Re Paul Z. 4510: Alejandro in 4508 and 4509: >>My concern is whether or not is possible to >>get the scientific content of Marx's work in order to understand >>capitalism. From the beginning it has been contended that it has no >>scientific content at all because Marx's work is logically flawed. >>Initially only bourgeois economists said that. Today, a great deal of >>marxist economists (say, Howard & King!) agree with this, *uncritically* >>accepting all the arguments put forward by the right. > >[Also, RE: 4509: "I only wanted to point out that the task is very >difficult and that marxist economist have made it even more difficult."] > Paul in 4510: >I agree, as long as you are not holding EVERY "marxist economist" >responsible. Indeed! I don't hold that!! I'm referring to what is the most accepted version of "Marxian economics" given by authors who follow uncritically the tradition Bohm-Bawerk, Tugan and Bortkiewicz, transferred to the English speaking world by Sweezy. More recent authors in this tradition are Okishio, Morishima, Samuelson, and his popularizer, Steedman. They have set the rules and issues of the discussion, creating the core of the "inconsistency argument" which rules out Marx's theory from any real consideration. *Some* of them have also created an sort of Stalinist atmosphera in which whoever disagrees is automatically considered an "obscurantist", a "dogmatic", a "fundamentalist" or, less poetically, an "idiot". Of course, not all people working on Marx's critique of political economy have this position but, unfortunately, in the last 30 years, those individuals are who have given the tone to the discussion. I'll take this oportunity to say that your own work as editor of a journal has nothing to do with this attitude, maintaining, as far as I see, an open and democratic position, giving space for investigations carried out from different points of view. Unfortunately, this cannot be said about many journals. Alejandro Ramos
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