> Although Jurriaan does not cite my name, it seems clear that his comments
> were addressed to me. [...] So, at the best, I'm a doctrinaire, at worst
a Stalinist.
No, I am not accusing Eduardo of either. If I did, I would have said so
explicitly. But I haven't read Eduardo's paper, so I cannot very well
evaluate it.
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 fond of.
>
Which "concentration-profitability" hypothesis am I supposed to be fond of
?
The argument [of "orthodox Marxism"] 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 is certainly not the case in Prof. Mandel's argument which I referred
to, which is in fact a critique of Baran & Sweezy and the "state monopoly
capitalism" school.
> 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 (phenomenal) changes of capitalism are due to the operation of
the
> sames laws derived by Marx (i.e. accumulation 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.
>
I'm inclined to agree with that, although I think there is a lot of more
say about capitalist civilisation than Marx said.
Regards
Jurriaan Bendien.