re Fred's 7310 > >In other words, I think that Samuelson's "eraser" critique or Steedman's >"fork" critique of "matrix algebra Marxism" is essentially correct - that >the labor-values derived in the "value system" play no essential role in >the determination of prices of production in the "value system". I think >this critique is logically indisputable. > >Marx's theory, by contrast, explains the actual, real world surplus-value >as proportional to surplus labor, thereby clearly exposing the essential >nature of capitalism as the exploitation of workers. > >That is why I think Marx's theory is superior to "matrix algebra >Marxism". > >Diego (and others), what do you think? I always thought one of Shaikh's replies to matrix algebra neo Ricardianism was quite good. Shaikh's criticism of the redundancy charge in the Value Controversy, ed. Steedman: "Notice how often the word 'determines' crops up: the physical production data *determine* values, and in conjunction with the real wage, also *determine* prices of production. but what determiens the physical production data. In Marx, the answer is clear : it is the labor process. It is human productive activity, the actual performance of labour, that transforms 'inputs' into 'outputs', and it is only when labor is sucessful at all that we have any 'physical production data' at all. Moreover, if the labour process is a process of producing commodities, then it one in which value is materialized in the form of use values. Thus both 'inputs' and 'outputs' are the use forms of materialized value, and we can they say that in the *real* process it is values that determine the physical production data...The physical *data* are then a conceptual summary of the real determination, and if we then use the data to conceptually *calculate* values, we only capture in thought their real magnitudes. Such a calculation no more determines these values than does the calculation of the mass of the earth determine determine either the earth or its mass. It merely recognizes what already exists. This is a fundamental point in a a materialist view of the world, and the 80 year failure of the neo Ricardians to distinguish real and conceputal determination reveals their long attachment to the idealist method" p. 280-1 Are there other such failures to distinguish between calculation and real determination in the history of science? For example, was there a conflation of calculation and determination by Pearson in his debate with the Mendelians? Let me apologize if the following does not support the above argument; it is but an attempt. But Pearson did think that he could develop a purely descriptive/phenomenalist theory of heredity by making linking the character of an individual through regression equations to the average character of each ancestral generation. Once the coefficients had been empirically established, a Pearsonian could calculate the characteristics of progeny simply on the basis of data of ancestral heredity. But as post Mendelians we know Pearson was wrong to assume a child does not inherit from his parents alone but from a whole series of ancestors in his lineage. What happened to the progeny did not depend on what happened to the ancestors of its parents, but only on the genetic make up of its parents. We now know that the pedigrees had nothing to tell us about the nature of heredity: they were in fact only tools for inferring the genetic structure of individuals. Similarly I am saying that the physical production data do not themselves determine the profit rate, though they can be used to calculate it. What that data are good for is that they are a tool for inferring what is hidden by the fetishistic price form in and through which labor value is (mis-)represented, viz. the surplus labor time that the working class had to put at the disposal of the capitalist class for it is this time that is in fact the source of and the determinant of profits and indeed all non wage income. Why do we need references to genes when we can quantitatively link generations with data of ancentral heredity? Why do we need labor value when we can calculate the profit rate with data of physical production alone? In short, the answer is the realist one: it is genes that in fact determine the pattern of heredity; it is the surplus social labor time performed by the working class that determines the mass of surplus value and the (maximum equilibrium) rate of profit. It is in the interests of realistically grasping the actual process that our theories should refer to genes and labor value. So I don't see how values can be made redundant by matrix algebra calculations which cannot reveal the real process of determination. All the best, Rakesh
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