Re: (OPE-L) Robinson and Marx

From: Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@BERKELEY.EDU)
Date: Wed Nov 24 2004 - 14:52:42 EST


At 1:10 PM -0500 11/24/04, Paul Zarembka wrote:
>  > >>> In fact, I agree with very much of what is written here - except for
>>  some adjective which add nothing to content: insidious, for example.
>>  But the substance is right.  <<<
>>
>>  Riccardo,
>>
>>  What are you saying?  You seem to be agreeing  with him that
>>  her critique of marginal productivity theory "certainly does not compensate
>>  for her [...] attempt to vanquish [...] Marx by making him appear as a
>>  proto Keynesian."  This is an unbelievably narrow assessment of
>>  the contribution of Robinson to economic theory -- especially the
>>  _critique_ of economic theory.   Just think of all of the other
>>  contributions
>>  that she made to theory!  That she should have taken a critical standpoint
>>  towards Marx -- something that we should _all_ do, Marxists
>>  _especially_ --  is not cause for asserting that on balance she made
>>  a negative contribution to thought.
>>
>>  In solidarity, Jerry
>
>I agree with you, Jerry.  My own exit from neoclassical economics was
>greatly contributed to by the Cambridge (UK) critique of neoclassical
>capital theory and she was of course a major part of that.  Furthermore,
>since I knew her personally a bit and got her to the ILO in the mid-70s --
>which eventually resulted in her development book which the ILO refused to
>publish because it was too radical,

By this do you mean she was too gung ho about the shining
developmental model of North Korea?

Rakesh



>  I know directly that she had a
>wide-ranging impact on stimulating critical economics among many
>economists and non-economists.
>
>Joan Robinson is DEFINITELY the kind of economist with whom we need to
>build alliances or we will be worth nothing except our own narcissism.
>
>Paul


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