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At 16:21 +0100 8-04-2000, Fred B. Moseley wrote:
>On Fri, 7 Apr 2000, Rakesh Bhandari wrote:
>
>> Fred, ok vol i, chap i analysis demonstrates that value or social labor can
>> only be represented as other than it is--in monetary terms (Patrick
>> Murray). This demonstration of the necessity of money (Fred Moseley) then
>> casts doubt on any modelling of capitalist society that takes as its givens
>> or presuppositions physical quantities (see Fred Moseley again). A theory
>> of capitalist society has to be one of monetary production. Brilliant.
>>
>> Now what does Hegel have to do with this? Keynes recognized the last point
>> without knowledge of Hegel; indeed James Galbraith has argued that Keynes
>> was inspired by Einstein's use of non Euclidean geometry in breaking with a
>> two dimensional classical economics in his development of a monetary theory
>> of production. Riccardo and others of course could speak to this.
>>
>> Even if turns out the value form conforms to the the peculiar Hegelian
>> logic of essence or if the C-M-C circuit has the properties of the Hegelian
>> syllogism, why should we treat this as anything more than a freaky
>> coincidence? If a logic of essence is at work, it is not because of the
>> superiority of Hegel's logic but because objective class relations--the
>> private production of commodities by means of wage labor--mean that social
>> labor can only be represented as money.
>>
>
>Hi Rakesh,
>
>Thanks for your comments.
>
>I agree with Martha that Keynes does explain the "necessity of money" -
>nor can any other economic theory (including Sraffian theory).
does not?
> In
>response to Riccardo in another post, what I mean by this is that Keynes
>could not derive the logical necessity of money from his fundamental value
>theory and therefore could not explain the "necessary connections" (as
>Nicky has emphasized) between the determination of value and the nature of
>money.
This simply means that Keynes is not Marx. If you wish, Keynes had not to
explain the necessity of money, since he didn't started from value, but
exactly from money. So ...
BTW, Benetti and Cartelier criticizes Marx exactly for the opposite reason,
not being monetary enough, whereas Keynes is the truly monetary economist.
> Indeed, Keynes had no theory of value at all. And the
>neoclassical theory of value, on the other hand, cannot explain the
>necessity of money. At best, these other theories explain the necessity
>of money in an ad hoc way, unrelated to any theory of value.
>
>Marx, on the other hand, was able to explain the necessity of money from
>his fundamental theory of value. Money is the "necessary form of
>appearance" of abstract labor. I think (agreeing with Patrick
>Murray) that this is an important aspect of the superiority of Marx's
>theory over all other economic theories.
May be. But it is not a reason to judge them as inferior simply because
they are different. I repeat that positions like these would appear
meaningless to a Keynesian or Post-Keynesian. There must be some reason for
this.
>
>And I believe that Marx borrowed this emphasis on explaining the necessary
>connections from Hegel.
Likely
riccardo
Riccardo Bellofiore
Office: Department of Economics
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