--
On Sat, 23 Sep 2000 08:38:45 Louis Proyect wrote:
>The latest Science and Society has an interesting article (Rhetoric and
>Substance in Value Theory: An Appraisal of the New Orthodox Marxism) by
>editor Dave Laibman. It is a response to one written by Andrew Kliman and
>Ted McGlone titled "A New Interpretation of Marx's Value Theory" that lays
>out a purportedly rigorous and mathematical defense of "orthodox" Marxist
>value theory.
I don't think you understand the critique by Kliman,McGlone and other TSS authors.
Their work is not a defense of "orthodox Marxist value theory" but a radical break
with it. In fact, I see their critique to be so destructive of what we know as
Marxist economics that their views have for the last twenty years being reppressed by
the Marxist orthodoxy. Ironically, the marxist orthodoxy represses and opposses the
only interpretation of Marx's value theory which is able so far to reproduce most of
Marx's value theory results and propositions. Their work shows that the famous "labor
theory of value" of Marxist economists can not duplicate Marx's main proposition
because it adopts in its methodology a particular notion of value which is different
than Marx's. I see their main point as saying that the Marxist orthodoxy has adopted
a concept of value different from Marx's starting with Bortkiewicks first
formalization of the transformation problem and later on with the same meth!
odolgy applied by Okishio to refute Marx's theory of the falling rate of profit.
TSS'ers just show that these critiques of Marx's value theory are based on a notion of
value which is not based on value being determined by labor time. Laibman on the
other hand supports the orthodox interpretation of the transformation problem provided
by the neo-ricardian Bortkiewickz and rejects Marx's methodology of the falling r by
accepting instead Okishio's theorem. So Laibman is supporting the old methodology
that says that poor Marx was mathematically iliterate and could not figure out how to
transform values into prices and rejects what Marx considered the main law of
capitalism that the exploitation of labor lead in its desperate desire to obtain
surplus value to recurrent crisis expressed as a falling rate of profit, as Shaikh
will say, the system keeps on suffering unavoidable heart attacks!!
So, David Laibman is a critic of Marx who rejects his main propositions regarding his
value-based analysis of capitalism while TSS'ers provide a new methodolgy in which
Marx's results are reproduced. I see this as a welcome theoretical advance. If
people reject these new advances in Marxist theorizing it is because either they don't
yet understand it or they reject it for ideological reasons. In the case of Marxist
economists I suspect it is for ideological reasons and it is understandable since the
TSS methodolgy basically implies that their concept of value is not Marx's which means
that they will have to accept that they have been wrong all along and who wants to
throw a reputation and a career out of the window overnight!! I think the new
generations of students (at least the ones I know at the New School) have no problem
acceting the new theoretical advances by TSS authors which finally takes Marx out of
the straight jacket that Marxian economics forced him into, sinc!
e it provides us with a whole new armament of theoretical tools allowing us to keep on
unveiling fetishistic conceptions of our exploitative societies deeply rooted in our
repressed concioussnes.
Fabian
Angelfire for your free web-based e-mail. http://www.angelfire.com
