various

[James Miller <jamiller@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

SIMPLE REPRODUCTION

   Regarding the post by Rakesh, asking for the location
of the quote on the impossibility of simple reproduction.
It starts, "Even if the total capital employed...".
   This is in Vol. II of _TSV_, Chap. XVII, at the
beginning of Sec. 4 (p. 480 in the 1968 Progress ed.).
   Don't forget to look at Marx's explanation of the
purpose and meaning of simple reproduction in _Capital_,
Vol. II, 3rd page of Chap. XX, paragraph beginning,
"Simple reproduction, reproduction on the same scale...".
   Relate this to Marx's method of abstraction which he
summarized in Sec. 3, "The Method of Political Economy,"
in the _Introduction to the Critique of Political
Economy_, printed in the 1973 Vintage _Grundrisse_.

VALUE

   John Ernst suggested I start with value and determine
whether or not the concept is historic. Value, in my view,
is historic, in the sense that Engels meant when he said
that the law of value "has prevailed during a period of
from five to seven thousand years," in  "Law of Value
and Rate of Profit," appendix to _Capital_, Vol. III.
   I wrote a paper defending this concept against John
Weeks's attack on the above-mentioned essay by Engels.
This paper is posted in the Progressive Sociologists
Network archive at csf.colorado.edu.

AHABISM

   According to Steve Keen, "Marx was both scientific and
utopian." And, "he wanted socialism to be not just feasible
but also ideal, and his visions of the transition to and
the actuality of socialism were marred--in a "scientific"
sense--by these desires."
   This doesn't get us very far. But let us talk about the
feasible and the ideal, if that's where we are supposed to
start. An architect has an ideal conception of a building
that has not yet been constructed. Then, with the labor of
the builders, this ideal is realized, provided that the
ideal notion is feasible, i.e., realizable. The "ideal" is
the conception of the real or of the possible.
   Ideas are derived from past experience, but they are more
than that. The mind can grasp the logic of development, and
thus formulate ideal notions of the future. If this were not
so, science would be impossible. These ideal conceptions of
future possibilities and future realities are recognized as
a matter of course in the physical sciences, where dreams
of the future are realized on a daily basis. But the same
is not true in the "social sciences" with which most people
are familiar nowadays.
   Bourgeois social science does not create a scientific
ideal conception of the future because it does not attempt
to understand the underlying laws of social development.
Rather it idealizes the social regime of capital, which it
views as perpetual. Marx, on the other hand, exposed the
laws of social development, so that the future of humanity
could be idealized scientifically, in the same way that the
future reality of a house is idealized by the architect,
in advance of its construction. Socialism is both ideal and
feasible.
   Thanks to Steve for the reference to his previous papers
on the topic. I'll take a look. And thanks for the citing
of various other works which may be relevant.

Jim Miller
Seattle


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