic composition of capital in New Zealand

Jurrian, In the future, please don't assume I know your prior conceptual
work. Rather, be clear as to what you wish to convey.

As to 'rarified' levels of abstractions, it is true for some marxist
political economists but, of course, not for others -- the latter don't
need the N.Z. ambiguous 'physical-capital' to labor 'data' just to make
such a theoretical point. And the former would probably not have
understood the point of your post.

Thanks, Paul

=====
(V23) THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF 9-11, Seven Stories Press softcover, 2008 2nd ed
(V24) TRANSITIONS IN LATIN AMERICA .... (V25) WHY CAPITALISM SURVIVES CRISES
====> Research in Political Economy, Emerald Group, Bingley, UK
====> Paul Zarembka, Editor
====> http://www.buffalo.edu/~zarembka/

Jurriaan Bendien wrote:
> Paul,
>
> I am of course very aware that a capital-labour ratio is not the same
> thing as the OCC, in fact I have spent a lot of time on OPE-L
> discussing the limitations of national accounts categories as proxies
> for Marxian variables. I have also taken the trouble to work on
> various wikipedia entries where the concept is explained for ordinary
> mortals, including
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity#Marx_on_productivity and
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_composition_of_capital . These
> articles are read by tens of thousands of people worldwide.
>
> My point in posting this NZH article is only to illustrate the
> relevance of Marx's concept to the economic controversy in New Zealand
> about productivity differentials with Australia. It is evident that
> the economists there are concerned now precisely with the issue that
> Marx was concerned with, even if they can only understand it in terms
> of production functions, factor productivity, value-added and the
> Solow equations criticized by Anwars Shaikh in his famous "humbug"
> articles.
>
> Often Marxist discussions are held at a rarified level of abstraction
> remote from the real world, and then it is interesting to note that in
> real life economists are focusing on the same issue, even if they
> don't use exactly the same concepts. It provides an opportunity for
> Marxian scholars to provide an alternative insight to the public
> debate, rather than theorizing in a void. What use is their theory, if
> it is only sentimentally cherished as an icon, taken out of its niche
> and dusted off once in a while in an academic office, instead of
> explaining and interpreting the facts of living reality?
>
> Thank you though for reminding us, in an ideologically staunch way, of
> the doctrinal purity, correctness and orthodoxy of the Marxist concept
> :-)
>
> Jurriaan
>
>
>
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Received on Wed Jul 29 11:53:13 2009