Louis Proyect wrote:
That's the way world works, folks. For all of Bill Mitchell's glib
assurances that "mate, we're all in this collective together", I wouldn't
want to be applying for a job at his school if I had a reputation for
opposing market socialism on the PEN-L.
I can get away with s
Barkley Rosser:
> ...dialectical materialism, a phrase invented by
> Plekhanov and later used by Stalin to justify total(itarian) control
> of science, culture, etc. Marx wrote of historical materialism, not
> dialectical. ...
> ...Some of the most oppressive elements
> of the Stalin model, co
Kevin Q. Wrote:
Well, there are serious arguments that, like liberal feminism, Marx
saw the desideratum of social change in ways that never broke free of
what Habermas calls the Philosophy of the Subject. A vision of generic
individuals realizing themselves--no class, no gender--stands at the
Jerry Levy said:
Here are a few suggestions:
1) Begin by asking: "Who the hell are you to tell us how to do our
jobs, including teaching ad research? You don't have the faintest idea of
what our problems are as faculty."
2) Then tell them about academic freedom and question their commitment
t
>John says:
>
>I am simply saying that quantities of abstract labor are known only via
the
>prices.
>
>How? That is my simple question.
>
>Cheers, ajit sinha
Fair enough. Take a price, assign an amount of abstract labor to it,
calculate the labor/price ratio,
Paul Cockshott wrote:
I feel that John is over complicating the idea of abstract
social labour. I understand it to be labour which society
could potentially dispose of in any branch of production, but
which at any given point in time must have a particular
concreted allocation into different prod
John, you say:
3. To say that to build a theory on market prices is suicidal seems to
indicate that we are not communicating. Market prices are the concrete
starting point for any theory that attempts to grasp reality. We know
them -- they are given. To travel from the cncrete to the abst
Ajit,
Ok. You are asking how various prices are determined in Marx's CAPITAL.
What I have attempted to say is that the prices are determined by abstract
labor time ex post and not ex ante. We can tell the abstract labor content
of a commodity only after that commodity is "priced" -- not befo
On Tue, 25 Jul 1995 [EMAIL PROTECTED] said:
>So you are saying that you must know prices to determine value? Now, two
>questions: (1) what is your theory of price determination (and what kind
>of
>price it is), and (2) if value is defined in labor-times, how is the
>labor-time quant
>So you are saying that you must know prices to determine value? Now, two
>questions: (1) what is your theory of price determination (and what kind
of
>price it is), and (2) if value is defined in labor-times, how is the
labor-time
>quantified?
>
>Cheers, ajit sinha
__
On Mon, 24 Jul 1995 [EMAIL PROTECTED] said:
>JOHN NOW SAYS:
>WHAT? CONCRETE LABOR DOES HAVE A TIME DIMENSION. LABOR DOES
>NOT BECOME ABSTRACT BY NOTING HOW LONG HOW LONG IT LASTS.
>ABSTRACT LABOR IN CAPITALIST SOCIETY ONLY BECOMES ABSTRACT VIA
>THE MARKET. ARE ALL C
JOHN NOW SAYS:
WHAT? CONCRETE LABOR DOES HAVE A TIME DIMENSION. LABOR DOES
NOT BECOME ABSTRACT BY NOTING HOW LONG HOW LONG IT LASTS.
ABSTRACT LABOR IN CAPITALIST SOCIETY ONLY BECOMES ABSTRACT VIA
THE MARKET. ARE ALL CONCRETE LABOR HOURS ABLE TO BE COMPARED
WITHOUT REFERENCE TO PRIC
The problem, first of all, is not just jobs, but jobs at decent
wages and security.
Clinton's 1992 slogan was itself pretty good, "Putting People First."
But alot of good that slogan did when Wall Street told Clinton to put
deficit reduction and zero inflation first (see Bob Woodwa
Two minor points to Jim Devine's post on FROP:
Marx makes several good points in vol. I suggesting that qc/lp
should rise over time (though it's not a complete argument).
qc/lp might be called the "the organic composition of capital"
(OCC) following Fine and Harris (REREADING CAPITAL, 1979, P
In message Wed, 12 Jul 1995 21:34:21 -0700,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (John L Gulick) writes:
> The extended reproduction of capital requires that the costs involved
> in capital goods production fall faster than the costs of consumer
> goods production.
>
> Does anyone know of a Marxist who makes th
Marx himself said something like this in Capital I, Chapter 25,
pp. 773/4 in Random House edition:
This law of the progressive growth
of the constant part of capital in comparison
with the variable part
is confirmed at every step (as already said in the earlier development)
by the comparati
The extended reproduction of capital requires that the costs involved
in capital goods production fall faster than the costs of consumer
goods production.
___
I have no idea why or how this would be true. Could you elaborate?
Cheers, ajit sinha
John Gulick
Sociology Grad
So what is your argument John?
Cheers, ajit sinha
__
Since there seem to be a fair number of fropists out there and since Jerry
mentions Marx on the rising s/v and the alleged limits to
the effects thereof upon the falling tendency of the profit-rate, I
take the opportunity to
Sid forwarded Kirk Sale's Luddite piece, I presume with something like
implied approval. I didn't re-read it this time, but when I read it in The
Nation it seemed largely drivel. What is progressive about machine-bashing?
This greenish localist nostalgifying crap is unbearably sentimental and
clau
Wow! What a journal! Before even it has started, it has announced to everybody
that it is *closed* to all ideas except the *party line*. What's the point of
announcing the journal? Keep it within the party. Cheers, ajit sinha
_
Below is a forwarded message that is perhaps of in
Fikret Ceyhun says:
The argument to legalize child labor with all the rights that their adult
counterparts have will not end the child exploitation, but will further
it.
___
How?
___
In a world that adult laborers are unable to defend and protect
their just rights against busi
One major way to abolish the phenomenon of child labor is to have
compulsory public education (with loopholes for home education
and private schools that live up to standards). Then invest a lot
in the public education. In an underdeveloped country, you might
want to pay parents to put their
I could use a bit of help.
I'm looking for the names of journals that publish
ECONOMICS articles that might be classified as
marxist, feminist, institutionalist, post-Keynesian,
radical, or other heterodox approaches.
You could add *Research in Political Economy*, published
Cindy Cotter says:
A recent story in The Economist says an Oxfam study of a crackdown in child
labor in the carpet industry in Bangladesh showed that of 50 thousand kids
displaced from their jobs in carpet factories, 30,000 ended up in prostitution
or jobs in more dangerous industries. (Hope I g
Curtis Moore's piece on mathematics was one the most informative and the best
pieces I have read on pen-l. Could we have more of this please!
Cheers, ajit sinha
Gil says:
As an aside on Mike's post, I'd like to comment on two code phrases
in Bob Dole's "Republican response" to Clinton's proposal. They're
interesting because one hears them a lot from right-wingers these
days, and in taken in tandem they contradict each other in substance.
1) "Politic
Jim Devine writes:
Both the surplus approach and the scarcity/choice approach play a
role in Marx's CAPITAL. (The surplus approach is clearly the main
problematic after ch. 3 of vol. I and for the whole of vol. II.
On the other hand, the scarcity/choice approach plays a role in
the first thre
Michael Perelman says we shouldn't be surprised that Stiglitz was surprised
(at how Ricardo & Smith anticipated him & Weiss). I suppose, but Stiglitz
has a reputation as one of the leading "theorists" of the trade. I can
almost understand how some practical economist might not have the time to
tro
The discussion/debate between Jim Devine and myself has reached a stage were I
don't think it is going anywhere. My main problem or rather frustration with
Jim's approach is that he seems to *collect* various interpretations of Marx's
*Capital* or theory in general on his living room self without
I erased Jerry's missive by mistake and was just recently able to
retrieve it via gopher.
Ajit wrote:>> Or perhaps you could leave it to Jim Devine to
fight your battle. Since both of you seem to belong to the same
sect.<<
Jerry replied:>> Jim and I do not, though, belong to the "same
sect"
Jerry:
Let me start by saying that I somewhat regret the tone of my previous
post to Ajit ("what hypocrisy") on this topic. I communicated this
apology to Ajit privately previously.
__
No apology needed. We are all Mates (it sounds like Maites), and a bit of anger
and na
Jim Devine writes:
Ajit continues, on the so-called "transformation problem": "...
What Marx is attempting to prove by transforming values to prices
of production is that his basic theoretical categories given by
constant capital (c), variable capital (v), and surplus value (s)
are determined
Jim Devine wrote:
Hi, Ajit! I hope every thing's going well in OZ.
___
Things are great in OZ, and we hope to see you here soon.
1. Ajit tears my missive apart, because I spend a lot of time
talking about what (I think) Marx's Law of Value (LoV) is NOT rather
I must be crazy to venture into the never ending "Jim and Gil debate". But I
don't think that I can go on suffering this kind of vacuous arguments in the
name of the Marxist defence against Roemerianism. Jim says:
7. Turning to the LoV specifically, I think the main question is
"what in hell is t
Somebody, who did not sign his/her name, said:
2. For me, an analysis of the economy in real time would include
Marx's notion of technical change as well as his concept of
moral depreciation. No doubt, Gil is more familiar with the literature
than I am. Thus, I will await references t
Much thanks to Commentors on Shorter Work week. We had a DSA Mid-West
regional conference in Chicago a couple of weeks ago and noted that raising
mininmum
wage and shorter labor hours may be among the most hopeful POSITIVE
messages for progressives now - this from Harold Mayerson.
We also d
Ajit continues his discussion with me on value thus:
-
In Marx a theory of prices is needed to insure the
reproduction of the system, which intails realization of
the surplus. Thus prices occupy different places and
significance in diffe
My concern is not primarily to understand Marx, but to understand
what he himself was trying to understand - the realities of capitalism.
The assumption of an equal rate of profit was an attempt to approach
a closer to these realities than the assumptions made in Vol 1.
But in the end, I think
Ajit writes:
"The *Law of
Chaos* crowd seems to be obsessed with "actual prices"--appearances,
appearances, appearances-- what Marx called the obsession of vulgar economics."
As a member of that "crowd," I must reject that characterization.
Rather, my view is that there are two fundmental tenden
Paul:
-
Marx's main clause is 'differences in the average rate of profit
in various branches of industry do not exist in reality'.
Well this just is not true. Empirically there are very substantial
differences in profit rates between industries. One can only make
it true by abstracting from t
THIS is the question that animates me most, lately: how can leftists respond
to the global downward pressure on wages
--Mike Parkhurst
By fighting to lower the length of the work-week. How about that?
Cheers, ajit sinha
>Could you provide some reference from *Capital* Paul? As I understand,
Marx did
>not write *Law of Chaos*.
>Cheers, ajit sinha
Paul:
However a quote from marx:
We have thus demonstrated that different lines of industry have
different rates of profit, which correspond to differences in
the or
Alan Freeman says:
I tend to think his [Marx's]actual view on this was governed by empirical fact.
On p860 (CIII L/W) he writes
"The market-prices rise above and fall below these regulating
prices of production, but these fluctuations mutually balance each
other. If one examines price lists ov
In the first part of the quote above, Ajit seems to be saying
that these prices of production correspond to values.
___
This is an admitted assumption.
__
But
outside of the high level of abstraction of vol. I of CAPITAL
this doesn't happen, as the "transformation
> Or perhaps the whole theory of a tendancy of the rate of profit
> to equalise is just a myth.
Only free-market Neoclassicals believe in
such a tendency (I think). Are you thinking of the Marxian
claim of a tendency of the value rate of profit to _fall_?
Paul:
No I mean the alleged tendancy of
There's an even simpler answer: in his collection of unpublished
manuscripts that we call vol. III of CAPITAL, he simply dealt
with the case that Ricardo had considered, i.e., where profit
rates were equalized. I also think that his assumption that
certain "aspects of capitalism that really existe
Greetings from the land of OZ!! Thanks to Bill Mitchell, I'm sitting on top of
Newcastle, Australia, and I love it here. The weather is great, the land (and
of course the Ocean) is beautiful, and the people are most friendly. Now you
have two pen-lers (actually three, Martin Watts is the silent t
47 matches
Mail list logo
