"It seems to me that all the arguments pro-and-con value theory have been made over and over and over again. The problem in the Italian Communist Party was not one of intellectual confusion. Rather it was a class-based retreat from revolutionary politics that was part of the Eurocommunist phenomenon. If hadn't been for value theory deviationism, it would have been something else. Being determines consciousness, not the other way around."
This reply to me is completely non-responsive. The second, third, fourth, and fifth sentences set up straw people and knock them down. Louis, PLEASE read again what I wrote, carefully this time:
>To Louis Proyect: Yes, the debate over Marx's value theory has
>profound political implications. For instance, in the late
>1970s, Marx's "errors" were routinely pointed to in attempts to
>refute young militants who were challenging PCI policies and
>ideology. And yes, value theory has a lot to do with that,
since
>the PCI was pursuing pro-technology, pro-productivity, class
>collaborationism.
As for your first sentence, it seems to be based on a serious misunderstanding of what the value theory debate is about. The debate is NOT over whether value theory is good or bad, as the phrase "pro-and-con value theory" seems to imply. And what makes you so ready to pronounce that "all the arguments ... have been made" when you yourself admit that you didn't understand Alejandro Ramos' paper??!! How do you know that he doesn't have something new to say?
Louis: "My only reaction to the gob of prose that I posted here was that it was so technical as to be useless."
To *you*. *I* found it very useful.
I'm sorry, I don't buy this at all. I think you owe Alejandro Ramos an apology. If you're so opposed to technical things, why aren't you posting journal articles in physics or -- closer to home -- computer science, and ridiculing them as "gobs of prose"? You don't start ridiculing physics just because its findings aren't immediately accessible to you, do you? What's different here?
I think I know the answer: you have so little respect for Marxist thought that if it doesn't serve you as a political tool, and in the most immediate, narrow sense, you're ready to trash it. (And it is because you try to turn thought into a political tool that you misinterpreted my statement when you replied.)
Beyond this, I must say that I find it a bit arrogant to demand that people write in a way that you can immediately understand, especially when you're pulling a paper off the internet, a paper for which people such as you were NOT the intended audience. I mean absolutely no offense by the "people such as you" -- the paper is a critique of mainstream Marxian and Sraffian economics, and it is technical because it HAS TO BE TECHNICAL in order to refute them -- actually REFUTE them, not sneeringly and arrogantly dismiss them, which seems to be the response of choice by some know-it-all others on this list. But if you do want to understand Alejandro's argument, instead of just ridiculing it, I'm sure that if you write to him and ask him to explain it to you, he'll be very happy to do so patiently, in terms you can understand, and he'll also be very interested in discussing its pros and cons with you. I, too, will be very happy both to explain the argument and to discuss it.
BTW, your reference to "value theory subculture" is rather like referring to both lions and Christians as part of "Coliseum subculture." Please don't lump people like me and Alejandro in with the types who want to turn Marxism into academic economists. And if you think that I'm part of Jerry Levy's crowd, well all I can say is that I'm *very* close behind you on his enemies list.
Andrew ("Drewk") Kliman Home: Dept. of Social Sciences 60 W. 76th St., #4E Pace University New York, NY 10023 Pleasantville, NY 10570 (914) 773-3951 Andrew_Kliman at msn.com
"... the *practice* of philosophy is itself *theoretical.* It is the *critique* that measures the individual existence by the essence, the particular reality by the Idea." -- K.M.