Gary asks in [5763]: > I'd be interested to hear what other listmembers think about this connection between Ricardo and Marx, since so much Marxist hostility to the Sraffian tradition stems from the belief that it inappropriately attempts to "transform Marx into Ricardo" (as one TSSer has put it). < Let me begin with noting an agreement: I certainly agree that Marx held Ricardo in far higher regard than 'Parson Malthus'. Indeed, Marx displays the utmost contempt for Malthus (perhaps second only to his contempt for the 'stupid' J. B. Say). In brief, I think that Marx's position was that Ricardo represented the culmination of 'scientific' bourgeois political economy. After Ricardo came the 'disintegration of the Ricardian school' (Torrens, James Mill, Bailey, McCulloch, J.S. Mill, etc.) and 'vulgar economy' followed by 'the bad conscience and evil intent of apologetics'. Yet, despite this, Marx was not a Ricardian -- his object, in part, was to *critique* political economy. In so doing, he had to appropriate from Ricardo what he deemed to be scientifically valid but also surpass Ricardian theory. And one can *never* forget that Marx was a 'scientific socialist', i.e. a communist. Nor can one forget that while Marx viewed Ricardo as the 'last great representative' of cpe, he also viewed him as an advocate of bourgeois theory (when it was still possible for bourgeois economics to be scientific.) From *this* standpoint, their two projects were *vastly* different: Ricardo was an advocate for capitalism; Marx called upon the working class to bury that mode of production. To give some idea of just how many differences there were between Ricardo and Marx from Marx's perspective, consider the following 'errors' of Ricardo that are noted *IN ONLY ONE CHAPTER of _TSV_* (Part III, Ch. 20): 1. "Ricardo's mistake is that he is only concerned with the magnitude of value" and fails to see how value is an expression of the social relations of production under capitalism; 2. he mistakenly identifies surplus-value with profit; 3. he sees only the physical difference between fixed and circulating capital and not the relation between c and v; 4. He assumes capital and capitalist relations and does not explain their inner nature or how they are brought into being; 5. he assumes a general rate of profit rather than showing how it is necessarily brought into being by the nature of capital itself; 6. he identifies cost price with value and does not see that this is is contradiction to the law of value; 7. his definition of a general rate of profit where there are differing organic compositions contradicts the law of value; 8. he didn't comprehend the distinction between labor and labor power; 9. he saw the surplus product in its physical sense but not surplus value; 10. He accepted Say's Law of Markets. 11. He denied the possibility of a crisis of generalized overproduction; 12) the functions of money are overlooked and assumed rather than analyzed. Remember -- that is only *from 1 chapter of TSV*! Of course, it is possible that Marx 'got Ricardo wrong' on some of these matters. It is also possible that Marx himself was wrong on some of these matters. But, I think the evidence is pretty clear that Marx did not consider himself to be a Ricardian. As for some of the (misplaced) hostility towards Sraffians, I believe that this has less to do with Marx's critique of Ricardo than it has to do with his critique of 'vulgar theory' -- a subject you should have some familiarity with since it was included in the title of a recent paper of yours. Perhaps the Sraffians have been victims in part of a *polemical style* of Marxists that goes back to ... Marx (and the title of your paper was 'payback'.) Of course, no one likes to be called a 'vulgar' anything ... even (or especially) at a dinner table ... let alone in print or at a conference. Under those circumstances it is not entirely surprising when there is 'hostility' by some in return. On the other hand, I guess if you call someone 'vulgar' then you shouldn't be surprised when you are called 'vulgar' in return (similarly it is considered to be rude to call someone else rude.) Yet, these are questions of how different traditions communicate with each other rather than the underlying questions of substance that separate those traditions. In solidarity, Jerry
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