[OPE] FWD: Question about books that are sound introductions t o eco nomics

--- original message ---
From: "Paul Cockshott" <wpc@dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: [OPE] Question about books that are sound introductions to eco nomics
Date: 19th September 2010
Time: 11:10:07 am

He was not wanting refs to economics books for the project he is currently working on, but more as background reading to understand the current world economic situation.
On the more general issue of labour value accounting though , the aim is to get rid of exploitation according to the suggestions of Marx in the Critique of the Gotha programme.
Venezuela is obviusly still a long way from the first phase of communism, but if Marx is to bebelieved, then to get there you have to institute a system of payment of the full value added by labour, this implies replacing money with a system of labour credits so that for marginal hours labour you get back from society goods that took an hour to make.
--- original message ---
From: "paul bullock" <paulbullock@ebms-ltd.co.uk>
Subject: Re: [OPE] Question about books that are sound introductions to economics
Date: 19th September 2010
Time: 10:09:20 am

Paul, why not try to be socialist? Ask him why he doesn’t start with the nutritional needs of the workers , generally as family and other communal units, and work backwards to the amount of resources and labour that is needed at the present levels of applied science to meet those needs. Then a political decision can be made about applying resources. This then should automatically lead to ongoing research programmes/ natural science/ management and engineering sciences/ into ‘maximising’ desired outputs from various inputs.

I don’t understand all this stuff about ‘using’... ‘labour value accounting’.. we aren’t trying to maintain a process of exchange, based on exploitation are we?

Paul Bullock

From: ope-bounces@lists.csuchico.edu [mailto:ope-bounces@lists.csuchico.edu] On Behalf Of ROY GRIEVE
Sent: 06 September 2010 15:59
To: Outline on Political Economy mailing list
Subject: Re: [OPE] Question about books that are sound introductions to economics

Paul,

For a general impression of what economics is about, I am inclined to think that your guy from Venezuela could do a lot worse than go back to basics in the form of some of the key passages of the Wealth of Nations. That introduction could usefully be complemented by A K Das Gupta's little volume Epochs of Economic Theory.

Roy Grieve

--- On Mon, 6/9/10, Paul Cockshott <wpc@dcs.gla.ac.uk> wrote:

From: Paul Cockshott <wpc@dcs.gla.ac.uk>
Subject: [OPE] Question about books that are sound introductions to economics
To: "'Outline on Political Economy mailing list'" <ope@lists.csuchico.edu>
Date: Monday, 6 September, 2010, 12:38
I am collaborating with a guy in Venezuela who is working on a project to introduce labour value accounting into the food supply chain there and he keeps asking me economics questions which I do my best to answer, but he has floored me with this one:
"By the way, talking about economics. What books do you suggest I can read to deepen this topic (contemporary economy)? I was reading Samuelson and Nordhaus book."

How would list members respond. The guy is not trained in economics.

The University of Glasgow, charity number SC004401
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Received on Sun Sep 19 06:28:17 2010