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Patrick Mason says:
A claim of Marxian economics is that it provides a superior understanding
of social reality, in comparison to the supposedly obsfuscating tendencies
of neoclassical economics. If this claim is true, let's go to the data and
prove it.
My comment:
I object to the attempt to relate scientific concepts to empirical categories
without mediation. Mediation is what Marx's value theory is about. I think
that this approach (ie, the attempt to bypass mediations which exist in the
real world, rather than to try and explain why and how they exist) is due to
the influence of the dominant (neoclassical, empiricist, positivist)
methodology upon the Marxian research programme.
(The analogy with race might work for market price-price of production, but
it does not work for value.)
In my view, the empirical relevance of value is revealed by, for example, the
existence of class conflict in production and circulation, the endless search
for labour-saving technical change, the recurrence of crisis, etc - not by
anyone's ability to come up with a number and say, 'hey, presto, this is
value!'
alfredo.
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