Andrew, Re: [OPE-L:4972] RE: Expanded Reproduction, Your answer winds up illustrating my worry of "who decides?" regarding a criterion of "proof". I suggested that Marx's schemes might serve for you as a BASIS, rather than itself PROOF, for solving the problem of a faster growth of Dept. I over II. You reply "both". But when you get to the scheme itself, you yourself have to interpret the role of the first period (you need to engage in " 'stretching out'... Marx's example"). Whether right or wrong is not the point. The point is that it is NOT in Marx himself. It becomes an interpretation. I suspect you and Grossman supporter will chime in that this interpretation is right. Yet that is using the schemes as a BASIS for a proof, not the proof itself, i.e., you must introduce an additional material to make your case. In other words, you have to go BEYOND what are in the schemes to make your case. Your or my reading of whether the schemes offer the BASIS for one point or another can be discussed. But I don't see it as a question of "proof" in the schemes themselves. I am not sure I fully understand the interface with the question you have been debating others. It looks to me that they are charging you with an INTERPRETATION of Marx (which they consider inappropriate) and seeming to offer PROOF to you of the opposite (by using Marx's words). If so, your role is dialoguing me seems opposite of how they understand your role in dialoguing them. I will go one step further. If we scratch far enough below the surface of these discussions, I think we will find politics (which -- to be rather simplistic -- has bourgeois, petty bourgeois and proletarian dimensions). Thus, I notice that the weekend conference has Gary Mongiovi supporting Sraffa and labeling your work "vulgar" (petty bourgeois) in his paper "Vulgar Economy in Marxian Garb: A Critique of Temporal Single System Marxism". I guess the fires are going to burn over that one! I don't want to get into the substance of expanded reproduction ... at least not for this dialogue. Paul Z. *********************************************************************** Paul Zarembka, editor, RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY at ******************** http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka "Drewk" <Andrew_Kliman@msn.com> said, on 02/19/01: >In reply to OPE-L 4968. ... >As for whether Marx's schemes of expanded reproduction provide (in my >view) a proof or the basis of a proof, I think the answer is "both." I >wasn't referring to the numerical examples per se (though I could -- see >below), but to Marx's demonstration that Ic doesn't pass through any >(extra-departmental) market and is thus not limited by the extent of >demand in those markets. ... >You write that >"In Marx's illustration, growth of Dept. I does NOT outstrip the growth >of Dept. II (see last chapter of Vol. 2, end of the section: Marx's >"First" illustration -- the more complicated illustration in which the >organic compositions differ between the departments -- grows 10% annually >for Dept. I, ditto for Dept. II, and ditto for the total)." >Your interpretation of the example is the traditional one, to be sure, >but it is not exactly right. Dept. I grows by 10% in *every* year. >Dept. II grows by 10% in every year *except* the first. In the first >year, it grows by just 6.66...%. >Now, you may say "big deal," that this is just a disequilibrium blip or >something. But once the dynamics involved in this >initially-lower-growth-of-Dept.-II-scenario are understood, it is not >hard to extend the disequilibrium blip ad infinitum, so that Dept. II >*continually* grows slower than Dept. I, and has a growth rate that >converges with that of Dept. I only in the limit. >I know it isn't hard because I have done it. I'm referring to the proof >(in my view) I presented last year on this list. It is really just a >matter of "stretching out" the what seems to be an "initial adjustment" >in Marx's example. So it is in this sense that Marx's schemes provide >not only a proof but also the basis for a different proof (e.g., mine). ...
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