Re Steve K's [5698]: > But you forget that my critique of LTV marxism > begins from a completely different foundation to > Sraffians et al. I don't start by saying "the LTV > leads to logical conundrums"; I start by saying > "the LTV is inconsistent with Marx's dialectical > theory of value". I recognize this as your claim. However, I'm not convinced you have grasped the diversity of perspective among Marxists re what you call Marx's 'dialectical theory of value'. I think that our VFTers, for example (advocates, as they are of 'systematic dialectics') consider their perspective to be every bit (and probably a lot more) dialectical than your own. Also: what you call 'LTV' they might call 'LET' (labour embodied theory) -- which they reject. > Similarly on TSS; I could, if I had the time-- > which I don't--put TSS into a > general and generic dynamic form, and show that > it is internally inconsistent (I suspect that it too > would only work with constant L/K > ratios in all industries). Again you put forward the assertion in advance of the demonstration. For your assertion to carry any weight, it must be accompanied by the demonstration. Otherwise it is merely intuition which we have been given no reason to accept. > From my point of view, these arguments feel a > bit like fighting the Black > Knight in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail". > From my point of view--and > from the point of view of the historians of > economic thought who refereed > my papers on this issue--I've already cut off both > legs (the belief that > the LTV is Marx's fundamental theory of value, > and the belief that the LTV > is consistent with his theory of value). Presumably there are other serious scholars who are historians of economic thought who don't share your conclusion that you have cut off both of these legs. Indeed, has _any_ historian of economic thought gone on record, in print, supporting this assessment? If so, what are their names and what are the sources? > what I focus on in Keynes are the very rich > appreciations of uncertainty and the role of > finance, which are largely > expressed in Chapter 12 of the GT and his 1937 > papers. Long before Keynes came on the scene, Marx had a _far greater_ appreciation of uncertainty for he not only rejected Say's Law (Bernice Shoul once wrote a very good article on this topic) but incorporated uncertainty into the very core of his theory: i.e. uncertainty is a necessary consequence of the commodity-form and it is developed in successive more concrete ways as the categories of his analysis are unfolded and deepened. > True, Kalecki is a better father of what is called > Post Keynesianism than > Keynes. But even Kalecki would accept that > Keynes was the better writer, The question of who is a 'better writer' is an issue only insofar as one compares who is a better _popularizer_ of a theory. That is an entirely secondary issue, though, when judged against the *merits* of their particular perspectives. > There are some arguments I would reject in your > statements below--Post-Keynesians aren't > marginalists (but most are static theorists, > which is almost as bad). I didn't say they were -- I wrote that Keynes himself was a marginalist. > As for myself, I can cope with being typecast > as a > Post Keynesian, but if I have the chance to apply > my own economist label, > then it is a Marxian evolutionary economist. To paraphrase Dick Nixon [!]: 'we are all Marxians now' ??!! This is the first time I can recall you calling yourself a Marxian .... Perhaps a constructive line of discussion might be to ask: what insights does evolutionary economics bring to Marxian economics? In solidarity, Jerry
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