A reply to Justin Schwartz's PEN-L:23401. Justin, you've completely misrepresented me. I don't think Marx's ideas are sacrosanct, holy writ, etc. I did not criticize Roemer for disagreeing with Marx. I would never consider disagreement to be an ideological attack or effort to suppress. There's nothing in what I wrote that suggests that.
Let Roemer disagree. I WISH HE HAD. The reason his work is part of an ideological attack on, and effort to suppress, Marx's ideas in their original form is that Roemer, like the rest of the Marxian and Sraffian critics of Marx, DOES NOT pose his disagreements as disagreements. He *doesn't* say: "here's what Marx thought, here's why I don't like it, or here's the evidence against it, and here's my own view. We have our view; Marx has his." That would be the honest, principled thing to do. Roemer & Co. instead say that Marx's own theories are illegitimate, unworthy even of being seriously considered, not even possibly correct. They cook up false "internal inconsistencies" that they and other then use to legitimate the suppression of Marx's ideas from classrooms, bookshelves, and journals, including journals of radical economics. I have recently discussed on this list the other reason they falsely allege internal inconsistency: "Marx's Marxian and Sraffian critics want to be able to propound theories that differ radically from his (which, by itself, would be fine) WHILE AT THE SAME TIME posing as ... inheritors of his project. They want to have their cake and eat it too. "This strategy could not succeed if Marx's OWN theories, in their original form, were allowed to exist as a viable alternative to his critics' theories. There is only one way that the critics can portray themselves as inheritors. They *must* make it seem that Marx's own theories, in their original form, are illegitimate. Not just wrong -- they don't want to come out and say that they *disagree* with his views -- but untenable on logical grounds, and therefore in need of "correction" by the valiant Marxian and Sraffian inheritors of Marx. Is it their fault if the "corrected" versions of his theories contradict his at almost every turn, and with respect to some really important issues (which the "transformation problem" per se is definitely not)?" I have nothing against alleging internal inconsistency WHEN it is true; WHEN one can prove it. But when one alleges it without proof, that is an ideological attack and effort to suppress. Certainly when the proofs of internal inconsistency have themselves been disproved -- as they have in the case of Marx -- and yet one continues to make them, or refrains from setting the record straight, it is quite clear that what is involved is an ideological attack on and effort to suppress the guy. Right? Andrew Kliman
