[OPE-L:4270] Steve on the worthlessness of labor at the source of surplus value

From: Alejandro Ramos (aramos@btl.net)
Date: Tue Oct 24 2000 - 21:38:53 EDT


Re Paul Z 4260:

>This is very important point Alejandro is making.

Thanks.

>A lot of debates within
>and for/against Marx became "frozen" one way or another around the turn of
>the twentieth century.

I'd add to this that it's a bit odd that Marxist economists show scarce
interest in exploring the history of the ideas given that Marx's work is
also an enormous *critical* investigation on the history of the economic
thought. This wouldn't be strange in a Neoclassical economist regarding
e.g. the history of General Equilibrium theory, but it's in the case of a
Marxian economist.

The other thing I find striking is that the general mood in most of Marxist
economists is consider *in advance* that Marx is essentially wrong and must
be "corrected" (Why? This is unclear. If he's wrong shouldn't be
"corrected" but directly surpassed.) Simetrically, the work of authors such
as Bohm Bawerk is considered *in advance* *right*, *sound*. There are lots
of people keen to show that *undoubtedly* Marx is a "pre-cientific",
"outmoded", "technically crippled", "logically inconsistent", "guilty of
using redundant concepts" etc. author. But, it's hard to find someone who
shows such, say, such critical attitude regarding e.g. Bohm.

> I found that with regard to "accumulation of
>capital": it became "frozen" by Lenin's interpretation and by the smashing
>of Luxemburg's work.  Even "anti-Leninists" are often unaware of how the
>terms of this discussion were set up a century ago.

I take advantage of this post to ask something I have had in my head for
some time. I remember that, in that article, you review Lenin's book on
Sismondi. At that point, Lenin position regarding the "markets" issue was
practically the same as Tugan. Lenin's book on S. was from 1897.

Wasn't possible that, at that point, Lenin had already read the 1st edition
of Tugan's book (1894)? Didn't he cite it? Later on, you say that in a text
of 1899, it's clear that Lenin had read Tugan. Why? Why not before this, in
1897?

Alejandro Ramos



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