Marx himself did not cast out "economists" as such: "As early as 1871, N. Sieber, Professor of Political Economy in the University of Kiev, in his work 'David Ricardo's Theory of Value and of Capital', referred to my theory of value, of money and of capital, as in its fundamentals a necessary sequel to the teaching of Smith and Ricardo. That which astonishes the Western European in the reading of this excellent work, is the author's consistent and firm grasp of the purely theoretical position." (Marx, 1867, "Afterword" to the Second German Edition of Capital, January 24, 1873). "Mr. Wagner could have familiarized himself with the difference between me and Ricardo both from Capital and from *Sieber's work* (if he knew Russian)" (Marx, "Notes on Wagner", 1881, p. 534). Sieber even visited Marx in London on several occasions (James D. White, *Karl Marx and the Origins of Dialectical Materialism*, pp. 272-73). We have the well-known references by Marx to his saying that he is not a Marxist. Does that make him an economist when writing *Capital*? Could it be argued that Marx himself in his extensive "Notes on the 1861 Reform and Russia's Post-reform Development" (available in Russian only) as well as Lenin in *Development of Capitalism in Russia* are both economists and not Marxists by your friend's statement? Are they economists by day and Marxists by night? In other words, Alejandro, I cannot agree with the point-blank dividing assertion of your friend in Spain. It is just too simplistic. In fact, since I know you personally, I can say that the assertion does not even apply to yourself. I could agree to a phrase like "to an overwhelming degree, Marxists are not economists and economists are not Marxist" and could be as applicable to Marx himself. I think this discussion is non-trivial because building a movement to overthrow capitalism requires bulding bridges without undermining principles (a very difficult task, to put it mildly). I also think that we have diverted from the real burden of Rakesh's point. Paul Z. P.S. An anarchist position could be that intellectual work AS SUCH is not Marxist and therefore an economist ipso facto is not revolutionary. Such a position would deny all Marx's work on *Capital*. *********************************************************************** Paul Zarembka, editor, RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY at ******************** http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka Alejandro Valle Baeza <valle@servidor.unam.mx> said, on 11/10/00: >A Spanish friend told me:"In >Spain, Marxist are not economist and economist are not Marxist". I >believe this sentence is valid for Mexico and many other countries. >Nevertheless it remain necessary critical economists in many places. >Alejandro Valle Baeza
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