From: Jerry Levy (Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Sun Mar 11 2007 - 13:05:43 EDT
> Capital is not "defined" as "money that makes more money". Fred: If capital is defined as "money that makes more money" how can you ALSO claim that there is "constant capital"? > And I would argue that an advantage of my interpretation is that it > makes Marx's theory a logically consistent, without unsolved "logical > problems" that have to be dealt with. Why not give Marx the "benefit > of the doubt", instead of insisting on an interpretation for which > there remains unsolved logical problems? The same question has been asked repeatedly by Freeman and Kliman. Instead of asking "why not give Marx the benefit of the doubt?" you should have asked "Why not give *my interpretation* the benefit of the doubt?" since neither you nor Kliman nor Freeman (nor anyone else) can speak for Marx. I find the "why not give Marx the benefit of the doubt?" question to be similar to a claim that we "trust you", i.e. it embodies a presumption that Marx was the authority and that given two sets of claims (Marx was right or Marx was wrong) we should favor the interpretation that says that Marx was right. Why apply this standard to Marx alone? Why not say, for instance, that if there are two interpretations of Sraffa (one that says that Sraffa was right and the other that says that Sraffa was wrong) then we should give Sraffa "the benefit of the doubt" and favor the interpretation which says that Sraffa was right? The reason we shouldn't apply the "benefit of the doubt" argument to Marx, Sraffa, or ANYONE, is that we have to be CRITICAL OF *ALL*. *NO* authority -- Marx or anyone else -- is entitled to special, privileged treatment. In solidarity, Jerry
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