I appreciated Mat Forstater's post. I agree with most of what he
says
"Drewk, you seem to think that "proof" is something everyone
agrees on."
No, I actually don't, since, as you say:
"My experience is that these kinds of disagreements are usually
based on methodological issues, philosophical issues, differences
in emphases, and the like, so that usually, though not always,
people more or less make sense within their own framework."
This is EXACTLY the point. EXACTLY. The people who claim(ed) to
prove that Marx committed these errors and such actually just have
methodological, philosophical, and other disagreements with him.
They have not proven what they claim to prove -- *internal
inconsistency*, i.e., that Marx does not "make sense within [his]
own framework."
Please keep in mind that all of the proofs by proponents of the
temporal single-system interpretation of Marx's value theory are
actually disproofs. E.g., Marx's critics say they have proven
that, even without his value theory, surplus-labor can be shown to
be necessary and sufficient for profit. I've disproved this.
I mention this because there's a fundamental asymmetry between
proofs and disproofs. One should indeed be very skeptical about
claims to prove something. What's usually at issue are instead
"disagreements ... based on methodological issues, philosophical
issues, differences in emphases, and the like." It is much more
plausible that someone who claims to disprove something is right.
If you claim that something someone said can't be right, you have
to show that there is *no* interpretation under which it is right.
It just doesn't wash to say, "here's my interpretation of Keynes.
Under my interpretation, there is this error, that internal
inconsistency, etc. Ergo, Keynes committed this error, that
internal inconsistency, etc." There's a missing premise, namely
that one's interpretation has been proven to be correct. But to
disprove the claim, all one needs to do is show that there's some
possible other interpretation according to which it makes sense.
Also, when one proves that something is necessary or impossible,
the proof is valid only if it holds in all possible cases, while
the presentation of even a single counterinstance is enough to
disprove the claim. People understand this, but they often fail
to understand an important implication: one is not permitted to
make methodological choices when one constructs a proof, if doing
so restricts the set of cases under consideration.
For instance, Marx's critics are entitled to favor models in which
all physical surpluses (or net products) of everything are always
positive. Their methodological reasons for this might be good or
they might be bad, but that's irrelevant. They simply cannot use
these models to "prove" that even without Marx's value theory,
surplus-labor can be shown to be necessary and sufficient for
profit. They prove no such thing. They prove merely that
surplus-labor and profit happen to coexist under a very
restrictive set of circumstances.
"I don't know whether others have totally ignored your "disproofs"
or not."
I wouldn't say "totally." But I would say there's only one
individual (besides us) who has more or less forthrightly
acknowledged that any of our disproofs is correct. In _Research
in Political Economy_, Vol. 18 (2000), Duncan Foley wrote: I
understand Freeman and Kliman to be arguing that Okishios theorem
as literally stated is wrong because it is possible for the money
and labor rates of profit to fall under the circumstances
specified in its hypotheses. I accept their examples as
establishing this possibility. But people still keep going
around asserting that the Okishio theorem is true, and that it
disproves Marx's original version of his law of the tendential
fall in the profit rate. And certainly no one else has chosen to
back Foley up.
"Anyway, if these threads are intended to get people out to your
sessions at the Easterns, like the one with Gary Mongiovi
presenting the Sraffian critique of your work, and you and Alan
Freeman responding, then it's worked for me."
Actually, that wasn't my intent -- I intervened in an existing
thread simply in order to correct an incorrect statement Gil
Skillman made -- but I'll look forward to seeing you (again)
there.
Andrew Kliman
