From: A.B.Trigg (A.B.Trigg@OPEN.AC.UK)
Date: Wed Mar 10 2004 - 10:15:44 EST
I would also criticise Carchedi's quantum leap from Marx's reproduction schemes to a consideration of uniform prices. We are told by Carchedi and the whole related body of thought about the importance of dialectics and method; yet this is very different from Marx's method. His method was to systematically add layers of complexity, under the assumption in Capital I and II that prices and values are equivalent. The conditions established under the reproduction schema, at the end of Capital II, were claimed by Marx to hold even under the divergence of prices from values. It is not consistent with Marx's method for Carcheddi to jump into the reproduction schema, as Ernest Screpanti argues, before full consideration of the conditions for reproducting social capital as a whole. One suspects with much of this type of work that the motivation is not to illuminate Marx's method, but to respond with affront to the assault on the transformation problem by Marx's critics. Rakesh. It is interesting that you argue that the reproduction schemes are preliminary and provisional. They are of course Marx's unfinished notes, but I would be interested to know if you have any additional insights on this. Two things could be said here in defence of the schemes; (a) their place in Marx's plan for the Capital project was not so preliminary: didn't Marx give great thought to the structure of Capital into its component parts? (b) were not the reproduction schemes in Capital II one of the last things that Marx worked on, his final attempt to revise the Quesnay's 'brilliant' Tableau? Andrew (Trigg) -----Original Message----- From: Ernesto Screpanti [mailto:screpanti@UNISI.IT] Sent: Wed 10/03/2004 08:05 To: OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Cc: Subject: Re: Carchedi's TSS approach At 13.52 06/03/2004 -0800, you wrote: >>At 23.55 19/02/2004 -0800, you wrote: >>>"I do not agree with either the orthodox theory or >>>Screpanti's, but that is irrelevant. It is the charge >>>of incoherence that -I would guess- would attract the >>>'Damned Lies' bit." >>> >>>Oh! I had not seen this one and I'm not sure who wrote >>>this. It could well be a good joke. Coherence is the >>>last thing one can find in the TSS approach to Marx or >>>for that matter anything. It is laughable that the >>>author of the above quote thinks that such a mild >>>criticism of an approach deserves to be called "dammed >>>lies". I think the TSS is not only incoherent but >>>simply nonsensical! ajit sinha >> >>My charge against Charchedi's TSS approach was twofold: >>Inconsistency: he uses Marx's reproduction conditions but then determines >>prices without respecting these conditions; > >Ernesto, I don't understand the criticism. Marx analyzes simple and >expanded reproduction without ever determining prices that respected >those conditions: the schema are given in fixed values. The schema >are only a preliminary and provisional analysis of the difficulties >in the circulation of the capital. Why should a price theory have to >hold in conditions of simple reproduction (Bortkiewicz) or even >equilibrium (Winternitz)? A theory of market prices need not require these conditions to hold. A theory of production prices does. On the other hand, Carchedi assumes that the structure of demand is such that no realization problems exist and the rate of profit is uniform. This implies that the system is in reproduction equilibrium. Then Carchedi "transforms" his "values" into his "prices" in such a way that this condition does not hold. >>dogmatism: Marx (as he interprets him) is always right. > >Again there are indeed those of us who think Marx was more incomplete >than incorrect. "More" means that you believe he is at least a little incorrect? In what? >There is nothing inherently dogmatic about this >position Of course. >especially since Marx developed his theory through a careful >and detailed critique of the theorists who preceded him. > >Yours, Rakesh Best Ernesto >ps didn't Carchedi write a price with Werner de Haan about the >replacement of fixed capital in conditions of simple reproduction?
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