A reply to Allin's reply to my (Andrew's) post. Mine was ope-l 1081, his
1087.
First, Allin brushes off my lengthy and detailed comments on how to read
Marx by saying his (Allin's) remarks that the opponents of the TSS
interpretation have a "natural" reading and we have an unnatural one
was begging the question. But he immediately takes it back, and tries
to buck up the spirits of the anti-TSS troops, by saying that many
people can tell a forced from an unforced reading.
I consider this a wholly inadequate and unresponsive reply. I ask him to
deal with the substance of my remarks in 1087.
Instead, Allin brushes past all this in order to change the topic. I've
noticed a lot of topic-changing going on recently. When you can't
rebut my argument, ignore it, and lodge a different objection. What,
so you can wear me down and hope I'll shut up? For instance, has
anyone refuted, or conversely conceded, that simultaneous valuation is
incompatible with the determination of value by labor-time? No.
Has anyone refuted the claim that the TSS interpretation vindicates
the internal coherence of Marx's theoretical conclusions far more than
any other interpretation, or, conversely, conceded the validity of the
claim. No. People just fall back on the old stuff about not finding
the meaning the TSS interpretation gives to Marx's arguments plausible.
Of course you don't--because it is so contrary to yours.
As to Allin's reinterpretation of pp. 264-65 of Vol. III, it doesn't
work. The reason is that Marx doesn't have two systems of values and
prices the way you do. A commodity's production price is
c+v+p
and its value is
c+v+s
and the cost price (c+v) is common to both. Allin's interpretation
presumes a different c+v for values than for production prices.
I'll be off the net until Tuesday, back then.
Andrew Kliman