Re 3925 > >Rakesh: >"This kind of dynamic is in the Bauer scheme which Grossmann extends. If >I remember correctly, you thought this to be an *absurd* feature of the >extended scheme" > >What I say was absurd was breakdown due to excess demand. I *also*, >separately, said that the FRP has nothing to do with the breakdown -- the >scheme mechanically projects rates of growth of C & V without regard to >the rate of profit. Andrew (K), My memory is that you also wrote that it was absurd for Grossmann to allow the rate of accumulation to accelerate even as the rate of profit falls. As for the mechanical rate of growth of C and V, what is this but an ever growing percentage of SV being capitalized or accumulated even as the rate of profit is falling? So again why is it absurd to allow for such a mechanical projection without regard to the rate of profit in 'modelling' Marx's ideas about the accumulation process? > > >Rakesh: "(you have had only the most disparaging things to say about my >hero)," > >False. Please retract. You fail to distinguish between a person, a >book, and a scheme (due to someone else, that G. doesn't necessarily >endorse). No you dismissed Grossmann for basing his breakdown theory on a scheme in which unit values remain constant; then I reminded you that Grossmann devoted an entire chapter to relaxing Bauer's assumption in order to try to formulate--for the first time in the history of Marxian thought, he claimed-- a truly dynamic understanding of the accumulation process (the effort was extended in his dynamics book). When I pointed out to you that Grossmann himself highlighted how misleading the scheme was because it assumed constant values, you simply said you stood by your critique. I took that to be completely and fully non-responsive.You simply have failed to give Grossmann his due, to admit that he recognized many of the problems in the Bauer scheme which critics like you claim Grossmann fantastically avoided. Howard and King's criticism of Grossmann makes the same mistake. You then note: > >(The latest issue of the URPE Newsletter contains a personal attack >against a single person as its response to 19 different individuals' >criticisms of RRPE *policy*. Supposedly that one person is an >Antichrist who managed to hoodwink 18 other very stupid, very >gullible, very ignorant, people into signing and even writing (!) >documents they did not understand.) Talk about diversionary? Do you think I have the slightest idea what you are talking about? I don't really read RRPE; as must be obvious to you all, I am not an economist. Have I calumnied you? I can remember saying to several people that many of your arguments are powerful. I think what you have to say should be available. I have learned a lot from you. > >"but then what do you make of Capital 3 Penguin, p.375?!" > >Never said coincidence of rising rate of accumulation (esp. physical >accumulation) and FRP was absurd. I also note that the argument there is >non-causal. OK then why is it not absurd? You don't think the six reasons Marx gives are causes? I am also uncomfortable with his argument here. But it is his vision of the accumulation process indeed. So why did he see things proceeding this way? >Rakesh: >"While no new value is created in exchange, this does not mean that the >value substance is not altered in and through ex-change." > >Diversionary. My original comment was this: "In Marx's theory, value >cannot be altered in exchange, so total price in the market is >constrained to equal the total value already produced." Obviously, this >deals with the *magnitude* of value. Here I agree with you; however I think that when marxists say that the value substance is not altered in exchange in terms of magnitude, they are implicitly missing how indeed the value substance is changing in (ex)change. Money then seems not be a necessary form of appearance of value which can exist outside of exchange or the money form. So I do think value is altered, though not quantitatively increased, in exchange. > > >This is non-responsive and diversionary. It also confuses exchange and >money. In Marx's view, things have a money price BEFORE they come into >the market. As Andrew Brown has noted, they only have an ideal money price. But not until commodity value is actually ex-changed into money is value actualized. Again I don't understand why marx's discovery of the equilibrium condition is not structuralist, as you define the term. All the best, Rakesh
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Oct 31 2000 - 00:00:07 EST