[OPE-L] why does the debate on the "transformation problem" continue?

[Jerry Levy <Gerald_A_Levy@xxxxxxx>]

> Despite this the debate continues, why?

 

[warning:  a grumpy, and partially -- but _only_ partially --

tongue-in-cheek reply follows]

 

Hi Paul C:

 

Good question.   Maybe the debate on the TP is  for Marxists

the modern equivalent of debates about the quantity of angels

who can reside on a point of a needle?

 

<http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_132.html>

 

Or, maybe it's --  as you say -- inertia: it's what Marxists feel

comfortable discussing?

 

Or, it's also a right of passage perhaps for Marxist political economists?

Only after one discusses the TP can someone be said to belong

to the sorority of Marxian economists.

 

Or, maybe it's just an "immunizing strategy" so that one doesn't have to

move out of Marx's Cradle, into the sunshine and darkness  of the 21st

Century,  and consider for ourselves the most burning political-economic

questions of today?

 

There is also a delicious irony:  _most_ frequently it is the works of

those who say that the problem does _not_ exist (e.g. Shaikh,

Dumenil-Levy-Foley, Kliman-McGlone, Cockshott-Cottrell, et al)

who are responsible for keeping the debate alive!   If it wasn't

for the _Marxists_ who wish to continue to debate the TP

then the topic would disappear.  It is an _obsession_ and hence

has a dynamic (no pun intended) all its own which defies logic

and 'internal consistency'.  [Thus, by my writing this message, I

am being internally inconsistent since to complain about discussions

on the TP only reproduces them.  It's like cutting off a starfish in two:

instead of killing the animal it only means  that 2 will grow where once

there was one.]

 

Hence _you_ ask us to consider _your_ position -- for why

no 'problem' exists.  Yet, if we were to do that (which, of course,

we might very well do)  then we would continue the debate

on the TP. And so on it goes. 

 

Isn't it manifestly obvious after 130 years that there will NEVER

be agreement on ANY one position on the TP? 

 

In solidarity, Jerry