Re: (OPE-L) RE: Say's Law in Marxian Theories?

["A.B.Trigg" <A.B.Trigg@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Jerry.
Your insights inot the Grossmanite influence on the LTRPF are illuminating. I think you are also right that the claim that all its proponents implicitly assume Say's Law is rather wild. My weaker point was that maybe they move to the LTRPF too quickly, and the complexity of technological change and prices deviating from values If Marx's method were followed correctly then they would stop off for longer in Volume II of Capital for Marx's attack of Say's Law and the capitalist nexus, before getting lost in the high seas of Volume III.
Andrew.

	-----Original Message----- 
	From: Gerald A. Levy [mailto:Gerald_A_Levy@xxxxxxx] 
	Sent: Thu 26/02/2004 16:25 
	To: OPE-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
	Cc: 
	Subject: (OPE-L) RE: Say's Law in Marxian Theories?
	
	

	Hi again Andrew.
	
	>> 1. It could be argued that all proponents of the falling rate of profit,
	when they use Marx's reproduction schema, implicitly assume Say's Law. <<<
	
	The "use" of the reproduction schema was rather limited and  tied to the
	specific  form that that the accumulation debates happened in German Social
	Democracy.
	
	The article by Rosenthal singles out Anwar [Shaikh] as being a
	"Grossmanite", but there are really quite a large number of authors who are
	or were "proponents" of the LTRPF, including Mattick, Altvater, Rosdolsky
	and Mandel (although the latter had more of a multi-causal theory of crisis
	which included the LTRPF and the counter-acting factors, but had other
	elements as well).  In the 1970's, authors such as Mario Cogoy, Georgios
	Stamatis, and OPE-Ler David Yaffe could be seen as being part of  the
	intellectual tradition which was influenced by Grossmann.  Paolo Giussani
	and OPE-Lers Fred M and John E (both of whom studied with Mattick, Sr.),
	among others, are contemporaries who are part of this tradition.  I think it
	would be _very_  hard to support the proposition that all of these authors
	implicitly assumed Say's Law.
	
	It should also be noted that some works which even Rosenthal couldn't claim
	as being "Grossmanite", such as Fine and Harris (1979) and Reuten and
	Williams (1989), have a  major _place_ for the LTRPF.  It would be
	difficult indeed to make the case that all of these theories also implicitly
	assume Say's Law.
	
	>>>
	2. My second question is can all proponents of the falling rate of profit
	thesis be placed in a clear Grossmanite lineage? Before Grossmann the
	falling rate of profit was very marginal to Marxist economics; so if
	Grossmann implicitly assumes Say's Law then the point can be generalized to
	much of Marxist economics. I don't have enough knowledge of the history of
	Marxist economics to back this up, but it is to some extent argued by Howard
	and King. <<<
	
	It does seem to be the case that before Grossmann the LTRPF (and the
	CFs) were not identified by most Marxist authors as being central to Marx's
	theory of crisis.  To see how this was the case for the prominent Bolsheviks
	and their Social-Democratic contemporaries, see Richard B. Day (1981)
	_The 'Crisis' and the 'Crash'_ (London, NLB).  The timing of the translation
	of Volume III into other languages, including Russian, may be relevant for
	explaining the extent to which theories emphasized Volume II topics
	rather than also including Volume III subjects, including the LTRPF.
	
	In solidarity, Jerry