I don't care whether OPEL archives are open or not. That
is why I have not paid much attention to this procedural
discussion. I am quite happy to have the archives open.
But I think that they should not be quoted without
permission from the author - in other words, treated
similar to draft papers. This should provide sufficient
protection for those who want to preserve the looseness
and informality of our discussions - including myself.
Just to briefly give my version of the "incident" to which
Andrew refers at last year's IWGVT. I do not know why
Andrew says that "personally attacked" him. I criticized
his interpretation of Marx's theory, as I have on many
other occasions. Why is this a "personal attack"?
Specifically, I said that I have presented substantial
textual evidence on OPEL that Marx assumed that
constant capital - both the stock and the flow of constant
capital - is valued at current reproduction costs, not at
historical costs, and that Andrew had not responded to
this evidence and I asked if Andrew would respond to
this evidence at that time. Andrew has interpreted my
comments as implying that:
I was unable to rebut his thoroughly devastating
evidence demolition of the TSS interpretation,
that I now knew my views to be false, and that I
illegitimately continued to voice them although I
knew they were false.
But this is not what I said, nor was it implied. I do not
expect to convince Andrew that his interpretation is
mistaken, although I think it is. I simply said that
Andrew had not YET responded to my evidence and asked
him to reply to it then. To which Andrew replied that I
was out of line for referring to OPEL.
Was I out of line? Because I care so little about this
issue, I confess that the question never occurred to me.
Even if it had occurred to me, I don't think I would have
concluded that the closed nature of the archives implied
that OPEL could never even be mentioned in public.
Referring to OPEL on this occasion was a kind of
shorthand. Rather than going back over all the textual
evidence I have presented, I just referred to it. Was this
out of line? I don't think so. But if so, then all the more
reason to open the archives, with the condition stated
above.
Comradely,
Fred