l wrote:
>
>>Doug does not at all follow Marx every inch of the way, as he holds no
>>truck with the labour theory of value.
and he replied:
>Bullshit. I've never said any such thing. I've said I don't see the use of
>efforts like Shaikh & Tonak's to translate bourgeois economic statistics
>into Marxian categories. I'm willing to be convinced to the contrary, but I
>still haven't heard a very persuasive defense of the effort. I've never
>denied that the source of capitalist wealth is the exploitation of labor
>(and nature) in production, despite all the phenomenal mystifications.
Just compare this avoidance of the issue with Hans's directness. Anyway,
the index to Wall Street contains no reference to the labour theory of
value, to value or to the working class, so Doug doesn't give a shit about
these concepts in his magnum opus.
>>He is just a skilled scavenger of
>>some of the results of Marx's work. Something that Marx derived as a result
>>of scientific analysis on the basis of fundamental theory (the labour
>>theory of value) is treated by Headwood as an empirical snippet floating
>>inexplicably on the surface of a great swamp. And even if Doug admits that
>>' "money of the mind" collides with matter' in poor countries, there's
>>still no scientific explanation given of this.
>
>You have no idea what you're talking about. How can you so confidently
>characterize a book you haven't even looked at much less read?
For instance, in the updated edition (no less) the working class gets one
of its rare mentions on p 133:
"For the working class, April turned out to be a better month than Wall
Street imagined: employment grew by 267,000...." -- as if "Plenty of Work"
was all that was needed. I'm surprised this wasn't accompanied by a rousing
call for a Fair Day's Pay for a Fair Day's Work (unless you count "even
this strong employment growth has been unable to deliver any wage
improvement" as such a call).
Page 132 has a misprint: "than" should be "then" in "resolve to tighten, if
not now, than at the May FOMC meeting".
The book is boring, superficial and grotesquely pretentious. If it was a
straight-forward petty-bourgeois radical attack on Wall Street it would
hardly pass muster because it's such a drag to read, the forest is lost
from sight as each new tree is described along with the droppings on the
path beside it and the animals that pissed on it. But it markets itself as
a serious Marxist analysis! Bulletholes in the Wall Street sign and all. As
I mentioned before, "exploitation of labour in production" is just not
Marxist, it's vague socialist radicalism in a non-historical
petty-bourgeois tradition. Doug doesn't even dare tell us that property is
theft. He doesn't dare erect even a petty-bourgeois utopia. Not very
socialist, not very radical, completely un-Marxist and completely
unrevolutionary.
>So this post-Bretton Wood world with no monetary role for gold - what is
>it? An illusion? An aberration?
So tell us, Houg Deadwood, what is money?
And the personal swipe to round off:
>Your arrogance is breathtaking; you make Lou Proyect look modest by
>comparison.
Ah yes, bring in the snitch... No more nice lunches with Lou, eh?
>Tell me Hugh - what are your class origins?
Authenticism rules -- way to go, Headwood. So you believe in direct class
determinism when it comes to intellectual validity? Which is why you are so
open about your own origins to convince us of your cogency and correctness?
>Middle class boy who made good? Upper class boy who went bad?
Love the Marxist stringency here -- "middle" class, "upper" class, none of
your "working class" or "bourgeoisie" gobble-de-gook for Wall Street's own
Mr Marxism!
>That is, is your arrogance
>part of your class inheritance, or something you picked up on your own?
Nothing but my disagreement with your good self, old son. It's an offensive
label you choose to pin on me to avoid arguing about issues you don't
understand and whose relevance you vehemently reject in your whole
"intellectual", journalistic and "political" practice.
Cheers,
Hugh
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