At 08:19 AM 5/8/97 -0700, you wrote: >Dear Comrades, > > At the risk of wading into this with little time to thoroughly go >through the lengthy posts especially Ajit and Gil (I have perused them to >around April 22 or so), I think the following may add to this debate (Gil >-Robin - you may recognize this!) > > a) In agreement with Gil, Steve Marglin also discounts the >importance of reswitching as a count against the NC-Walrasian framework arguing that similar >that similar critiques can be applied to "Neo-Marxist" models (which in >Marglin's typology are closer to what GIL/Ajit are labeling Sraffian >models) - this is in GROWTH DISTRIBUTION AND PROFITS. Also Marglin ends >up trying to integrate an investment function (what he calls a >Neo-Keynesian model) into his Neo-Marxist model on the grounds that some >combination of these two would represent the most accurate Macro growth >model. Thus a recognition of a need for a more careful modeling of >future oriented goods like investment and savings. David (Gordon) I >believe was also in concurrance with this approach as he taught a full >course basically on this book incorporating other readings from Lance >Taylor, Becker, Scott, etc. - I'm not trying to drop names here - just ot >give some idea of where I got turned onto this and its geneology! ________________________ Ron, I don't understand how could the reswitching critique be applied to the Marxian/Sraffian theory? I have not read either Marglin or the reference Gil was talking about. Though I would like to read both, when I get some free time. But I think the critique has to be something different than what has been proposed by Gil and you. Reswitching basically critiques the neoclassical thesis of substitution of the 'factors of production' as a response to changes in 'factor costs'. The Sraffian theory does not have anything like this, so how could the reswitching critique apply to it? On a different note, let me make a comment on one of Gil's points that I forgot to respond to. Gil had argued that there is of course a market of labor-power which the Sraffian theory ignores, and the GE theory apparently takes into account. Here Gil may be indirectly refering to my thesis that labor-power is not a commodity in Marx's theory. I know this is a very controversial thesis, and I will be willing to debate this point, if Gil or anybody else would like to do so. But for our present debate, let me point out that the GE theory does not have a concept of labor-power, so how could it concieve of a market in labor-power? For the GE theory labor is a commodity, but not labor-power. Labor-power is distinct from labor. It is a capacity to work, and if it is sold, it must be sold in a lump. It cannot be sold in terms of one hour or two hours of labor. That's why Marxian/Sraffian theory of wages are quite different from the GE theory of wages. The conflation between the concepts of labor and labor-power is found quite extensively among the Marxist scholars of today. It only shows the impact of neoclassical economics on our thinking. Cheers, ajit sinha
