Re: RE: RE: RE: Re: RE: marx's proof regarding surplus value and profit
Let's suppose that X claims that if people believe strongly enough in the power of the deity Shazam that enemy bullets will not harm them when they go into battle. I point out that as a matter of fact lots of believers in Shazam have been killed by enemy bullets in battle. A defender of Shazam claims that this is just my interpretation. There is another interpertretation to the effect that those who were harmed did not believe strongly enough in Shazam. So the believer in Shazam has proved that my intepretation is incorrect since there is another intepretation in which the defender of Shazam's view makes sense ---and this disproves my claim. Cheers, Ken Hanly 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.
RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: marx's proof regarding surplus value and profit
I don't deal in counterfactuals. Instead of diverting the issue, why not deal with it? Andrew Kliman -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Doug Henwood Sent: Wednesday, March 13, 2002 9:47 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:23903] Re: RE: Re: Re: marx's proof regarding surplus value and profit Drewk wrote: The silence about this issue is deafening. What's the sound of one side suppressing Marx? You have only to listen to the silence. Wow, heavy. You mean if this suppression hadn't occurred, we'd be living under socialism by now? Doug
RE: RE: Re: RE: marx's proof regarding surplus value and profit
Drewk, you seem to think that proof is something everyone agrees on. One person's proof is another's obfuscation, suppression, etc., as you yourself admit. I don't know the details of the history of your interaction with other points of view, so I don't know whether others have totally ignored your disproofs or not. Maybe they have. 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. There are exceptions, of course. 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. I'll be there. Mat -Original Message- From: Drewk [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, March 13, 2002 11:18 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:23914] RE: Re: RE: marx's proof regarding surplus value and profit I agree that Not all disagreement is maliciously motivated attempt to suppress the truth. So how do we decide in a particular case whether it *is* a suppression of the truth? (I leave aside the issue of motives.) It is one thing to claim to prove error or internal inconsistency when one can prove it. It is another thing to claim it when one cannot. When the alleged proofs have been disproved and one *continues* to claim it, that is clearly an instance of suppression and clearly an ideological attack. When one does not retract the falsified proofs in the face of disproof, that is clearly an instance of suppression and clearly an ideological attack. None of this has anything to do with disagreement. Am I right or not? If not, why not? It is one thing to claim to that one can jettison Marx's own value theory, and still hold that surplus-labor is the sole source of profit, when one can prove it. It is another thing to claim it when one cannot. When the alleged proofs of this proposition have been disproved and one *continues* to claim it, that is clearly an instance of suppression and clearly an ideological attack. When one does not retract the falsified proofs in the face of disproof, that is clearly an instance of suppression and clearly an ideological attack. Again, none of this has anything to do with disagreement. Am I right or not? If not, why not? Andrew Kliman -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Justin Schwartz Sent: Wednesday, March 13, 2002 10:26 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:23905] Re: RE: marx's proof regarding surplus value and profit This is precisely right. This is why it is suppression of Marx -- his theory SHOULDN'T EVEN BE ALLOWED TO BE APPLIED. This is what people like Roemer et al. say, and why it is utterly disingenuous to say that they were/are just expressing a different viewpoint. Andrew Kliman That's right, Andrew. We all know you have correctly understood Marx, and we grasp clearly what your perspective, I mean his perspective is, and we know that it id true. But because we are in league with Satan, wesupress it. I mean, for heaven's sake, be serious. Not all disagreement is maliciously motivated attempt to suppress the truth. I am sure that Roemer and Gil and Roberto (and me) do our best to understand Marx, among other things, but sometimes that is not good enough. With Roemer, clearly it isn't. Gil's another story. And moreover we may just honestly disgree both with your reading as toits accuracy as a reading of Marx, and as to its adequacy to the world. We can do these things without suppressing anything. Roemer et al would be delighted to have Marx's view applied, also explained. Of course we still might disagree. jks _ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com
RE: RE: Re: Re: marx's proof regarding surplus value and profit
I've been suppressed this way for years, so I can identify. --mbs What's the sound of one side suppressing Marx? You have only to listen to the silence. Andrew Kliman
RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: marx's proof regarding surplus value and profit
Doug Henwood wrote: the 'real Marx' is being suppressed by Marxists and other radicals? That's ridiculous. This is a distortion of my claim. Deal with my actual claim, which concerns the failure to acknowledge that the false proofs of internal inconsistency and error have been disproved, the repetition of the claims of internal inconsistency and error despite the disproofs, and my characterization of this as suppression. If my claim is ridiculous, it should be easy for you to disprove. Go ahead, do so. Put your money where your mouth is. When Antonio Callari told the IWGVT that they used value theory as a substitute for politics, there wasn't a peep of reaction from the crowd. Nor was there when Bertell Ollman told them (at the same session) they didn't understand how alienated their categories were. Sad, very sad. This mischaracterizes what was said. Neither spoke a negative word about the IWGVT. I largely agreed with Ollman's comments, which dealt with the way economists in general construe Marx. You may despise my politics, but you can't say that I use value theory as a substitute for it. Andrew Kliman -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Doug Henwood Sent: Wednesday, March 13, 2002 9:47 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:23903] Re: RE: Re: Re: marx's proof regarding surplus value and profit Drewk wrote: The silence about this issue is deafening. What's the sound of one side suppressing Marx? You have only to listen to the silence. Wow, heavy. You mean if this suppression hadn't occurred, we'd be living under socialism by now? Doug
RE: RE: RE: Re: RE: marx's proof regarding surplus value and profit
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
