Apology accepted. Now, how about an apology for calling me paranoid? Why the hell are you acting this way? What have I ever done to you?
Rakesh: "That you remembered so far back is telling."
So far back? I raised this less than a WEEK after you lodged the charge. And, since I was away over the weekend, and I didn't read your post until Tuesday, I raised it only TWO DAYS after I read your charge. Also, please note that I take my replies seriously, so I *re-read* your posts before replying.
I must admit to being surprised that, in less than a week's time, you could forget such a damaging charge that you yourself had made.
Rakesh: "But please note that in your last post you simultaneously dismiss as specious my actually correct argument that the scheme breaks down due to an insufficient rate of exploitation (previously you had denied an increased rate of exploitation would enable resumption of accumulation without excess capacity--which by the way is not simply a debating point but the window on the world of capitalist dynamics) and then grant it because it is indeed equivalent to your cruder proposition that the scheme breaks down due to a physical shortage of goods."
I believe the parenthetical phrase is false. I ask Rakesh either to substantiate it or to retract it.
As for the rest, yes, your ARGUMENT was specious even though the PROPOSITION you asserted was technically correct, because the ARGUMENT was made in an attempt to deny that Grossmann's breakdown is reducible to too much demand for investment goods relative to the supply of investment goods. It was perfectly clear from the context of what I wrote that I was saying the argument is specious, not because it isn't technically correct, but precisely because the increase in S is REDUCIBLE to an increase in the supply of investment goods relative to demand for investment goods.
Your ARGUMENT has thus failed, as have your earlier ones. You yourself implicitly admit this in the paragraph I have just quoted. Grossmanic breakdown is reducible to too much demand for investment GOODS relative to the supply of investment GOODS. Your claim that Grossmanic breakdown "has nothing to do with a physical shortage of physical means of production" is false.
It is therefore time to retract your charges that (a) my argument is "ridiculous," (b) I made an "astonishing mistake," (c) I am guilty of "caricature" (a charge which you did retract but then decided for some reason to lodge against me again -- over the same matter), and (d) that I am "paranoid."
Rakesh: "There is nothing to be gained from your "physical shortage of investment goods" interpretation of what the scheme means but the heaping of more distortion on the most important figure in the recovery of Marx's crisis theory."
Au contraire. What is to be gained is CLARIFICATION and INSIGHT. The fact is that you DIDN'T KNOW, before I clarified the matter, that Grossmann's oh-so-profound-sounding shortage of surplus-value breakdown could be expressed more simply, clearly, and prosaically as too much demand for investment GOODS relative to their supply. You denied it. You fought it tooth-and-nail, for reasons only you know. But now you KNOW THAT IT IS TRUE.
So now, instead of openly acknowledging you were wrong to say that Grossmanic breakdown "has nothing to do with a physical shortage of physical means of production," you try (again, for reasons only you know) to divert and obfuscate the issues in Levyesque fashion by calling the simple, clear, prosaic truth "crude." Call it lewd, rude, and shrewd, too; I don't care. The fact is that the "crudeness" EXPOSED A TRUTH that incessant blathering about not enough surplus-value would have left forever enshrouded in highfalutin obscurity and mystery.
As for my alleged "distortion," this one is beyond me. I ask you to retract it as well. I have demonstrated that his "profound" theory and my "crude" interpretation are INTERCHANGEABLE. Thus when I assert the "crude" interpretation, I am asserting the "profound" theory itself.
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.