----- Original Message ----- From: "Davies, Daniel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2002 7:57 AM Subject: [PEN-L:22460] RE: Re: Re: Historical Materialism
>>If the main results of the >>LTV and or the LoV whether in a quantitative-qualitative >>combination or relying singly on quantitative or qualitative >>approaches adds nothing to what can be achieved in terms of >>*explanation* without them, then why shouldn't Ockam's razor >>apply--to concepts, not entities? >Quite. But this is a perfect example of a fallacy of marginalism. I think the strongest anti-LTV/LOV case that you could make in this direction would be that LTV/LOV don't "add anything to what can be explained by" neoclassical marginal/general equilibrium theory. But even that would be open to the objection that it was also true that NC theory didn't "add anything" to LTV/LOV. It all depends where you start from ... ============= Nah, the big reason we all like Marx vis a vis NC GET etc. is that he saw Capitalism as a system of power and domination exercised via money, technology, property etc and that it contradicts everything we think we know about freedom, co-operation, beneficence and other human traits that make us potentially different from crocodiles. And in any case, LTV has the considerable technical merit over NC theory that it offers a non-circular method to measure the capital stock. It also gives some hope of an explanation of the empirical fact that increases in productivity do not, in general, lead to a shortening of the working day, which would be a prediction of utility theory given any sensible assumption about preferences regarding leisure. dd ================= As Blaug and others have pointed out, the LTV has circularities of it's own. Ian
