Re: Re: Re: Re: WSJ on teaching economics

["Justin Schwartz" <jkschw@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Well, both of those are things that I have been accused of misunderstanding
myself, not least by you, so I am inclined to give W a large margin of error
in his readings. There is room for difference of opinion on these topics. I
thought the book was good and useful, and his main point, that Marx did not
prove that a breakdown of capitsliam was inevitable, is right. Looking over
the book, it has a dated assurance that capitalism has solved its
contradictions--he's talking fiull employment, etc.--but the kinds of points
you are making doesn't make him out to be an ideological hack. --jks


> From: Jim Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Reply-To: pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> To: pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [PEN-L:3313] Re: Re: Re: WSJ on teaching economics
> Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 08:45:23 -0700
>
>
> > I haven't read his 1964 Reappraisal of Marxisn Economics in many years,
> > although I have my copy on my desk just now. I recall being impressed with
> > it. He argues that Marx does not make good on an inevitable collapse
> > thesis, but otherwise is pretty good as an analyst of capitalism, and
> > can't be dismissed. "Only the most obtuse reader can fail to recognize
> > that a century ago Marx raised the key economic questions of our time."
> > (p. 186). Don't we all agree with that? Wolfson was obviously a New Deal
> > Keynesian liberal, but his book is not a worthless screed against Maxian
> > economics. --jks
>
> Since I can't find my copy of his book, I can only mention two things that
> Wolfson misrepresented and/or misunderstood: dialectics (contradictions)
> and Marx's version of the "labor theory of value." Criticism of Marx is a
> fine and worthy occupation, but I think that Bob Dylan said it best: don't
> criticize what you don't understand. And since Wolfson didn't understand
> the basic ideas of Marx's method (as opposed to the orthodox method of
> economics), he doesn't really understand what Marx was talking about.
>
> The book is worthwhile in the sense that Wolfson's misunderstandings come
> up again and again (e.g., in Elster's MAKING HASH OF MARX), so that those
> who learn from Marx have a good source of how people misread. Part of the
> problem is Marx's of course: somehow he didn't anticipate the way 20th
> century readers would filter his writings though the academic theoretical
> framework of their day, so he didn't make it as clear what he was saying as
> he should have.
>
> I must say that I -- someone who's trained in modern NC economics -- had a
> hard time understanding Marx the first time I read CAPITAL. Part of that is
> all of the Hegelian language he uses, along with his refusal to give a
> summary ahead of time of what he's going to say and what levels of
> abstraction he's going to be working at in each stage of his exposition.
> (On the first text page of vol. III, he gets to this. Unfortunately, this
> page is usually ignored.)
>
> Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine

_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at
http://profiles.msn.com.