[OPE-L:4005] Re: Re: Re: Fwd: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: TheTransformationProblem

From: Steve Keen (s.keen@uws.edu.au)
Date: Sun Oct 08 2000 - 10:16:44 EDT


Dear Rakesh:

(1) Re: "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"

My critique of the LTV is predicated on the proposition that Marx's
dialectics contradicts the LTV. You may believe the claim preposterous--the
referees for the History of Political Economy and the Journal of the
History of Economic Thought did not. You can check the 1993 issues of the
latter publication if you so desire.

(2) One justified aspect of the TSS attempt to rebut Sraffian critiques is
that they apply a static yardstick to a dynamic theory. However, it is
possible to grant that proposition and still undertake a dynamic version of
that critique. This would involve setting up a system in which all rates of
change were constant as a "dynamic equilibrium" and then seeing whether the
TSS characterisation was still sustainable when organic compositions of
capital differed between industries. I expect that TSS would fail this test.

That is why "someone as smart as" me made the statement to which you reacted.

Why someone as smart as me is not going to bother with that exercise is
because of (1). IF I accepted, as TSS adherents accept, that Marx began
with the premise that labor was the only source of value, then in order to
test the intellectual veracity of TSS, I would need to undertake just that
analysis. However, I believe that Marx tried instead to derive the labor
theory of value from a prior dialectical logic *and failed*--though he
fooled a lot of people in the process. As a result, it is irrelevant to me
whether the TSS--or any other labor theory of value theory--does or does
not have a transformation problem, since I believe them wrong from their
first premise.

(3) I see absolutely no place for static equilibrium analysis in economics;
that makes me somewhat different to Schumpeter. I regard your comments on
this issue as gratuitous and completely irrelevant to my own way of
thinking. If you wish to characterise me somewhat more accurately, then I
suggest you read what I have actually published.


Steve
Dr. Steve Keen
Senior Lecturer
Economics & Finance
University of Western Sydney Macarthur
Building 11 Room 30,
Goldsmith Avenue, Campbelltown
PO Box 555 Campbelltown NSW 2560
Australia
s.keen@uws.edu.au 61 2 4620-3016 Fax 61 2 4626-6683
Home 02 9558-8018 Mobile 0409 716 088
Home Page: http://bus.macarthur.uws.edu.au/steve-keen/



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