Brad DeLong wrote:
> Bullshit. You meant it as a personal attack.
Brad, this is a bit over the top. He merely said that you commented on
the book without without reading it. Your thought seems to have been
that you didn't need to read it. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong
with that approach. There are lots of books that I do not feel the need
to read even if I had much more time.
Also, Brad, the fact that what you call national differences in
productivity explain income levels in no way refutes Marx. Marxist value
theory, which you are free to reject or accept, deals with values.
Actual incomes can easily deviate from such values.
So, for example, a worker in a Nike sweat shop may be producing a
significant amount of value, even though her income is not very high.
Also, in countries with high productivity, you will see workers producing
a great deal of use value per hour because of the contribution
technology. Again, this fact in no way disproves Marx.
Nobody here expects you to be a Marxist, but we can expect you to behave
more politely.
> Don't be a coward.
> The original question didn't ask me to read the book before replying.
> The original question was: "Is it possible to teach a Marxist theory
> of value today in an undergraduate course, as a matter of academic
> politics?"
>
> My question in reply was essentially, "Why in God's name would anyone
> want to?" You look across countries, and the principal determinants
> of differences in real wages and standards of living are differences
> in national aggregate productivity levels--not differences in the
> distribution of the product between land, labor, and capital. You
> look at countries over time, and the principal changes in real wages
> and standards of living are differences in aggregate productivity
> levels--not differences in the distribution of the product between
> land, labor, and capital.
>
> You can construct a Marxist theory of value-based interpretation of
> relative wage stagnation since the mid-1970s--Bruno and Sachs; and
> Bowles, Gordon, and Weisskopf (among many others) have done so. But,
> as I said, that requires that some intensification-of-surplus-value
> switch was suddenly turned on in 1973, after having remained off from
> 1848 to 1973...
>
> Brad DeLng
--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Chico, CA 95929
530-898-5321
fax 530-898-5901
