Although Jurriaan does not cite my name, it seems clear that his comments
were addressed to me. In his post, as I read it, Jurriaan is (implictly)
arguing that behind my rejection of the concept of market structure there
is a position that "under the guise of 'orthodoxy' wants to deny socialists
the right to develop Marx's theoretical legacy critically"; that "Marx was
allowed to innovate and criticise, but nobody else is allowed to that - the
bible has already been written, as it were" and last, but not the least,
that my rejection of this concept implies "simply {in] deny[ing] their
reality [i.e., the modern facts and concepts] in a doctrinarie or Stalinist
manner". So, at the best, I'm a doctrinaire, at worst a Stalinist. Since I
consider myself neither, I must directly to respond to Jurriaan. Moreover,
it seems that Jurriaan made an "heroic" logical argument: from my rejection
of "market structure" concept he was led to conclude that this rejection is
based on the denial of the reality (quite on the contrary, as I will
discuss below) in a doctrinaire or Stalinist manner.
I would like to make the following (brief) comments:
1) my statement that "market structure is a concept which
foreign to marxian (and classical) framework of analysis", and contrary to
what Jurriaan is assuming, is not based on a defense of the "orthodoxy" nor
was
it simply a 'denial of their reality in a doctrinaire or Stalinist manner'.
Quite on the contrary, it was based on a critical evaluation of the
neoclassical, post-Marxist/post-Keynesian and marxian theories of
competition and also on an extensive review of the empirical literature for
the US and Brazilian economies. My conclusions might be wrong, my
understanding flawed, but they are based on theoretical and empirical
knowledege, and not on doctrine or in the interest to "deny other
socialists the right to develop Marx's theoretical legacy critically", as
Jurriaan atributes (implictly) to me.
2) the main reason why the concept of market structure (I'm talking about
concepts, not terms) is incompatible with marxian theory is because the
former is a static notion whereas in the latter competition is viewed as a
dynamic process. The second reason is related with the empirical evidence
available for the US economy which shows that within industries profit rate
differentials are persistent and between industries profit rates tend to be
equalize. Moreover, my empirical study on profit rate differentials for the
Brazilian economy is consistent with Marx's theory and is inconsistent with
the prediction of the concentration-profitability hypothesis that Jurriaan
is so found of.
3) the concepts of "market structure", "market power", "entry barriers" and
"oligopolies" were in fact long ago incorporated into "orthodox marxism"
(i.e., Marxist-Leninist Theory), as well as in other mainstream marxist
school of thought (e.g., monopoly capital school). The argument is that
Marx's theory of competition was valid for the competitive stage of
capitalism (which was the characteristic of the capitalism in Marx's time),
but it is not anymore relevant in the stage of monopoly capitalism. As
consequence, they proposed to incorporate the new "laws of compettion",
which were developed by "bourgeois economics", into Marx's framework. This
standpoint is now the "orthodoxy" among many marxists.
4) it seems to me that is very interesting that to defend Marx's theory
based on logical and empirical grounds is regarded as a defense of an
"orthodoxy" (that in fact
never really existed, because marxist long ago dismissed it as empirically
inconsistent), whereas the defence of the traditional and old
post-Marxist/post-Keynesian static theory of competition is presented by
Jurriaan as innovative and open-minded. Well, it seems to me that the idea
that the "bible has already been written" could more aptly to be applied to
those who negates others to criticise the post-Marxist/post-Keynesian
approach than to those that are critically reexaming Marx's and Marxists
theories.
5) Jurriaan wrote:
" Real mastery of Marx's method means not dismissing concepts such as
"market structure", "product differentiation", or "entry barriers" and so
forth as being "unMarxist", "bourgeois", "neoclassical" etc., but rather
showing
where they DO fit into the framework of Marx's critique of bourgeois
economic conceptions - to be sure, on the foundation of a real
understanding of Marx's own argument, as Jerry might say. That is the
only way the Marxist critique of class society can stay alive and
relevant."
My point is precisely that these concepts DO NOT FIT into marxian dynamic
framework. Moreover, from Marx's theory we can easily develop the necessary
concepts to empirically analylize reality. So why try import incompatible
concepts if no need exist for it?
6) finally, let comment the following Jurriaan's statement:
"Nevertheless innovation is essential, and we get nowhere
with pretending capitalism today is the same as it was a hundred years
ago."
It seems to me alright to innovate - when necessary - and to develop
further Marx's theory. But the relevant question, in my opinion, is: the
visible (phenomenic) changes of capitalism are due to the operation of the
sames laws derived by Marx (i.e. accumulatiion and competition explain
these phenomenic changes) or are they the results of changes in these laws
(i.e., the phenomenic changes end up - in dialectical? - manner changing
the inner laws of capitalism? My answer, based on what I have learn so far,
is that the same laws (which were basically derived by Marx) explain most
of the phenomenic changes of capitalism.
Eduardo
>
> Jerry writes:
>
> even though terms like "market structure",
> > "market power", "entry barriers", and "oligopolies" were developed by
> > neoclassical economists, this does not mean that we should not use
these
> > terms.
>
> I fully agree with Jerry in this. Marx himself said that he contributed
> very little that was really new to political economy beyond some crucial
> conceptual innovations such as the distinction between labour and labour
> power, abstract and concrete labour, the reduction of profit, rent and
> interest to the general category surplus-value, and a consistent idea of
> the equalisation of the rate of profit. That is to say, Marx took the
> concepts of "bourgeois" political economy and through critique and
> synethesis put them together in a different and more consistent way,
> showing that this led to conclusions intolerable to the bourgeois
thinkers
> themselves, which is why they lapsed into ideological apology.
>
> That was the whole strength of Marx's method - he didn't "intuit" his
> concepts as a Weberian sociologist might do in devising some fairly
> arbitrary "ideal type" typology, rather Marx started out from the real
> world: he used the concepts and categories that were ACTUALLY USED in
> business, politics and popular discussion, and critically inspected them,
> to give them their proper place in the theory of bourgeois (market)
> society. And in Capital he was even very careful to insert footnotes to
> show "who said it first". Marx's Capital was thus built on very solid
> theoretical and historical foundations, on the whole history of political
> economy, hence impossible to refute decisively.
>
> Curiously though there is a whole school of Marxist thought which, under
> the guise of "orthodoxy" wants to deny socialists the right to develop
> Marx's theoretical legacy critically, in response to the widely used
> concepts and categories OF TODAY, which DIFFER in many respects from
Marx's
> time. This is an approach which I think goes against Marx's own approach
-
> the sort of thing that led him to say "I am not a Marxist".
>
> For example, Paul Mattick (in Crisis and Crisis Theories) accuses fellow
> Marxist Prof. Ernest Mandel of introducing concepts of "bourgeois
> economics" into Marxism. In other words, Marx was allowed to innovate and
> criticise, but nobody else is allowed to do that - the bible has already
> been written, as it were ! This sort of criticism seems to me facile,
> contrary to Marx's method, and indeed to ignore that non-Marxist
economists
> since Marx's time have made valid and pertinent contributions to
> understanding economic life. Now you might argue some of Prof. Mandel's
> innovations are not really consistent with Marx's theory, or wrong, but
> that is another story. The least that can be said for Mandel is that he
did
> make a major attempt to integrate the modern economic facts and concepts
in
> Marxist theory, rather than simply deny their reality in a doctrinaire or
> Stalinist manner.
>
> Admittedly many latter-day "innovations" aren't really innovations, but
> mistakes or things which were already said before. It's a funny thing to
> read for example in Howard & King's two-volume dismissal of Marxist
> "orthodoxies" so many elementary schoolboy errors of interpretation of
> Marx's theory. Nevertheless innovation is essential, and we get nowhere
> with pretending capitalism today is the same as it was a hundred years
ago.
>
>
> Real mastery of Marx's method means not dismissing concepts such as
"market
> structure", "product differentiation", or "entry barriers" and so forth
as
> being "unMarxist", "bourgeois", "neoclassical" etc., but rather showing
> where they DO fit into the framework of Marx's critique of bourgeois
> economic conceptions - to be sure, on the foundation of a real
> understanding of Marx's own argument, as Jerry might say. That is the
only
> way the Marxist critique of class society can stay alive and relevant.
>
> Regards
>
> Jurriaan Bendien
>
>
>
>
>