Re: RE: Re: Historical Materialism

["Ian Murray" <seamus2001@xxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>
To: <pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2002 4:01 PM
>Subject: [PEN-L:22576] RE: Re: Historical Materialism


> > 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.

====================

I couldn't help but see it as people playing musical chairs with claims on the future of production.

Ian