>James Baird wrote:
>
>> has there ever been a serious attempt to refute
>> Marxian economics by a "mainstream" economist?
>
>Certainly not a serious attempt. A few, such as Michio Morishima, have
>attempted to show how Marx can be recast into mathematical formulae and thus
>appear to be respectable. Paul Samuelson has attempted to refute Marx, but
>in a clumsy and not very effective way. You just set up a straw man and
>knock it down.
>
>Mostly the refutations consist of denying the labor theory of value by
>asserting that capital is productive. Probably the most serious efforts
>came from the Austrian school, Bohm Bawerk and Hayek.
>
>For the most part, you cannot refute any economic theory unless is is
>logically inconsistent. Some economists have tried to show logical
>inconsistencies, but those efforts amount taking different parts of his
>theory that have not yet been worked up into a finished whole.
>
>The greatest efforts at refutation have concerned the falling rate of
>profit.
>-----
>Michael Perelman
>Economics Department
>California State University
>Chico, CA 95929
>
>Tel. 530-898-5321
>E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
As part of my slow exchange with Andrew Kliman (apologies Andrew) on the significance of value, as distinct from exchange value, I have just been reading the chapter on this in I.I. Rubin's Essays on Marx's Theory of Value (Russian 1928, English 1973 Black Rose Books, Montreal & New York ISBN 0-919618-18-9 (pb)
"One may say that a large number of the misunderstandings and misinterpretations which can be found in anti-Marxist literature are based on the false impression that, according to Marx, labor is value."
Chris Burford
London.