nathan tankus wrote: > I find it amazing that everyone can blather on about the tendency for > the rate of profit to fall without acknowledging that Marx explicitly > said that his was a simple model that would need disaggregating into > rent, unproductive labor, profit to enterprise, government . "That the > fall of the rate of profit can further be delayed by the omission of > existing deductions from profit, e.g. by a lowering of taxes, > reduction of ground rent etc., is actually not our concern here, > although of importance in practice, for these are themselves portions > of the profit under another name, and are appropriated by persons > other than the capitalists themselves"
as usually stated, the FROP theory works at a high level of abstraction. This brings in more concrete detail, reducing the level of abstraction. Perhaps a lot of people never got to this step because the FROP theory (again, as usually stated) is incoherent. Another possible reason is that some people are "stuck" at a high level of abstraction and can't get out. Juriaann writes: >In the supremely abstract world of Marxist doctrine [that some Marxists cling >to] ... anything can mean anything at a certain “level of abstraction”... but >I think that does not lead to good analysis worthy of Marx. Analysis means you >take something concrete, identify its components, and show how they are >related to each other and fit together.< I think that "levels of abstraction" are useful, especially if you make it clear what you're abstracting from (what level of abstraction you're at). It's a mistake to jump to concrete analysis without any abstraction, since that almost always means a lack of understanding. IMHO, Marx agreed. He started at a concrete level, but when he presented his theory in CAPITAL, he started at a very high level of abstraction and then -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
