DeLong also must have noticed the resemblance and requested that I please don't email him again, "Capisce." I suppose the final word was tendered as an offer I can't refuse.
On Thu, Apr 3, 2014 at 1:43 PM, Eugene Coyle <[email protected]> wrote: > 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 > -- Cheers, Tom Walker (Sandwichman)
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