Re Paul Z's [5781]: > Following upon some work I am doing now, I have found Lenin to be quite uncritical of Ricardo (while MUCH more critical of, for example, Sismondi). The only important exception seems to be Lenin's referring to Ricardo's buying into Smith's error of forgetting constant capital is discussing the value of a product. And even in this case, Lenin doesn't show dramatic implications for Ricardo's theory of this error. I haven't reached conclusions yet. Note, in any case, that TSV, Volume 3, cited by Gerry, was only first published in 1910, considerably after Lenin's economics of 1893-99.< Hi Paul, It's good to hear from you. When I saw the subject line for your post, I felt sure it would be about Sieber! (btw, there was a mildly amusing moment for a # of listmembers at the IWGVT mini-conference in February when Paresh Chattopadhyay asked a question to one of the panelists about Sieber. At that moment, listmembers from around the room exchanged smiles of recognition. I guess you just had to be there to appreciate the moment, though.) As for Lenin and Ricardo, I think that the publication dates for the works of Marx published after his death has had a *very* significant impact in stimulating Marxist thought and on the re-examination of perceived truths. I think, e.g. that the fact that just about all Bolshevik and early Austro-German Social Democrats accepted a disproportionality and/ or underconsumptionist theory of crisis (discussed at length in Richard B. Day's _The 'Crisis' and the 'Crash': Soviet Studies on the West (1917- 1939__) was related, in part, to the differing publication dates and translations for Volumes 2 and 3 of _Capital_. It might be interesting to inquire whether there was a hardening of position towards Ricardo following the Kautsky-edited _TSV_. Similarly, the publication of the _Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844_, the _Grundrisse_ and the "Marginal Notes on Wagner" stimulated new debates and perspectives. (although the effects of the publication in English of the "Marginal Notes on Wagner", in 1972, might have been more limited due, in part, to the fact that it was published in the [relatively] obscure journal _Theoretical Practice_). Of course, these publications could not have had such a significant effect on Marxist thought had it now been for other political and material developments, e.g. the widespread influence of Stalinism on Marxist thought. Curiously, the recent publications of some previously unpublished manuscripts in the _Collected Works_ and _MEGA_ appear to have had a much more limited influence (perhaps this is due, in part, to the reality that they are generally only read by Marx-scholars.) Lenin, of course, examined on a more concrete level the realities of what was for his day 'contemporary capitalism'. In this focus on the concrete -- rather than on Marx or any one author -- I think that his *method of investigation* had much in common with Marx's. As the latter years of his life make clear (e.g. his study of peasant communes in Russia), Marx was concerned to the end with the concrete and empirical and re-examined his perspectives with the acquisition of further knowledge. In solidarity, Jerry
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