RE: Re: Historical Materialism

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

> Charles Brown wrote:
> >Isn't value theory a premise of Doug's book ?

Doug writes:
> If you mean that workers produce everything of value (in conjunction
> with some goods supplied by nature), and that much division and
> redivision of the spoils goes on, and that finance can obscure those
> fundamentals, yes. If you mean the rest of it - OCC, the
> transoformation problem, the distiction between productive and
> unproductive labor, etc. - then no. Damn waste of time, I say.

The rising OCC theory seems a waste of time except those specifically
interested in crisis theory (and the dogmatic version is just a pain, like
all dogma), while the Ricardian "transformation problem" (i.e. the
derivation of mathematical relations between prices and values) seems a
total distraction. But your book is suggesting that all of Wall Street is
involved in unproductive labor, Doug.
Jim D.