Re: [OPE] Reply to critics

> If we want to examine those assumptions and escape circular reasoning we
> need to, eg, be able to explain the case of the insurance industry in a
> satisfactory way.
 
Hi Paula:
 
I did that - repeatedly. I haven't heard you say much of anything concretely about the insurance
sector. You have primarily limited your role to asking questions.

 
> But the rise of the service
> economy is one of the most important economic trends of recent times, it
> deserves our attention and a better discussion than we've had here.
 
Yes, that's true. That's one of the reasons I have been so insistent that services can constitute
commodities - and I have repeatedly specified the conditions in which they can. I don't
see how you can make sense out of this trend and its meaning for late capitalism if one
insists that all service workers are unproductive (of surplus value). And you haven't
enlightened me on the implications of your perspective on the laws of motion of capitalism.
 

> I'm not aware of any important, recent literature that develops
> this perspective further.
 
Well, thanks anyway.
 
> The tendency in mainstream economics has been to
> blur the distinction between goods and services and to consider all of them
> equally as 'products', and it seems that Marxists are following along this
> route to a greater or lesser degree. This is all what we'd expect in an
> economy increasingly dominated by services.
 
Actually, I think it was mainstream economics which _introduced_ the
distinction between goods and services. Did Smith or Marx, for instance, talk about
the production of 'goods' under capitalism?

In solidarity, Jerry

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Received on Wed Nov 10 17:52:20 2010