[OPE-L:3992] Re: Re: Fwd: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: TheTransformationProblem

From: Rakesh Narpat Bhandari (rakeshb@Stanford.EDU)
Date: Fri Oct 06 2000 - 17:48:11 EDT


In 3975 Steve wrote:

>
>I do "do" math in precisely the sense to which you aspire--check my 1995
>JPKE paper on that--and I am a critic of general equilibrium, especially
>when done by non-neoclassical economists--check my 1998 JOPE paper for
>that. And yet I still believe that, if you accept the premise that labor is
>the only source of value, you will still have a transformation problem in a
>dynamic model.

Why? Because the consumption of dead labor produces value too? You 
have already said that you have not done a critique of TSS (please 
see Giusanni's piece in the penultimate IJPE) and that your critique 
of the LTV, as it stands, is predicated on your prima facie 
preposterous claim that Marx should have understood the use of dead 
labor can equally be the source of new value as surplus labor (though 
of course Marx did say that this is the way things do in fact appear 
due to the equalisation of profit rates).

For example you wrote earlier (3935):

OK Andrew,

I'll see if I can live up to that. I might add that it would be quite
possible to characterise my approach to Marx as "temporal single system"
too--since I don't see value and price categories as independent (let alone
see value as superfluous), and all my mathematical work is in dynamics.
Where I differ, of course, is on the premise that labor is the only source
of value.

Cheers,
Steve
_____________

So you have yet to prove that there is a transformation problem if 
the stricture input=output prices is passed and flushed with the 
morning's production, right? As you say above, it is at this point 
your belief (hope?) that the problem will remain. So as far as I can 
tell all you are doing here is bravely admitting that you have been 
inconsistent in allowing dynamics everywhere (e.g., Kaleckian price 
theory) but in Marx's transformation exercise. Which raises the 
question of why someone as smart as you would do such a thing.

By the way, your desire to keep equilibrium analysis in one place and 
dynamics in another seems to have been shared by Schumpeter. Of 
course for him the fantasized power of equilibrium tendencies 
allowed him to write paeans to the heroism of the entrepreneur who 
could break through such  equilibrium (stationary or moving) and thus 
deserve every cent of the superprofit he received. Have you heard 
about how Genetech's Craig Venter invented his autobiography in 
Schumpeterian terms? It was a truly astounding performance on an 
American show called Charlie Rose, an hour long commercial in the 
form of an interview by a man whose once limited intellecutal 
capabilities are in rapid descent.  American discourse is littered 
with Schumpeterianisms, no more so than in the speeches of Big Daddy 
Al and the Republicans favorite speech writer George Gilder.

All the best,
Rakesh
PhD Candidate
UC Berkeley



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Oct 31 2000 - 00:00:08 EST