The method of Marxist economics

[charlie <charles1848@xxxxxxxxx>]

Gil Skillman asked where my book From Capitalism to Equality
"address[es] my argument" made several years ago. The answer is,
nowhere directly, since the book is about economic reality, not a
debate of economic theories. However, the method of the book is
explicit. Early on, it commits to this criterion:

"...the magnitude of the substance of value, abstract labor,
governs in tendency the exchange ratios of commodities ... [This
assertion] is NOT established at the beginning of the study of
capitalist economic relations. Instead, the entire investigation
arrives at a series of conclusions about the motions of value
.... It [value] moves activity from boom to bust. It compels
advances in the techniques of production, yet it also retards the
humanizing of labor. It allows monopolies to arise but also
confines their scope of action. Value finally sets a historical
limit on capitalism. Value does all these things not because it
is a magical thing, but because .... value reveals the economic
relations among people, which at bottom are value relations, that
is, social labor relations." (From Capitalism to Equality, p. 36,
emphasis added)

Isn't this procedure typical of scientific work: explain as much
as you can with some fundamental concepts, then step back and
judge the theory built on those concepts by whether it arrives at
true results and by their insight and breadth?

Regards,
Charles Andrews
Web site for the book is at http://www.LaborRepublic.org