[OPE] Models

On 2010-01-02 15:33, Paul Zarembka wrote:
> I have never seen work in the marxist tradition as being fundamentally
> model building, although there was a time when I rather liked
> Morishima's work (particularly when Morishima said at a Buffalo
> conference to a bunch of neoclassical economists like Samuelson and
> Solow, "Marx is great").
> I see marxism as much more in the tradition of critique - some would
> say it is even the absolute key. However, I do like to expose
> students to input-output economics, thinking that it is a methodology
> which helps to understand how socialism might be, in part, implemented.

I suspect we are using the term 'model' slightly differently. In
economics, and econometric in particular, it has a quite specific
meaning. I was following the use in the philosophy of science, where
theories are considered to be models of reality. The scientific method
is then understood as a way to rank the models.

In that I see no contradiction with the role of critique, neither in the
modern sense nor the Kantian sense that Marx used the term. Although I
would say I'm much more interested in Marxist political economy than a
Marxist critique of bourgeois political economy.

I agree that concepts from input-output economics are very valuable also
when considering a socialist economy.

//Dave Z
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Received on Sat Jan 2 10:51:59 2010