From: Jerry Levy (Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Fri Mar 16 2007 - 12:42:44 EDT
> Well they can speak for themselves, but I think there is a sense in which > they engage in a sort of Althusserian "ideological class struggle". Hi Jurriaan: Neither Freeman nor Kliman (nor any of the other TSST authors?) are inclined towards Althusserian perspectives. They have, instead, argued as follows (I am paraphrasing): once it has been shown that Marx's quantitative theory is free of internal inconsistencies, then his theory can be free to stand on its own merits. Somehow they think that this is an important practical political task. Yet, imo, they fail to recognize some realities: e.g. how few people there are outside of a small proportion of economists and graduate students who know or care what the "transformation problem" or the "Okishio Theorem" is. To the extent that Marx and Marxism has been mis-understood and rejected by working people, it has been related to far different (more practical and historical) beliefs and practices. They are so caught up in their own small world of Marxian economists (even though they don't recognize the reality that they _are_ Marxian economists; the Marxian economists in their world view are the others who fail to recognize their "Copernican" advances in thought and seek to "suppress" them) that they don't recognize this. > In the case of Dr Carchedi, who belongs to neither tradition, > he wrote to me "First, Sraffa's critique of marginalism does not > vindicate > Marx, on the contrary. Second, Marx does not need Sraffa to criticize > marginalism. Thus, what is the importance of Sraffa (for Marx)?" The question shouldn't be what is the importance of Sraffa for Marx or vice versa. The question should be what is the importance of Sraffa or Marx (or anyone else) for *us*. > and: > "Jurriaan, take your time to think about temporalism versus simultaneism. > I am confident you will realize that simultaneism, Sraffianism, etc. are > totally alien to Marx's project." Well, of course, you can and should take your time if you want more time. Do not think that you have to take a position on the TSST simply because of what I have written. I don't know, though, that I like the inference by Mino that something should be rejected if it can be shown to be "totally alien to Marx's project" (assuming that there is agreement -- which there is not -- on what Marx's project was). In solidarity, Jerry
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