While I agree that Marx clearly expressed admiration for the work of
Ricardo, Marx also leveled MANY sharp criticisms against Ricardo's work.
For instance in _TSV_, Part III, Ch. 20 (which isn't even primarily
concerned with a critique of Ricardo!), Marx charges that Ricardo made the
following mistakes:
(1) "Ricardo's mistake is that he is only concerned with the magnitude of
value": he therefore analyses only the quantitative and not the
qualitative side of value and fails to see how in the value-form social
relations of production are expressed.
(2) He identifies surplus value with profit.
(3) He sees only the physical difference between fixed and circulating
capital and not the relation between c and v.
(4) He assumes capital and capitalist relations and does not explain their
inner nature or how they are brought into being.
(5) He assumes a general rate of profit rather than showing how it is
necessarily brought into being by the nature of capital itself.
(6) He identifies cost price with value and does not see that this is in
contradiction to the law of value.
(7) His definition of a general rate of profit where there are differing
organic compositions contradicts the law of value.
(8) He mistakingly believes that labor rather than labor power is sold by
workers to capitalists.
(9) He sees a surplus product in the physical sense but not surplus value.
(10) He accepts Say's Law of Markets and denies the possibility of a
crisis of generalized overproduction.
(11) the functions of money are overlooked and assumed rather than
analyzed.
What is remarkable about the above is that Ch. 20 does not deal primarily
with a critique of Ricardo. See Vol. 2 of _TSV_ (various chapters) for
other aspects of Marx's sharp critique of Ricardo. I, consequently, can
not accept Allin's judgement concerning the commonality between Ricardo and
Marx. Marx, contra Samuelson, was not a minor post-Ricardian.
In OPE-L Solidarity,
Jerry