From: gerald_a_levy (gerald_a_levy@msn.com)
Date: Wed Nov 06 2002 - 08:32:09 EST
Re Paul C's [7914], Alejandro's [7917] and my [7919]: I asked Paul previously, in [7903]: "What is required to empirically demonstrate the existence of unequal exchange?". Paul didn't answer that question in [7914] but instead asserted -- without an attempt at explanation -- that the concept of unequal exchange in the works of [listmember] Samir Amin struck him as "complete rubbish". After Alejandro, in [7917], wrote: > I agree with Paul: in general unequal exchange is a misleading discussion. Amin and Emannuel did several mistakes. By example, Emannuel ignored the tendency to sell products at similar prices in world markets despite huge differences in productivitys. < I asked, in [7919]: > Yet, Ernest Mandel's perspective on unequal exchange didn't ignore that tendency, did it? < and > "... Mandel wrote provocatively that: "*From the Marxist point of view, i.e. from the standpoint of a consistent labour theory of value, underdevelopment is ultimately always underemployment, both quantitatively (mass unemployment) and qualitatively (low productivity of labour)*" (_Late Capitalism_, NLB, 1975, pp. 60-61, emphasis in original). Do you agree or disagree?" < My intent was to get Paul and Alejandro and others to confront perspectives on unequal exchange (UE) which are different from that of Emmanuel and Amin and which don't make the kind of "mistakes" those authors supposedly made. Mandel was selected because his works demonstrate that one can -- regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees with his perspective -- develop a theory of UE which is substantively different from that of Emmanuel , etc. Mandel's writings on UE also, like those of Carchedi (see below) have not been discussed on this list before. Another example: the writing of [former listmember] Guglielmo [Mino] Carchedi on UE in _Frontiers of Political Economy_ (Verso, 1991: see sections 7.6 -- 7.7). This returns me to my original question to Paul: what is required to empirically demonstrate the existence of unequal exchange? What answer would others on the list offer for that question? In solidarity, Jerry
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