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Justin wrote me a private note expressing his rejection of Marx's value
theory. I try to appeal to him as a philosopher of science.
Justin, I am surprised you reject Marx's value theory. Tell me if any
Marxist philosopher of science has made the point below.
First take Hempel's distinction between empirical generalization and
theory formation >> . . .
Expressing himself in terms that only a philosopher of science would even want to understand, R says, to translate for the hoi polloi, that in denying the validity of value theory I deny that Marxism has explanatory value as an economic theory. I should first note that it cannot be a surprise to R that I reject value theory. I have criticized it on the net at length for many years at length on largely neo-Sfraffan grounds and in print, more briefly, in my What's Wrong With Exploitation, Nous 1995.
But to the point. I agree that Marx's economics would be scientific even if it were based wholly on a fakse and useless theory, as long as thed theory were a reasonable approach,a good try. I suppose Marxists ought to say the same sort of thing about bourgeois economics based on marginalism. But while I think value theory is false and, while useful to Marx, not useful now, that thsi oversimplifies the picture. Marx has a good many levels of explanation at play in his economics.
Very roughly we can say that there's the historical materialist narrative explanation about the rise of capitalsim based in the analysis of class forces, on the one hand, and the analytical model based on, or using, value theory on the other. Marx thought these went together, but in fact they are logically independent. So I think that the first can stand without the second. I think the matter is more complicated because it's clear to me, if almost no one else, that Marx Marx does not believe the LTV. He know's it's false. He think's it's useful. It's analytical model, that's all, I think many of his insights can be restated without using it. in WWWE, I do so with regard to exploitation theory.
Anyway, I hate to be a bore, but I'm not up for a go around on value theory just now. Maybe later.
--jks