A response to Allin (ope-l:1049)
Doesn't Marx say the commodity contains dead labor? Isn't dead labor
required for production in his theory?
Anyone on the list, or off, is free to think that this is sophistry. What
they are not free to do is to reject the TSS interpretation *as an
interpretation of Marx's value theory* because they don't like the
implications. This interpretation makes sense out of his value theory,
it conforms with what he said (although maybe not what others have
thought he said), and it replicates all his theoretical conclusions
that other interpretations cannot.
Why don't those who have a different view of labor embodied just say
that their theory differs from Marx's? It would make things a lot less
confusing if disagreements were expressed openly instead of being
portrayed as differences of interpretation. Of course there can really
be differences of interpretation, but an adequate interpretation must
be able to make sense of the text *as a whole*. When an interpretation
cannot even get close, then it seems to me the time has come for its
proponents to forthrightly acknowledge their theoretical differences
with the author.
Andrew Kliman