Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: : Value talk

[Rakesh Bhandari <rakeshb@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> > > You still don't get it. Even if there is enough demand takes up 100%
> > > of the production, the profitability drops because the stuff can be
> > > produced cheaper, but the firms who invested in the
> > > oldertechnmologies have these huge sunk costs taht they cannot nake
> > > back.
> >
> > Still don't understand how we move from the difficulties these
> > backward firms face to a fall in the average rate of profit for
> > capital-as-a-whole.
>
> I don't know wwether the rate of profit does tend to fall. This is a
> vexed empirical question. But I can see an argument based on the
> above that it might, though it would take some additional
> assumptions.

Justin,
It's not a vexed empirical question for Brenner, though Shaikh raises
questions about how the capital stock is measured; but for Brenner
and Shaikh and Moseley, the rate of profit did fall, and fall hard,
esp for Brenner between approx. (if I remember correctly) 65-73 for
US capital. Charles has to re-read Perlo; Justin, you have to re-read
Brenner!

> I do think there has
> > been progress in reworking official data from a value perspective
> > (criticism of wage led profit squeeze thesis carried out by Shaikh
> > and Moseley),
>
> I have studied Shaikh's work, and I think some of his criticisms are
> valid, but can be expressed without the value theoretic commitments.
> I'm an overproductionist a la Brenner myself.

That's not the point. The question is whether profit to wage is a
proxy for s/v. the answer is no; the data have to be reworked. That
required new work by value theoretic Marxists.



> value theoretic analysis of the role of the
> > interventionist state (Mattick, deBrunhoff),
>
> I think you overrate Mattick, though he's not bad.


well thanks but I "overrate"--a peculiar word, I must say--Mattick
along with the old Root and Branch collective, Moseley, Shaikh, Tony
Smith and even O'Connor (who develops a contrary theory). Michael
Perelman makes favorable references to PMSr, so does Robt Lekachman
for goodness' sake.




> I also don't think you need value theory to say what he says. Fisk's
> The State and Justice makes some of the same points without the
> value theory.

In encouraging a political theorist friend to become a Marxist years
ago, I lent her this book; it's good news I suppose that I never got
it back.

But as I remeber Fisk does not have a theory of state debt as
accumulation of fictitious capital. And I have behind me a book by
Fisk on Value and Ethics, though I have not read it--it's not about
labor value is it?
Hasn't Fisk recently written on health care like pen-l's Charlie Andrews?



> analyses of the world
> > market and unequal exchange (Amin, Bettleheim, Sau, Dussel,
> > Carchedi),
>
> This stuff I don't know ell.

I should have thrown in Tilla Siegel.


> value based investigations of the labor process (Tony
> > Smith),
>
> You left out Braverman. But I think,a gain, that the argumebts do
> not require value theory.

Tony Smith's arguments are rooted in value theory, so he does not
share your estimation. Let's see if we can ask whether his best
arguments are free of value theory?



> attempts to undertand non commodity, fiat and near money
> > (Foley, Gansmann),
>
> I don't know this.

And I should have added latest book Political Economy of Money and
Finance by Makoto Itoh and Costas Lapavitsas and Makoto Itoh and last
chapters in the new book by Alfredo Saad Fihlo The Value of Marx:
Political Economy for Contemporary Capitalism. And there is some very
crystal clear work by Martha Campbell and others in the International
Journal of Political Economy.

Oh, and I forgot the whole value theoretic analyses of the state
(Holloway and Picciotti as well as Williams and Reuten).



> attempts to understand share capital (Hilferding,
> > Henwood),
>
> Henwood's not a value theorist, are you, Doug?

Good question.

> value based phenomenlogical studies of time (Lukacs,
> > Postone),
>
> I know Lukacs inside and out, and I think tahtw hile he is
> abstractly commited to the LTV, his analyses do not presuppose value
> theory at all.

I would answer that Lukacs' analysis is based on the Marxian concept
of abstract labor if this is what you mean by abstractly committed.
More importantly,  Postone's theory is value theoretic through and
through, and I would not consider his accomplishment degenerate,
unless we mean degenerate in a good way.

Haven't read Ben Fine's recent value theoretic critique of human
capital theory either.


> >
>
> Some and some. On the whole, I stand my my claim. A lot of smart
> people have used the framework. I don't see that their best work
> depends on it.

Well you should certainly not be stopped from doing your best work on
a value free theoretical orientation based on some combination of
Marx, Robinson and Brenner, and Ian of course is free to develop his
own theoretical orienation on the basis of the viewpoints that he is
trying to put together which seem to be united in only aspect--they
are not value theoretic.

Yet some of us will stick to value theoretic Marxism because we think
it provides the best explanatory basis for the comprehension of
capital's dynamics and contradictions especially as they are
experienced by the working class. This is Michael Perelman's ultimate
defense of value theory. Please do  feel free to tell us that value
is redundant, that we have a transformation problem, etc. But don't
be surprised if not everyone agrees that these are fatal blows.

Rakesh