Next message: Michael Perelman: "[OPE-L:3969] Re: More on negative surplus value"
Next message: Michael Perelman: "[OPE-L:3969] Re: More on negative surplus value"
Next message: Michael Perelman: "[OPE-L:3969] Re: More on negative surplus value"
Next message: Michael Perelman: "[OPE-L:3969] Re: More on negative surplus value"
Next message: Michael Perelman: "[OPE-L:3969] Re: More on negative surplus value"
Next message: Michael Perelman: "[OPE-L:3969] Re: More on negative surplus value"
Next message: Michael Perelman: "[OPE-L:3969] Re: More on negative surplus value"
Next message: Michael Perelman: "[OPE-L:3969] Re: More on negative surplus value"
Next message: Michael Perelman: "[OPE-L:3969] Re: More on negative surplus value"
Next message: Michael Perelman: "[OPE-L:3969] Re: More on negative surplus value"
Next message: Michael Perelman: "[OPE-L:3969] Re: More on negative surplus value"
Next message: Michael Perelman: "[OPE-L:3969] Re: More on negative surplus value"
Next message: Michael Perelman: "[OPE-L:3969] Re: More on negative surplus value"
Next message: Michael Perelman: "[OPE-L:3969] Re: More on negative surplus value"
Next message: Michael Perelman: "[OPE-L:3969] Re: More on negative surplus value"
Next message: Michael Perelman: "[OPE-L:3969] Re: More on negative surplus value"
Next message: Michael Perelman: "[OPE-L:3969] Re: More on negative surplus value"
Next message: Michael Perelman: "[OPE-L:3969] Re: More on negative surplus value"
Next message: Michael Perelman: "[OPE-L:3969] Re: More on negative surplus value"
Next message: Michael Perelman: "[OPE-L:3969] Re: More on negative surplus value"
Next message: Michael Perelman: "[OPE-L:3969] Re: More on negative surplus value"
Next message: Michael Perelman: "[OPE-L:3969] Re: More on negative surplus value"
Next message: Michael Perelman: "[OPE-L:3969] Re: More on negative surplus value"
Next message: Michael Perelman: "[OPE-L:3969] Re: More on negative surplus value"
Next message: Michael Perelman: "[OPE-L:3969] Re: More on negative surplus value"
Next message: Michael Perelman: "[OPE-L:3969] Re: More on negative surplus value"
Next message: Michael Perelman: "[OPE-L:3969] Re: More on negative surplus value"
Next message: Michael Perelman: "[OPE-L:3969] Re: More on negative surplus value"
Previous message: Gerald Levy: "[OPE-L:3967] Re: More on negative surplus value"
What Gil's ope-l 3966 forgets is that his post (3963), to which I responded
(3965), was itself a response to me (3962). It is true that my 3965 didn't
always respond directly to the issues that Gil posed in 3963, but that is
because his 3963 went a bit off the track of my 3962. My 3965, however, was
in direct continuity with the issue I first raised in 3962, which started the
discussion. Is it diversionary to stick to the original issue rather than
let Gil set the terms of debate?
What must be remembered is that my comment in 3962,
"Such is the nature of the 'defenses' of Marx's _Capital_ one gets once one
fragments it into bits and picks and chooses the parts one likes (oh, excuse
me, the parts in which he didn't make an 'error'),"
which provoked Gil's 3963, was a comment on the "Fundamental Marxian [sic]
Theorem" and the milieu in which it arose. A lot is involved here, but at
the risk of seriously vulgarizing, let me just note that the "FM [sic] T" came
to public attention at a moment when the professional Marx-critics, such as
Bortkiewicz and Samuelson and those in between them, had succeeded in
discrediting Marx's value theory. A number of things in _Capital_ always came
under attack, but the value theory was always reviled, even among otherwise
sympathetic Marx-critics like Robinson. One reason for this is that the value
theory exudes Hegelianism and that this type of Marx-critic is invariably a
scientific empiricist (positivist). Between the supposedly devastating proofs
of Marx's errors, and the desire to remake _Capital_ into a respectably
positivistic text, a variety of projects got underway that fragmented the
whole, chose parts that were deemed acceptable (not in "error"), discarded or
revised the rest, and came up with something new. Similar things continue to
go on today. And they have gone on and go on not only in economics, but also
disciplines like sociology and especially philosophy.
Now, Samuelson's eraser theorem, which later became known under Steedman as
"redundancy," delivered a death blow to simultaneist value theory (though this
was not clearly recognized, even by Samuelson, who seems to have thought it
had to do instead with price/value differences). But, almost immediately,
along comes the "FM [sic] T," which demonstrated a vaguely Marx-like result in
a non-Marx-like --- respectably positivist and non-value-theoretic --- way.
Having nothing else on which to cling, a lot of people enshrined a harmless
bit of math (which folks like Samuelson simply, rightly, shrugged aside) with
near-magical significance. Didn't everyone already know that the wage bill
will be less than the net product iff non-wage income is positive?
Thus, commenting on the milieu that led to the "FM [sic] T" and the milieu in
which it gained an exaggerated importance, I wrote
"Such is the nature of the 'defenses' of Marx's _Capital_ one gets once one
fragments it into bits and picks and chooses the parts one likes (oh, excuse
me, the parts in which he didn't make an 'error')."
Now, read with this historical context in mind, my supposedly "irrelevan[t]"
and "red herring" comments can be understood as very much to the point. It
put Gil's aspersions on the use of language and logic by a certain unnamed
person or persons in the context of the "FM [sic] T" and that which led to it:
"I am proud to say that I do indeed have a higher standard of what constitutes
a proof of logical inconsistency than do the professional Marx-bashers. Do
you really think, Gil, that Bortkiewicz 'proved,' as he claimed to have done,
that Marx's account of the value/production price transformation involved a
self-contradiction? Is it up to the standard of, say, Debreu's proof of the
existence of a competitive general equilibrium?"
This comment places the "logic" issue in the historical context with which
this discussion first began. Marx's value theory gets discredited on
"logical" grounds by professional Marx-bashers, in a way that wouldn't have
taken place had Bortkiewicz and his ilk really been made to prove their
claims, and discredited to the degree that things like the "FM [sic] T" are
held to be important "defenses" of _Capital_. It is not irrelevant; it is
not a red herring; it deals with the original issue.
Ironically, Gil writes that "Well, yes, if the errors, holes and
incompleteness are really 'nonexistent,' then these criticisms are simply
hindrances. But that begs the question,
doesn't it[?]"
Yes, it would beg the question were I to have merely ASSERTED that the proofs
of Marx's errors, etc. were nonexistent. But on this list and elsewhere, I've
discussed these issues, and the methodology by which "internal" inconsistency
is shown, at considerable length. In my discussion with Gil, in order to NOT
beg the question, but to engage it, I focused on the historically most
important "proof" of Marx's error, and the one which gave rise to almost all
of the other proofs of error (since it gave rise to dualism and simultaneism
at the same time), that of Bortkiewicz. Since, again, we were talking (at
least I was) about the "FM [sic] T" and the milieu in which it arose, this is
certainly a germane case to examine in order to determine whether Marx's
"error" was proved, as Bortkiewicz claimed. And so, in order not merely to
assert, or to beg the question, but to engage it, I asked Gil what he thought
about Bortkiewicz's "proof." Whereupon he calls the question a "complete red
herring." Yet, when I then mention nonexistent errors, I'm the one allegedly
begging the question!
What is it that you want, Gil? To discuss Bortkiewicz's "proof" or not to
discuss it?
Gil ends his post with
"if this is how attempts at a reasoned discussion about Marx are going to be
answered, I'll pass on future exchanges, too.
"Over and out"
which seems to indicate that he is cutting off discussion. Well I'm happy to
end discussion of this particular issue, because it seems that Gil just
doesn't want to discuss the history and typical standards of Marx-critique,
and their consequences, which is what I've been talking about all along. But
I certainly hope that Gil is not going to cut off discussion entirely, because
he's facing two pretty cool posts from me on other matters, his answers to
which I'm eagerly awaiting:
* Can a rising VCC ITSELF lead to a lower rate of profit in simultaneist value
theory, as it can in the successivist interpretation of Marx's value theory,
and in Marx's value theory itself? Or is Frank Thompson's theorem a beautiful
example of the incompatibility of Marx's value theory and simultaneism?
* Did Gil produce an example of a "spurious at best" claim about supposedly
intrinsic features of simultaneism?
* Does the presence of some futures markets for some commodities in the "real
capitalist world" mean that we have to assume input and output prices are
equal if we are talking about the "real capitalist world'?
* Am I required to state that I am not postulating the existence of conditions
that do not exist in the real world?
* Is simultaneism logically suspect because it lets the same commodity, at one
single moment, have two different prices?
STILL awaiting Gil's reply on these other matters,
Andrew Kliman