Lenin in Essen

Roger Odisio rodisio at igc.org
Sun Feb 11 10:33:45 PST 2001


Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> Rob Schaap wrote:
>
> >A bit unfair, I think, Doug. You gotta have categories if you're gonna
> >count stuff. And categories get constructed by someone, and for some
> >reason.
>
> Yes, of course. We've been over this territory lots of times, but
> I've yet to see that a Marxian reworking of the national income
> accounts, to take one example, has ever illuminated much of anything.
> Clever exercise (and everyone comes up with different numbers, no?),
> but that does it mean?

How appropriate. Sunday morning comics. Lucy with her football. She asks: Charlie Brown, what does it mean, this marxian "reworking of the national income accounts"?

Don't let Lucy fool you into thinking she really wants an answer. Because if you try, at the end of the discussion, Lucy will repeat her conclusion (you see, the conclusion precedes and introduces the question--a giveaway of sorts), as she has done each time: but I have yet to see this "reworking" illuminate much of anything.

Lucy is right. Check the archives. We've been over this territory lots of times. And Lucy's sole contribution, each time, is the conclusion she starts with: it doesn't matter. Put the football down; take it away. Clever game, huh?

RO

Note to Doug: This began with my response to your claim that there was no trend toward market concentration. I respnded that (1) there surely are important industries, including major, capital intensive ones (so that they account for much of US capital formation) that are becoming more concentrated, but that (2) that's not what is important. Rather you need to follow the impact of the monopoly-competition dialectic on class relations to understand the trajectory of capitalist development.

I can understand your reluctance to pursue that because you will need the marxian categories to do it right. The full effect of the competition between capitals, and the capital-labor struggle can't be found by sole recourse to reported profits and wages in the NIPA.



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list