Re: "Debunking Economics" and Marx's value theory

["Andrew_Kliman" <Andrew_Kliman@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Steve Keen wrote

: Briefly, the reason I don't mention the TSS approach to solving the
: transformation problem is because that school treats the proposition
that
: labor is the only source of value as a premise in Marx's logic, and
then
: attempt to show that this can be maintained in a dynamic interpretation
of
: production.
:
: I dispute that this was a premise of Marx's--or rather, I argue that it
: *was* a premise of his up until 1857, when he developed a broader
analysis
: which he believed enabled him to *derive* this result from a higher,
: dialectical logic.


In 1868, 11 years after 1857, Marx wrote in a letter to Kugelmann that

"The nonsense about the necessity of proving the concept of value arises
from complete ignorance both of the subject dealt with and with the
method of science."

He instead held that the appropriate criterion of proof in this case is
empirical:

"Even if there were no chapter on 'value' in my book, the analysis of the
real relationships which I give would contain the proof and demonstration
of the real value relation."


But I don't think quotes alone can solve these matters of interpretation,
since they can be read in different ways.  I suggest that the real test
of the opposing interpretations, in this case as in general, is which can
best make coherent sense of the text(s) as a whole.  Does the
interpretation yield a coherent value theory, or one beset by logical
errors?  On the basis of this well-established hermenuetic principle, I
would suggest that Steve's interpretation fails.

Andrew Kliman