> Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 18:33:51 +0100
> From: "jurriaan bendien" <Jbendien@globalxs.nl>
> To: <ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu>
> Subject: Re: Laibman said what?
Jurriaan writes:
> I think what Andrew Kliman objects to is that some authors use
> the gaps and ambiguities in Marxs texts as an opportunity to
> create new theorems of their own and present those as "what Marx
> would have said", even though the textual evidence might suggest
> otherwise.
I fully agree with Jurriaan. This is precisely the point. However, I
think Jurriaan underestimate the problem. For example, Bortkiewicz or
Tugan never clarify that what they are presenting is an
*intepretation* of Marx''s text, i.e. they don''t use the caveat
"what Marx would have said", Jurriaan mentions.
The procedure is rather the following:
1) They "create new theorems", as Jurriaan says.
2) They attribute these "theorems" to Marx.
3) They discover that these "theorems" are inconsistent with other
Marx''s statements.
4) They conclude that Marx''s theory is internally inconsistent.
This is clearly the case of the so-called "transformation problem"
which is a creation by Tugan, Bortkiewicz (and others), which actually
has no support in Marx text.
Alejandro Ramos