>Re Rakesh's [5735]: > >Did anyone else notice the irony that shortly after >complaining that Steve et al were responsible for >the endless discussions by Marxists about the >'transformation problem' etc and were thereby >stopping our progression onto other topics such >as the world market, Rakesh himself has re-raised >the issue of the TP in his questions in [5735] to >Gary? > >The record on OPE-L, I would assert, has not >been that the discussions on the TP have been >raised by those on the list who have charged that >Marx is logically inconsistent. Rather, it is those >who have attempted to show that Marx is logically >consistent and that the 'problem' is a non-problem >who have been the ones who have initiated some >of our more lengthy exchanges on the TP. Another >irony: one of our recent threads on the TP was >extended by Rakesh himself with his ardent >support of the Gouverneur solution. In general, >our debates have mostly focused on who had >the best solution to the TP rather than wether there is a solution to the >TP. > >All we need do to break this cycle is agree to >move on to other topics. But, if we go on to again >discuss issues associated with the TP then let >us at least not scapegoat our members who believe >that there is no legitimate solution to the TP. > >In solidarity, Jerry Fair enough. You got me, Jerry. What needs to be recognized though is that value theoretic marxism should no more be prevented from developing due to a putative transformation problem just like neoclassical theory has not been stopped in its tracks by the (logical? real?) possibility of reswitching or neo ricardianism has not been shut up despite having no real theory of money. But it is marxism alone that has run into real obstacles because of its putative logical errors (Blaug just brushes reswitching aside calling on Lakatos to allow for the bypassing of small logical anamolies as long as the research programme is nondegenerate, but it seems not to have occured to Blaug that the complete transformation problem is an even more trivial logical anomaly). And Marxism alone runs into these problems despite the fact the critiques such as Garegnini's are themselves logically flawed (granting the adding up critique and then stipulating the invariance of the mass of surplus value) or at odds with each other (Bortkiewicz, Sweezy and Meek all give different, conflicting answers as to why they hold mass of surplus value, dept iii invariant and feel no reason to resolve their differences). I am not interested in the TP; I am interested in showing how much the standards are changed when it comes to judging Marx. I am not trying to show that there is no transformation problem; I am trying to underline the operation of power within the academy, including its radical groups. It is the very triviality of the transformation problem that reveals the nature of the power by which Marxism has been marginalized. With Marx, he is thrown out of the game on logical violations before he is even allowed to bat. That is singular treatment. Which raises the question of why. Why pick on Marx's Capital of all theories? Why try to reduce it back to simply a critique of theories of income distribution? What else was marx trying to do? Why is this potential revolution in thought put back into the box and assimilated into something more familiar, viz. the classical economists' interest in the class based distribution of the social product. Why insist that Marx was doing essentially the same thing as Ricardo! He obviously was not. Now yes you are right I am myself contributing to marginalization of Marx by talking about these logical issues. . So you are right to point this out. I have contradicted myself. However, my debate with Fred is not over the transformation problem per se (he has convinced me that the inputs are not in the form of values or even simple or direct prices) but concerns his violation of the principle that value cannot be directly measured and observed. I said that in equating price flow of a machine with value transferred, the mistake here is in confusing levels of abstraction. This is not the traditional transformation problem; as fred has put it, I have been raising the problem of an inverse transformation problem. And the point of this debate has been to get clear how the concept of value operates in Marx's theory; if I am right that it is not directly observable and measurable in the flow price of a machine--and if so, why is this so--can Marxism fend off positivist strictures? So I am not talking about the transformation problem: I reject the traditional idea that the knowns can be the value ones (value transferred, rate of surplus value, total value) while the unknowns are the price ones--relative prices, prices of production, rate of profit. But again my point here is not the transformation problem but the nature of the necessary expression of value by way of another commodity, which is a system of misrepresentation which negativizes equal exchange, though Marx is often understood to have argued that the law of value regulates exchange ratios. That is, I am trying to get to the money form. I wrote a long post on how Marx came to understand money as the god in the practical religion of everyday life, and then learned from the comments by Chris A and Howard on the peculiarities of the equivalent form which in my opinion holds the entire secret to Marx's theory of fetishism. Yours, Rakesh
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