I agree. Marx didn't present his ideas very clearly in CAPITAL. It would have been nice if he'd had an introduction which listed the sections of the book, explaining the links between them and the progression of his thoughts. The closest I've found is on the first page of the main text of volume III.
On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 9:51 AM, Julio Huato <[email protected]> wrote: > Jim Devine wrote: > >> what is the origins of the notion that Marx's theory of value is first >> and foremost a theory explaining the level of individual prices (or >> relative prices)? Even Ricardo's labor theory of prices only concerned >> long-term equilibrium prices (and only applied 93% of the time, >> according to Stigler). Smith's idea that relative prices are >> proportional to relative labor-values applied only in the imaginary >> “early and rude state of society” preceding “both the accumulation of >> stock [i.e., capital goods] and the [private] appropriation of land.” >> Marx was also aware of the systematic deviations between prices and >> values under real-world capitalism. > > I blame Marx (for not making it sufficiently clear to readers that he > wasn't building on Ricardo, but breaking away from him, and for not > hiring a competent assistant or secretary and leaving such a mess), > Engels (for not funding Marx sufficiently), Bohm-Bawerk, and > Hilferding for not getting the point. Then the confusions > metastasized. -- Jim Devine / "In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite." -- Paul Dirac _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
