David Y wrote in [7l73]: > I regarded their criticism's as fundamentally dishonest and saw no purpose in responding to them. For myself I believe Marxism has to be put to the service of a new revolutionary movement and there is little point in forever going over the old debates for the sake of it. < OK, well I can appreciate that position. The only problem, though, is that F&H's works are still read and do have some limited influence. Paul B in [7l67] wrote that Harris had described the position of Paul and yourself -- without even an attempt at justification -- as "Keynesian" I know you don't want to go over old debates, but you might be interested in the following gems from Ben Fine in "Recent Developments in Marxist Economic Theory" in Gerd Hardach, Dieter Karras and Ben Fine _A Short History of Socialist Economic Thought (NY, St. Martin's Press, l978, Ch. 5): In the first selection FINE, citing your joint article "Inflation, Crisis and the Post-War Boom" (_Revolutionary Communist_, 3/4, November, l975) refers to the both of you as KEYNESIANS *AND* MONETARISTS: "Those who argue the validity of the law of the TRPF by asserting the dominance of the tendency over the counteracting tendencies view the current recession in terms of the particular response by capital to the inevitable working of the law. In particular, the state is seen as being compelled to expand expenditure to maintain employment for political stability. The result of this is a further diminution in the surplus value available for distribution to capitalists as profits, and inflation as the state expands its credit to finance its expenditure. Inevitably, the crisis is only postponed by these manoeuvres. Again, we can see that *a Keynesian analysis has been adopted (together with a Keynesian view of the role of the state to maintain full employment)* with the (false) presumption that state expenditure will increase employment even though profitability has been affected. In addition, a *monetarist theory of inflation* has been utilized with the (false) presumption that the state predominantly appropriates resources through over-expansion of the money supply" (p. 76, emphasis with color added.) In the next quote, FINE, citing David's article "The Marxian Theory of Crisis, Capital and the State" (_Economy and Society_ 2.2, l973), refers to the E&S article as an "extreme version of" NEO-RICARDIAN "analysis": "The second interpretation of the law [of the TRPF, JL] is the one that insists on its validity by reworking Marx's analysis of the rising organic composition of capital but continues by asserting the dominance of the tendency over the counteracting tendencies rather than theorizing the contradictory interaction of the two. In this light, *such a view can be considered to be an extreme version of the neo-Ricardian analysis* in which distributional struggle, increases in the rate of exploitation and decreases in the value of capital are considered *dogmatically* to be of secondary significance relative to the TRPF. Thus, the simple interaction of the two tendencies as a sum must lead to an actual fall in the rate of profit These two apparently opposing interpretations of the law ["the first Neo-Ricardian interpretation" and David's, JL] then have much in common and consequently have stunted rather than developed Marxist theory" (p. 74, emphasis again added with color.) I can see why you wouldn't want to answer these charges. I wonder: was Fine a member of another (rival) political party at the time? Perhaps there was an unspoken political agenda that he was pursuing in feeling the apparent need to distort your positions. Thus, perhaps, the two of you were attacked because of your own political associations? I'm just speculating, of course: I just don't understand what is going on here. Do you? In solidarity, Jerry
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sun Jun 02 2002 - 00:00:07 EDT