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From: owner-ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu on behalf of Gerald Levy
Sent: Saturday, April 04, 1998 9:39 PM
To: ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu
Cc: multiple recipients of list
Subject: [OPE-L] Creationist Economics
"Yes, time matters and change is a characteristic of all modes of production
(and matter in general). Does that make me a temporalist?"
Only if you take these ideas seriously enough to pursue them doggedly,
unflinchingly, ruthlessly to their ultimate conclusions. Otherwise, you are
either a simultaneist who is patronizing us (and trying to fudge the
incompatibility between reality and your model), or you are an eclectic, or
you are confused.
"Who are the Marxists who deny that time has _a_ place in political economy?"
See above.
Alan had written:
> The static paradigm is invariably found in alliance with the most
> reactionary social forces of each epoch, who use it to justify the idea
> of an eternal, unchanging order laid down by an untouchable authority.
> Creationism is static Biology. Ptolemaism is static Astronomy.
Jerry responded with the rhetorical question:
"Who are the Marxists who share the static paradigm who are 'invariably found
in alliance with the most reactionary social forces of each epoch....'?
I think this is a severe distortion of what Alan wrote, completely uncalled
for. He wrote that the static paradigm (itself) is invariably found in
alliance, etc.
BTW, although I understand Alan's point about the TSS interpretation not being
a paradigm, I do think this interpretation represents a paradigm shift within
"Marxian economics." The "crisis" doesn't fit Kuhn's model in a one-to-one
fashion, largely because Kuhn's model deals with sciences and the history of
economics is necessarily less driven by internal problems, but it is pretty
close.
Andrew Kliman