>Bukharin thought of Marx's theory of value as doing better than Austrian
>ones in explaining the dynamics of 'price'--the domain of economics.
>Bukharin was wrong, but I need to think about this and reassimilate all
>that reading I once did again.
Surely Marx referred to price often enough? I mean, while your point, that Marx's whole project was a critique of political economy (one which would have directly opposed what we call economics today), is apposite, is it not also true to say that the Marx of volume three thought he'd explained the dynamics of price (admittedly as epiphenomenon) with his law of value? I mean, the critical theorist does charge him/her-self with the job of explaining the world to people in the language and categories with which they are acquainted, eh?
And I know you to be a bit of a fan of Preobrazhensky, who came to oppose Bukharin after the latter's *Economics of the Transition Period*. Bukharin was, if memory serves, defending the NEP, whilst P pointed to the vexed question of resorting to the law of value (the decisive feature of capitalist relations) in a purportedly socialist society. So P.'s reading of B. would have a strong political context to it, eh? P was a left-communist on this criterion, and B more the market socialist (is this too simplistic?). P was scared of the resurgence of the tyranny of the market, and B was (subtly) scared of the ascendance of Stalinist bureaucratic centralist totalitarianism.
Both had reason to worry, and one can but wonder how productive a collaboration between the two might have been had the political situation of the mid- to late- twenties been more conducive to such enterprise.
Waddya reckon?
Cheers, Rob.