I wrote:
> >BTW, you should know that (at least in e-mails), your style of writing
> conveys a heavy air of dogmatism. (That's why, I would guess, that Louis
> Proyect's response to you was so flippant.) It's not a good idea to enter
> an e-mail discussion with people you don't know and haven't communicated
> with by accusing people who disagree with you of being fools, especially
> since you haven't provided any evidence except for references to your own
> expertise.<
Fabian B writes:
>My own expertise?????? My style of writing conveys a heavy air of
>dogmatism??????
>
>Only arrogant professors when challenged and threatened by "rebellious"
>students can make these silly statements. No, I don't have an "expertise"
>in Marxian economics, you do and it is a shame that you are not informed
>and dismiss as unimportant what any student can see as the most important
>development in Marxian economics in the last 20 years.
If you read what I said, you'll discover that I didn't dismiss _anything_
including the TSS as "unimportant." It may indeed be the "most important
development in Marxian economics in the last 20 years," but I was reacting
to your _style_, which involved making unsupported assertions of the
theory's validity, combined with the view that anyone who rejected this
Truth was either ignorant or ideological. As far as I could tell, the only
basis for your assertions was that we should trust you, though you did give
us a smidgen more (a reference to Alan Freeman's web-page) when pressed.
>BTW, when I said that opponents of the TSS are irrational and dishonest I
>was referring to people in OPE-L who anybody can read the archives and
>check for themselves the validity of my accusation. Why did you get all
>defensive and attack me by calling me dogmatic (??)if as you say you don't
>know and even sympathize with TSS authors?
Again, it is your _style_ that seems dogmatic, since I haven't seen your
justification for the TSS.
>Tell you what, we are both adults, I will forget your attack and being
>called dogmatic and you forget that I call you arrogant and let's have a
>dialogue, ok. Let's talk about Michael Perelman's post which created this
>threat, why do you think he says that an algebraic solution of the
>transformation problem is not possible because it can not express properly
>the relationship between value flow and fixed capital?
Again, if you read what I said, I did not call _you_ dogmatic. And,
strictly speaking, you didn't call me arrogant. (Anyway, I don't mind being
called names. I see them as a symptom indicating that whomever I'm arguing
with likely has a weak argument.)
I'll let Michael P. defend his own assertion.
As for my attitude toward the TSS, I was interested in studying it for
awhile. But then I found that I had other research interests that grabbed
my attention, while some of the authors in the debate over the so-called
transformation problem were getting into excessively academic games.
Second, I see the main point of Marx's law of value to be summarized by (a)
the assertion that values and prices -- and surplus-values and profits --
were unified mostly at the macrosocietal level (i.e. by Marx's rules that
total value = total price and total surplus-value = total property income)
and (b) that this societal unity is hidden by the fetishism of commodities
and distorted by capitalist exploitation. Therefore, I decided that I could
wait until the various participants of the debate had debated some more, so
that the dust had settled, before I sat down and decided whose view was
most accurate.
As for the TSS being "important development in Marxian economics in the
last 20 years," don't you think that kind of judgement is very subjective?
I happen to think that my recent finding that a falling rate of profit
(corrected for changes in capacity utilization) is highly correlated with
the rise of stagflation (inflation + unemployment) is pretty damn
important, not just a critique of the orthodox economists' Phillips
Curve/NAIRU theory but presenting data backing a Marxian theoretical
alternative. (There's going to be a short note about this in a future
REVIEW OF RADICAL POLTICAL ECONOMICS.) But do I conclude that it's "the
most important development in Marxian economics"? No. I think that smacks
of status-seeking and self-promotion.
BTW, as you guessed, I am a professor. But since I'm at a place that is
primarily focused on teaching, I'm encouraged to deal with theories that
relate to the empirical world, so that some of the insights can be given to
undergraduates. In retrospect, I think that's a good thing. Marxian
economists have too often created "revolutions in theory" while losing
track of practice. A true revolution happens when the oppressed rise up to
set up workers' democracy.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine "Segui il
tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.)
-- K. Marx, paraphrasing Dante A.
