Re: economics and sociology

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

Title: RE: [PEN-L] economics and sociology

 

-----Original Message-----
From: andie nachgeborenen
To: PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: 6/14/2003 9:14 AM
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] economics and sociology

"Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx> wrote:

JKS suggests that Marx's sociology should be separated from his
economics. I disagree.

* **

I did not. I just said that Marx presented, in WPP amomng other places,
a prety pure economic model without a lot of sociological stage setting,
so he must have thought that was, for some purposes, a useful thing to
do. My main point, about which I don't think Jim really disagrees, is
that even if you are a historical materialist, you can address, for
particular purposes or topics, some of the concern histomats have
without having to bring in all of them. Jim does this all the time in
his own work.

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I thought I made it very clear that a book (such as that of Howard & King) has to live up to different standards than a short piece, such as an e-mail or a research paper.

In sustained works, it's wrong to willfully ignore sociological dimensions of production, as Roemer, Howard & King, and the neo-Ricardians do. In my work, I often deal with "purely economic" issues, but I always ask about "sociological" issues that such people ignore, such as concerning the impact of unemployment on work-effort and the impact of changing work-organization on the behavior of wages & benefits and unemployment. I also try to make sure that all of my various research projects -- some of which aren't purely economic at all -- fit together in a coherent whole rather than contracting each other. It's a mistake to separate thought into discrete containers that don't interact.

WPP [Marx's wages, price and profits] presents a quick summary of Marx's political economy. Such summaries are fine, but cannot be used to really understand political economy. Nor can they be used to criticize it.

Jim