Re: Engels' (non)reply to Wicksteed
"'To-Day' has become a mere 'symposium', i.e. a review in which everyone can write for and against socialism. Next No. a critique of 'Capital'! I was supposed to reply to this anonymous writer, but declined with thanks." -- Engels to Kautsky, Sept. 20, 1884. I've read Wicksteed's critique of Capital now and, interestingly, it rests upon the presumed identity of meaning between 'value' and exchange value, against which Marx issued a disclaimer on page 152 (Vintage) and which came up recently on Pen-l in the comments about Charles Andrews' book. In the absense of a reply from Engels, George Bernard Shaw wrote an utterly inadequate, although charmingly ill-informed response to Wicksteed. Poor Shaw was way over his head. Wicksteed didn't say much about rent in his critique of Marx. He dealt specifically with the labour theory of value. In his critique, Wicksteed identified what he believed was a formal and substantive error in passing "unwarrantably and without warning, from one category inot another, when he makes the great leap from specific utilities into objectivised abstract labour and has give us an argument which can only become formally correct when so modified and supplemented as to accept *abstract utility* as the measure of value." Wicksteed then went on to make the suggested 'modification' by interjecting Jevon's analysis of marginal utility. On the basis of this substitution of Jevons for Marx, Wicksteed concluded that "value does not depend upon the 'amount of labour contained,' and does not always coincide with it. . . [Except when] labour can be freely directed to the production of A or B optionally." According to Wicksteed, labour power does not possess the foregoing characteristic, and hence its value doesn't necessarily coincide with the amount of labour contained in it. It appears that in this conclusion, Wicksteed fumbled the distinction established by Marx between labour and labour power. The long Jevonian detour thus established nothing other than to prepare the ground for a last ditch confusion. Wicksteed seems to have forgotten that labour power can be withheld as well as expended. Once that potential is factored in, labour power does possess the characteristic of being directed to the production of "A" or "B" -- that is, to labour or leisure, a trade-off about which Jevons himself had something or other to say (although not by any stretch the last word).
Re: Engels' (non)reply to Wicksteed
This "classic (marginal) utilitarian defence of equality" is precisely the invideous "comparison" that the mathematically obsessed wunderkinder of the 1930s (e.g. Bergson, Samuelson) banished from the social welfare function and replaced with Pareto optimality as the "ethical test". There is a comic "Mr. and Mrs. Vinegar" aspect to the series of substitutions that lead from an aversion to class analysis to the idea of "distributional justice" then to the notion that economic expansion will help the poor without taking from the rich and ultimately back to the social Darwinist apologetics of blaming the victim. Mr. and Mrs. Vinegar is a nursery tale about a foolish man who buys a cow but then trades his cow for a bagpipe, then trades the bagpipe for a pair of gloves, trades the gloves for a stick and finally throws the stick at a bird who is laughing at him for his foolishness. Michael Perelman quoted, http://www.qut.edu.au/arts/human/ethics/conf/flat.htm A relatively large number of references to distributional issues can be found in Wicksteeds non-economic works in this later period. It is of some interest to record, for example, Wicksteeds views of the distribution of income at about the time of the publication of An essay on the co-ordination of the laws of distribution in 1894. In the following year, Wicksteed in his short paper The advent of the people provides support for a more equal distribution of wealth. In so doing he presents the classic (marginal) utilitarian defence of greater equality:
Engels' (non)reply to Wicksteed
"'To-Day' has become a mere 'symposium', i.e. a review in which everyone can write for and against socialism. Next No. a critique of 'Capital'! I was supposed to reply to this anonymous writer, but declined with thanks." -- Engels to Kautsky, Sept. 20, 1884. The critique in question was titled "Das Kapital. A Criticism by Philip H. Wicksteed". Does anyone happen to have an electronic copy of that article on hand that they could send me or know of the location of one on the web? I've already searched to no avail. Wicksteed's 1910 textbook, "The Common Sense of Political Economy", contains the most extraordinarily ornate and long-winded discussion of what he eventually admits to being reluctant to call the market for labour. This discussion concludes with a bizarre five-paragraph tirade against the "lump-of-labour" mentality of the working classes, the point of which would seem to be that, "When we understand that local distress is incidental to general progress, we shall not indeed try to stay general progress in order to escape the local distress, but we shall try to mitigate the local distress by diverting to its relief some portion of the general access of wealth to which it is incidental." I can't help but get the feeling, reading Chapter 8 of Wicksteed's textbook, that the poor sot "meant well". Wicksteed seems to be engaging a characteristically Fabian "rhetoric of courtship" -- conceding the "economic" ground to the most reactionary and rapacious representatives of capital in order that he may, at the last instance, append a plea for enlighted compassion as the best way of combatting such "misdirected sympathies" and "anti-social ways". Seen in this light, the third way politics of Blair, Giddens et.al., is classic Fabianism reduced to its absurd (and Orwellian!) conclusion -- a rhetoric that absolutely identifies reactionary means with "progressive" ends. In other words, I regret that Engels didn't reply. I suspect that Wicksteed missed the point about the labour theory of value and demolished a straw man of his own construction.
Re: Engels' (non)reply to Wicksteed
As I recall this devastating critique of Marx, Wicksteed concentrated on Marx's lack of the theory of rent. I suspect that he never saw volume 3. "'To-Day' has become a mere 'symposium', i.e. a review in which everyone can write for and against socialism. Next No. a critique of 'Capital'! I was supposed to reply to this anonymous writer, but declined with thanks." -- Engels to Kautsky, Sept. 20, 1884. The critique in question was titled "Das Kapital. A Criticism by Philip H. Wicksteed". Does anyone happen to have an electronic copy of that article on hand that they could send me or know of the location of one on the web? I've already searched to no avail. Wicksteed's 1910 textbook, "The Common Sense of Political Economy", contains the most extraordinarily ornate and long-winded discussion of what he eventually admits to being reluctant to call the market for labour. This discussion concludes with a bizarre five-paragraph tirade against the "lump-of-labour" mentality of the working classes, the point of which would seem to be that, "When we understand that local distress is incidental to general progress, we shall not indeed try to stay general progress in order to escape the local distress, but we shall try to mitigate the local distress by diverting to its relief some portion of the general access of wealth to which it is incidental." I can't help but get the feeling, reading Chapter 8 of Wicksteed's textbook, that the poor sot "meant well". Wicksteed seems to be engaging a characteristically Fabian "rhetoric of courtship" -- conceding the "economic" ground to the most reactionary and rapacious representatives of capital in order that he may, at the last instance, append a plea for enlighted compassion as the best way of combatting such "misdirected sympathies" and "anti-social ways". Seen in this light, the third way politics of Blair, Giddens et.al., is classic Fabianism reduced to its absurd (and Orwellian!) conclusion -- a rhetoric that absolutely identifies reactionary means with "progressive" ends. In other words, I regret that Engels didn't reply. I suspect that Wicksteed missed the point about the labour theory of value and demolished a straw man of his own construction. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Engels' (non)reply to Wicksteed
Michael Perelman wrote, As I recall this devastating critique of Marx, Wicksteed concentrated on Marx's lack of the theory of rent. I suspect that he never saw volume 3. Volume III was published in 1894, Vol. II in 1885. Therefore, Wicksteed could only have seen Volume I. (Unless Engels showed him the unpublished manuscripts ;-)) So I take it from the discrepency between the superlative adjective and the narrow focus that you weren't impressed? In his introduction to the collected works, Steedman writes that "some writers have regarded Bohm Bawerks later attack on the labour theory of value, of 1896, as inferior to that of Wicksteed."
Re: Re: Engels' (non)reply to Wicksteed
At 07:00 PM 10/19/2000 -0700, you wrote: Michael Perelman wrote, As I recall this devastating critique of Marx, Wicksteed concentrated on Marx's lack of the theory of rent. I suspect that he never saw volume 3. Volume III was published in 1894, Vol. II in 1885. Therefore, Wicksteed could only have seen Volume I. (Unless Engels showed him the unpublished manuscripts ;-)) So I take it from the discrepency between the superlative adjective and the narrow focus that you weren't impressed? In his introduction to the collected works, Steedman writes that "some writers have regarded Bohm Bawerk's later attack on the labour theory of value, of 1896, as inferior to that of Wicksteed." if I remember correctly, if you look at Steedman's cases of "negative values with positive prices and negative surplus value with positive profits," they are cases in which there is economic rent, but that Steedman had a different definition of value (and thus of surplus-value) than Marx. See the Mandel Freeman volume. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
Re: Re: Engels' (non)reply to Wicksteed
http://www.qut.edu.au/arts/human/ethics/conf/flat.htm A relatively large number of references to distributional issues can be found in Wicksteeds non-economic works in this later period. It is of some interest to record, for example, Wicksteeds views of the distribution of income at about the time of the publication of An essay on the co-ordination of the laws of distribution in 1894. In the following year, Wicksteed in his short paper The advent of the people provides support for a more equal distribution of wealth. In so doing he presents the classic (marginal) utilitarian defence of greater equality: "a more even distribution of wealth would obviously relieve misery so intense that it would be more than a compensation for the loss of enjoyment at the other end by which it would have to be purchased By a well-known law that lies at the basis of all sound consideration of social phenomena, each successive application of wealth to the supply of the wants of the same individual becomes less and less effective as a producer of satisfaction." (Wicksteed 1895) Wicksteeds paper also presents an interesting account of a standard for a just distribution of wealth. The point of interest is that the account of justice presented combines Wicksteeds interest in medieval studies and his adherence to the marginalist method. Wicksteed indicates that the medieval conception of justice consists in the presentation by man of that balance established by God and nature between capacities and opportunities. He goes on to add that if we look at society as it now is we see capacities starved of opportunity alike by excess and by defect of wealth, and our cry for justice is not a cry for a dead level, but a cry for the opening up of opportunities. Tom Walker wrote: Michael Perelman wrote, As I recall this devastating critique of Marx, Wicksteed concentrated on Marx's lack of the theory of rent. I suspect that he never saw volume 3. Volume III was published in 1894, Vol. II in 1885. Therefore, Wicksteed could only have seen Volume I. (Unless Engels showed him the unpublished manuscripts ;-)) So I take it from the discrepency between the superlative adjective and the narrow focus that you weren't impressed? In his introduction to the collected works, Steedman writes that "some writers have regarded Bohm Bawerks later attack on the labour theory of value, of 1896, as inferior to that of Wicksteed." -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
