From: glevy@PRATT.EDU
Date: Sat Apr 10 2004 - 10:12:34 EDT
Hi Ian: > What do you think? The short answer is that I'm not particularly impressed with the overall quality of the series. In the part you most recently forwarded to us, Beams seemed to me to have entirely missed Sweezy's concern. While he claimed that Sweezy misrepresented Marx on competition, I think it is Beams who misrepresented Sweezy on *oligopolistic* competition. The transformation of competition from a form which emphasized technological change and price competition to product differentiation and avertising, was Sweezy's concern. I.e. _Monopoly Capital_ was not _per se_ a critique of Marx but rather an attempt to explain how the form of competition has changed in late capitalism. It is to Sweezy's and Baran's credit that they dealt with that issue. Even if one disagrees with their explanation of this, they deserve credit -- unlike Beams -- for tackling this question head-on. If I have more time later this week I will respond to other aspects of the critique of Sweezy by Beams. What do others think about the series? In solidarity, Jerry
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