Hi Jerry,
I think the eigenstate concept Rakesh is referring to is rather different
in spirit from the eigenvalue-vector analysis to which you refer. Matrix
methods do form part of quantum mechanics, but the overall package is quite
a different ballgame from Leontief.
Albert's book is well worth reading for anyone with a passing interest in
quantum mechanics, as it provides a deterministic alternative to the
Copenhagen interpretation of quantum uncertainty--one of many these days,
it seems, but this is the earliest, stemming from the work of Bohm in the
1950s.
Steve
At 04:35 PM 1/29/01 -0500, you wrote:
>In [OPE-L:4808] Rakesh wrote:
>
>> Just to play around with the analogy to quantum mechanics again (as I read
>> through David Z Albert's Quantum Mechanics and Experience). Monetary
>> measurement forces a collapse of commodities into one of two eigenstates:
>> value or no value. That is, a commodity undergoes a change from one state
>to
>> another in the process of measurement. We can say that inventories can be
>> represented by a superposition of these eigenstates!
>> Of course there are at least two places where the analogy breaks down.
><snip>
>
>Andras Brody, in _Proportions, prices and planning_ (Akademiai Kiado and
>North-Holland, 1970), attempted to apply eigenvalue-eigenvector analysis
>(in the resolution of matrices). In this, he was heavily influenced by
>Wassily Leontief (who wrote a short "Preface" in which, among other things,
>he lamented that Marx employed "esoteric Hegelian terminology").
>
>Although theories of money and rent are not considered ("neither do we
>enter deeply into problems of technological change" - p. 9), the
>methodology employed is consistent with that used by at least some of
>the writers who have employed linear production theory and what Fred
>and you have been calling the "standard interpretation". (Fred: do you
>agree?)
>
>Brody claimed that "the eigenequation can represent deterministic or
>causal relations of the sort that the classical economists, Smith, Ricardo
>and Marx, set up. It can also be used in a teleological and optimizing
>approach such as that of the marginalist schools" (Ibid, p. 10).
>
>Brody's book was widely read (for a mathematical academic text) and
>was influential in the 1970's. Not too many Marxists have referred to
>it lately, though. Indeed, I can't recall his theories ever being discussed
>in the close to 11,200 (!) posts on OPE-L.
>
>In solidarity, Jerry
>
>
Dr. Steve Keen
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