[OPE-L:5712] Re: Re: why are we on this list?

[Rakesh Narpat Bhandari <rakeshb@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

jerry's 5711

> Re Rakesh's [5710]:
>
> >  Jerry, that intent does not come across if your
> >  opponent is   characterized in the ridiculed form > of the black knight.
>
> What you call ridicule might be better called a
> sense of humor -- not such a bad trait for
> Marxians to have.

Is it funny to ridicule someone who thinks Marx got basically right?
Why is that funny when we have had to pay--for example, we marxists
don't have mentors at many of the top schools, certainly not mentors
who could help us get jobs (take for example Harvard, Princeton and
Stanford--Duncan left here years ago). I guess it's funny that we
seem as ridiculous as legless black knights, but if scientific
criticism were allowed in political economy, i think these marx
critics could easily be proven to be weak and defenseless. they
criticize and ridicule from within the protected confines of the
bourgeois academy.


> Gil has contributed to discussions on more than
> just Ch. 5 and Steve has contributed to discussions
> on more than just the use-value of machinery.

OK.



> It might be worthwhile noting, for instance, that
> Gil is probably has the best understanding of
> game-theory on the list (as well as being the
> only active member from a Rational Choice
> Marxism/Analytical Marxism perspective)

wouldn't have been able to tell from his contributions.



>  and
> Steve is probably better up-to-date than anyone
> else on the list about chaos and complexity
> theory as well as non-linear dynamic models
> (including business cycle and financial models.)
> These are not insignificant advantages for us.

it didn't lead to much in the engagements with Freeman on this list.



> >  Gary did not respond to your or my
> >  questions about the methodology of comparative > statics.
>
> So what? Maybe he didn't have time. Do you
> expect other listmembers to jump whenever you
> have a comment or question?

Wait! Mongiovi wrote a long critique of TSS which in many ways came
down to the methodology of comparative statics. He is trying to bury
a rival school; I think he should defend his critique openly in
debate with Kliman, Freeman, Ernst or others.

> Just a little while ago, in [5705], you wrote that
> you 'learned'  from Ajit.

Though I disagree with his bit about two problematics, and I find
absurd his claim that what Marx says about money in the first part is
not important. It may not be important to Sweezy who said almost
nothing about money in Theory of Capitalist Development or Meek who
seems to have seen no connection between Marx's labor theory of value
and money or Dobb who spends no time on the peculiarities of the
equivalent form in Political economy and capitalism or the analytical
marxists like Roemer, Elster, and Cohen who also spend almost no time
on Marx's theory of money. So in downplaying Marx's theory of money,
Ajit stands in the great tradition of Marxism which has so
effectively buried Marx.

Jerry, I am an autodidact, obviously far from the brilliant people on
this list. There are geniuses here; maybe Steve, Gil and Ajit are
among them--probably so is Alan F and Duncan and Fred and many
others. I don't want to leave anyone out; it's not the point.

 But I learned my Marx from Marx, then those Third International
twelve lessons on Political Economy from the CPGB, Blake's textbook,
Korsch's Karl Marx,  the Living Marxism magazine of the 30s.

In my opinion,  Marxism has descended from the theoretical heights
reached in the 30s. But this follows in materialist terms from the
eclipse of the working class movement and the present closing of the
possibilities of revolutionary change.


> >  I think they have effectively derailed what was
> >  supposed to be the
> >  point of this list--to extend Marx's unfinished
> >  project into a theory
> >  of the world market, the state, central bank
> >  policy, etc.
>
> Don't place the blame on them.  Even if they
> had never been on the list, I sincerely doubt that
> we would have progressed any further towards
> that goal -- which I have not given up on and
> continue to raise, in one form or another, for
> discussion.

We'll see.

> Perhaps the 102 degree heat has something
> to do with your comments today. If you were
> in New York now you'd be considerably cooler.

i'm cool, i'm just telling you how i see it.

Rakesh







Rakesh