RE: Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: : Premises, Circularities

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

> As is always the case with these debates, I can't resist the urge to
> ask - so what? Why is the value controversy so important? Why is it
> so important for Justin to reject it and Rakesh to defend it?

I can't speak for those folks, since my mind-reading ability has evaporated,
but the reason why I think "value" (i.e., one of the key concepts of Marx's
CAPITAL) is important because I think that it's a central component in the
kind of alternative research program that's needed to counteract and
ultimately overthrow the hegemony of the neoclassical orthodoxy (and the
orthodoxies of other social sciences).

I agree that books like WALL STREET can do an excellent job without using
value, but that's only describing a piece of the whole (and using concepts
that Marx developed, partly using value). I'm sure many excellent books like
that will be written in the future without using value explicitly, but I
think that it's important to building the alternative research program to
have a constant cross-pollination between the high-theory level (dialectics,
value, etc.) and the more empirical level (WALL STREET, etc.)The
more-empirical works can benefit from more philosophical reflection or
more-theoretical analysis, just as the high theorists can and should learn
from doing empirical work and from confronting the ideal nature of abstract
concepts with heterogeneity (the down and dirtiness) of the real world. Both
types of analysis can gain from learning the limitations of their
perspectives.

Jim D.