Please feel free to circulate this announcement Just Published in Italian, English, and Spanish: ------------------------------------------------ UN VECCHIO FALSO PROBLEMA: La trasformazione dei valori in prezzi nel Capitale di Marx AN OLD MYTH: The transformation of values into prices in Marx's Capital Published by the Laboratorio per la Critica Sociale, Rome, 2002. 190 pages; paperback. Essays by Guglielmo Carchedi, Alan Freeman, Paolo Giussani, Andrew Kliman, and Alejandro Ramos. Edited with a Preface by Luciano Vasapollo. The Preface and essays appear in both Italian and English, except for Ramos', which appears in Italian and Spanish. Vasapollo is a member of the faculty of the University of Rome - La Sapienza. He is also the Scientific Director of CESTES (Center for Studies of Socio-economic Transformation) and _Proteo_, a thrice-annual review published by CESTES-PROTEO and the Federazione Nazionale delle Rappresentanze Sindacali di Base (RdB), a 50,000-member trade union. If you are outside of Italy, and wish to obtain a copy of _Un Vecchio Falso Problema/An Old Myth_, please send a check for $15 US (which covers postage as well) to Andrew Kliman Dept. of Economics Pace University Pleasantville, NY 10570 USA akliman@pace.edu >From the back cover: -------------------- 'Some of the essays appearing in this book (by Carchedi, Freeman and Kliman) have recently been published in PROTEO (a scientific journal for the analysis of socio-productive dynamics and labor politics) in order to focus again on an old, false problem: Marx's transformation of values into prices. The purpose of this book's essays is not only to prove that this is a non-existent problem, but also that Marx's theory is a coherent whole held together by its own internal logic. If one introduces a different logic into his system, one is bound to "find" logical contradictions. Since temporalism is an integral part of this logic, all criticisms, all contradictions, and all solutions to the "contradictions" based on simultaneism are alien to Marx's theory (and to reality). Leaving aside their specific features, the above-mentioned theories share one common feature, that of ascribing a problematic to Marx that is not his own. As a result, they all end up by fudging the issues. Maybe there are problems in Marx, maybe not. But if there are problems in Marx, they are not the pseudo-problems pointed to by his critics. These pseudo-problems have been, and continue to be, regarded as real ones for very clear political reasons. If the logical coherence of the transformation procedure, and thus of Marx's labor theory of value, is vindicated, Marxism's unrivaled power as a tool to understand, and hopefully change, capitalist reality can be fully deployed. If, on the other hand, one presents redefinitions of Marx's basic concepts as his own concepts, discovers contradictions, proposes solutions, and in doing so smuggles into Marx's theory the notion that capitalism tends towards equilibrium, the power of that tool will be circumscribed within capitalism's own confines.' [Translated from the Italian] >From Luciano Vasapollo's Preface: --------------------------------- 'The works of the "temporal approach" are systematically introduced here for the first time in the Italian debate. Thus a lacuna is filled that will help the Marxists, but especially the Italian academic world, to emerge from their provincialism. FROM NOW ON, THERE CAN BE NO "EXCUSE" FOR CONTINUING TO IGNORE THE "TEMPORAL APPROACH." THOSE WHO DO SO WILL NOT BE ABLE TO APPEAL TO THEIR IGNORANCE, BUT WILL BE FORCED TO ADMIT TO HAVING AN "INTERESTED INTERPRETATION.' [Translated from the Italian]
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