Re Andy's [5772]: > What can you mean by 'evidence' here? I take it that the fact is that these issues are discussed at length. This is surely a kind of 'evidence' for my suggestion? < Well, no not really (see below.) > Indeed, viewing this 'evidence' any > other way is likely to be be a rather less > sympathetic interpretation, for it would cast > doubt on the scientific justification of > these long debates. The debates on the TP etc. were fundamentally attempts to answer critiques of Marx ... and to demonstrate that Marx got it 'right' (or 'basically right'.) Indeed, we have heard this justification over and over again on OPE-L. We have also heard (repeated endlessly) the assertion that once the TP has been 'solved' and/or once there is a recognition that there is no 'problem' then it will allow Marx's political economy and Marxists in the academy to be treated with more respect (or, at least, - it is claimed - will expose the Marx- critiques as ideology.) and for Marxism to move forward to the discussion of those concrete subjects that everyone claims should be studied but few have (because of this *OBSESSION* with the TP, the Okishio Theorem, etc..) It might be, as you say, that different answers to the TP yield different perspectives on value which then has 'massive' implications for concrete work, but this has manifestly not been the manner in which authors have justified their interventions at the time. Thus, my point, was that _even if_ this has been a _consequence_ of some of those debates, it has manifestly not been its _cause_. >Further 'evidence' of a different sort is that different theories of value yield very different concrete results. This is why I mentioned Ben Fine's many, many concrete studies, based explicitly on a take on the LTV (though rather ignored on OPEL). < Well ... that might change if we could convince Ben to join OPE-L but so far he has resisted because of time constraints. >For this is clear 'evidence' that a take on the > debates has 'massive' implications for more > concrete work. That was not your original claim, though, that I had responded to. In [5750] you wrote that "THE REASON that abstract issues (eg TP) are discussed .... (emphasis added, JL). My point is that one can not conclude that because the debates *might have* massive implications for more concrete work (i.e. this might be a *consequence* of the debates) that this was the *reason* for those debates. Hey, I've got an idea: why don't we discuss some of Fine's concrete work that relies upon his conception of value? What do you think his most important contributions to more concrete subjects has been? In solidarity, Jerry
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