A reply to Jerry's ope-l 3212.
I think Duncan already answered the point about competition in a single
sector.
The rest of the post concerns whether Marx's Vol. I results for a single
capital carry over when multiple capitals and multiple sectors are considered,
and whether Ch. 9 of Vol. III is intended to show that. I say yes to both.
Jerry says no to both, but he offers no evidence for his interpretation. He
instead merely *presupposes* that Marx employed a particular methodology of
"levels of abstraction" or "levels of analysis," a methodology which is
inconsistent with my claims. I thought we knew that already. In any case,
Jerry is right, they are inconsistent.
We could continue arguing about "levels of abstraction," but I propose we talk
instead about the original issue: single and multiple capitals. My question
to Jerry is, how do you propose that my judgments and yours be TESTED? I have
sadly learned through many dialogues with many people that it is a monumental
waste of time to trot out quotations or marshal arguments which are then
dismissed with a wave of the hand. We first have to agree on how to decide
among judgments.
Andrew Kliman