tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post7191064323092661589..comments2024-03-28T06:07:03.667-04:00Comments on The Philosopher's Stone: EGG ON MY FACERobert Paul Wolffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-25461884560289176102015-01-29T23:36:16.536-05:002015-01-29T23:36:16.536-05:00Sorry for the double post. Forgot to add page numb...Sorry for the double post. Forgot to add page numbers but it seems instead of editing my last comment, I ended up deleting it. <br /><br />From Ricardo's Principles, a Mini Tutorial: <br /><br />"Ricardo's purpose in including the chapter is to correct a mistake of which, he says, he had previously been guilty. This in itself sets him off from the common run of theoreticians in a variety of disciplines these days, who think it a death blow ever to acknowledge that they have been mistaken" (p.20)<br /><br />Excellent point and this is precisely one of the reasons why Marx praises Ricardo as the 'economist of production par excellence' and therefore the zenith of classical political economy. Marx admired Ricardo's 'scientific impartiality and love of truth' (CAPITAL or Grundrisse?) because Ricardo (like Smith before him) acknowledged that capitalism was a class society, with class conflict and the distribution of the total social product between the classes at the core of his system. <br /><br />"The question at issue, Ricardo says in the first sentence of the chapter, is "the influence of machinery on the interests of the different classes of society." Take a moment to examine the phrasing of that question. I venture to suggest that there is not a single established economist in America today, including such liberal icons as Robert Reich and Paul Krugman, who could ever bring himself or herself to write a sentence in which appears the phrase "the interests of the different classes of society." Even to utter such a combination of words would be to elicit hysterical charges of "class warfare," and yet Ricardo writes the sentence with no suggestion that he intends to be provocative or to deviate from accepted norms of polite intellectual behavior. In this, as in many other ways, the mathematically sophisticated discourse of our modern professional economists exhibits a marked falling away from the understandings that the first Political Economists had achieved by the beginning of the nineteenth century" (p.20)<br /><br />And of course, Marx owes much to Ricardo. The section that I have quoted above resonates in Chapter 25 in Volume One, but it appears as the organic composition of capital -- a more complex understanding than Ricardo had.<br /><br />"When the market price of labour is below its natural price, the condition of the labourers is most wretched: then poverty deprives them of those comforts which custom renders absolute necessaries..." <br /><br />"It is not to be understood that the natural price of labour, estimated even in food and necessaries, is absolutely fixed and constant. It varies at different times in the same country, and very materially differs in different countries. It essentially depends on the habits and customs of the people. An English labourer would consider his wages under their natural rate, and too scanty to support a family, if they enabled him to purchase no other food than potatoes, and to live in no better habitation than a mud cabin; yet these moderate demands of nature are often deemed sufficient in countries where "man's life is cheap", and his wants easily satisfied. Many of the conveniences now enjoyed in an English cottage, would have been thought luxuries at an earlier period of our history." (Ricardo, cited on p.18 )<br /><br /><br />Yes, it was passages like this that allowed the educated working classes to begin to see their place in the system of value creation. But Marx takes issue with the notion of 'natural' price -- it implied that there was such a thing and so a bit of ideology in so far as it took appearance to be essence/reality, The value of labour power is always an issue of class struggle -- it is not 'natural.'classtrugglehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17537776267404584351noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-80736736322341255002015-01-29T23:19:28.960-05:002015-01-29T23:19:28.960-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.classtrugglehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17537776267404584351noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-33673458421365386912015-01-29T18:10:46.854-05:002015-01-29T18:10:46.854-05:00Hmm, I was never of the understanding that that is...Hmm, I was never of the understanding that that is what needed to be done (i.e., the math part). My primary contention was that it was a philosophical disagreement, that led to the mathematical debate. Because Marx's argument that labor was the source of value was (supposedly) not a good argument, then speculation on alternative sources could be demonstrated via mathematics.Chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08250295324149056708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-71147079579467672062015-01-29T18:00:39.497-05:002015-01-29T18:00:39.497-05:00Not until you come up with a clear, precise mathem...Not until you come up with a clear, precise mathemetical refutation of my argument in "A Critique and Reconstruction of Marx's Labor Theory of Value" Robert Paul Wolffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-86079164204693875792015-01-29T16:55:30.346-05:002015-01-29T16:55:30.346-05:00Since you're reconsidering things, can I try a...Since you're reconsidering things, can I try and sell you on the idea of the legitimacy of Marx's initial LTV ;)Chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08250295324149056708noreply@blogger.com