[OPE-L:4255] Questions to Gil (4243)

From: John Ernst (ernst@pipeline.com)
Date: Tue Oct 24 2000 - 03:58:35 EDT


                 Re:  4243
Gil,


I wrote a set of comments on your 4242 and then read your 4243.
Rather than jump in with the comments, let me simply ask a few 
questions.


1.  Where do you get the idea that "Marx's central claim" is "that 
capitalist profit is based on systematic exploitation of the working 
class"? Why is this central?   On a more mundane level,  does the 
profit to which you refer include the other various forms of surplus
value?

2.  In couple of places you make reference to "Marx's theory of 
the capitalist mode of production."  How does "the economic law
of motion of capitalist society" fit into this or vice versa? 

3. Could we not use J.S. Mill's Principles and the various possible
courses of accumulation he outlines as the basis for exploring and 
developing the "cases of class predictions that are not dealt 
with explicitly by Marx and are empirically unlikely, although 
logically possible"?  

Prior to embarking on this journey, I'd at least wonder why Marx 
never went in this direction.    





John



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