From: Anders Ekeland (anders.ekeland@ONLINE.NO)
Date: Fri Oct 26 2007 - 15:06:19 EDT
Hi Jerry, In my generation's Norwegian "autistisk" means, non-communicating, introvert, a person not relating really to others. No association to mental disorder actually, more like "nerd". But David Laibman's anecdote says it all - and I must add: why did not Sraffa just state those simple things more clearly in the opening pages. The intellectual history of the left would have been markedly different. What if Sraffa has said that Marx needed no corrections at all... If Laibman's anecdote is correct - Sraffa could have written Kliman's book - in a different manner, in a different language, but with the same basic points. Why on earth should a man - so well versed in the history of economic thought write a book, relating so little to the work of other economists - especially a minor Ricardian like Marx ;-) Why write a book that do not enter into dialogue with other points of view? Who was in a better position to write for example about the Ricardo - Marx relationship - so that Gary and I just could read an analysis from a man that had spent decades on Ricardo - and probably a sbustantial amount of hours also on Marx' relationship to Ricardo. That Sraffa suffered from severe problems of getting things down on paper is well known. Samuelson argues that Ronald Meek (if my memory is correct) actually wrote the introduction to Ricardo's Coll. Works. But still - why such a non-communicative book - after nearly forty years of silence? Regards Anders > > How is > > it possible to write such a book - and not relate more explicitly to > > the history of economic ideas, where this book places itself in the > > theoretical landscape etc. etc. > > >I think that's one of its chief advantages. It's concise nature keeps the >readers' focus on the most important qestions of theory from the author's >perspective and thus prevents readers from being side-tracked into obscure >history of thought issues. In any event, this is a question associated >with the *form of exposition*. One can make no inferences >about a writer's ability to critique other perspectives and grasp of the >history of thought based merely on the absence of that material in a >particular writing. As we all know, one of Sraffa's strong points was as >a historian of economic thought so his not going into the history of >thought in _PCBMOC_ shows basically nothing about the author or the book. I have no time to enter into a discussion of PCBMOC, but I am not at all convinced by your arguments. The title is a Prelude to the critique of political economy - and then I expect a bit more about what is coming next, what is "political economy" >In solidarity, Jerry
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