I love it! And, btw, the illustration is clearly DeLong. Saw him once.
On Apr 3, 2014, at 1:02 PM, Tom Walker <[email protected]> wrote: > Professor Brad DeLong: > I have long thought that Marx's fixation on the labor theory of value made > his technical economic analyses of little worth. Marx was dead certain for > ontological reasons that exchange-value was created by human > socially-necessary labor time and by that alone, and that after its creation > exchange-value could be transferred and redistributed but never enlarged or > diminished. Thus he vanished into the swamp, the dark waters closed over his > head, and was never seen again. > Brad forgot to add that Karl Hussein Marx was born in KENYA! > > > Brad DeLong or Karl Marx? > Just a few pages from Marx's A Contribution to the Critique of Political > Economy are enough to show that DeLong's "long thoughts" about Marx must have > emerged from a swamp with waters darker than anything even the creature from > the black lagoon would deign to wallow in. In a section titled "Historical > Notes on the Analysis of Commodities" Marx surveyed a century and a half of > thought in classical political economy "beginning with William Petty in > Britain and Boisguillebert in France, and ending with Ricardo in Britain and > Sismondi in France" that dealt with the concepts of labor time and exchange > value and their relationship. Of particular pertinence to refuting DeLong's > ontological fantasy is Marx's discussion of the contributions of James > Steuart and David Ricardo. > > In Marx's account, Steuart was the first to make a "clear differentiation > between specifically social labour which manifests itself in exchange value > and concrete labour which yields use values..." Furthermore, Steuart was > "interested in the difference between bourgeois labour and feudal labour," > and consequently shows "that the commodity as the elementary and primary unit > of wealth and alienation as the predominant form of appropriation are > characteristic only of the bourgeois period of production and that > accordingly labour which creates exchange-value is a specifically bourgeois > feature [emphasis added]." In other words, the relationship between labour > time and exchange value was viewed by Steuart (to Marx's approbation) as > historically contingent, not as some ontological certainty, as Delong claims. > > Ricardo, according to Marx, "neatly sets forth the determination of the value > of commodities by labour time, and demonstrates that this law governs even > those bourgeois relations of production which apparently contradict it most > decisively." Does this imply that after its creation this exchange value is > "never enlarged or diminished," as DeLong asserts? Marx notes the following > qualification by Ricardo: "the determination of value by labour-time applies > to 'such commodities only as can be increased in quantity by the exertion of > human industry, and on the production of which competition operates without > restraint.'" > > Whatever one thinks of the labour theory of value, DeLong's claims about > "Marx's 'fixation'" are so utterly groundless and fantastic as to make one > suspect that perhaps Brad mistakenly thought his commentary was scheduled to > be published on April 1st. Especially foolish is his account of Marx's > alleged beliefs about the impossibility of re-employment of workers displaced > by machinery: > Karl Marx in his day could not believe the volume of production could > possibly expand enough to re-employ those who lost their jobs as handloom > weavers as well-paid machine-minders or carpet-sellers. He was wrong. > Obviously DeLong is not aware that Marx devoted a section in Capital to > precisely this question, "The theory of compensation as regards the > workpeople displaced by machinery," the conclusions of which are more in > accord with Keynes's 1934 radio address, "Is the Economic System > Self-Adjusting?" than with DeLong's foolish caricature: > The labourers that are thrown out of work in any branch of industry, can no > doubt seek for employment in some other branch. If they find it, and thus > renew the bond between them and the means of subsistence, this takes place > only by the intermediary of a new and additional capital that is seeking > investment; not at all by the intermediary of the capital that formerly > employed them and was afterwards converted into machinery. > Marx reserves his most caustic retort to "the theory of compensation," > however, for the first paragraph of the succeeding section: > All political economists of any standing admit that the introduction of new > machinery has a baneful effect on the workmen in the old handicrafts and > manufactures with which this machinery at first competes. Almost all of them > bemoan the slavery of the factory operative. And what is the great trump-card > that they play? That machinery, after the horrors of the period of > introduction and development have subsided, instead of diminishing, in the > long run increases the number of the slaves of labour! > Was Marx wrong, yet again? I leave the last word to DeLong who smugly, albeit > inadvertently, confirms Marx's prediction to the letter by playing what he > imagines is the great trump-card of the worst-case scenario: > The pessimistic view is that some pieces of (3) will be (a) mind-numbingly > boring while (b) stubbornly impervious to artificial intelligence, while (4) > will remain limited and for the most part poorly paid. In that case, our > future is one of human beings chained to desks and screens acting as > numbed-mind cogs for Amazon Mechanical Turk, forever. > http://econospeak.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-creature-from-delong-lagoon.html > -- > Cheers, > > Tom Walker (Sandwichman) > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
