[lbo-talk] : BDL on Sweezy)

[andie nachgeborenen]

Brad said that Sweezey's favorable citation of Stalin
speaks for itself, and it is how he would like Sweezey
to be remembered. The suggestions seems to be that the
most important thing about Sweezey as eitheeither
aitical figure or an economist is that he at least one
agreed with Stalin. If as a  political figure, it is
unclear how this is relevant to Sweezey as an
economist. A number of well regaregardednomists of the
Cambridge school were actually Stalinists, including
Dobbs and I think Meek. I have anecdotal evidence that
Sraffa, whose techtechnicalpetence aws wasmidable, was
a Stalinist in politics. Lots of folks were soft of
Stalin and nonetheless did good work. Do you disagree,
Brad. 

Politically, of course, Sweezey was actually an
impimportantgure in the hishistory academic freedom
and free speech general, as well as beibeing aounder
of Monthly Review, a national trecreaturend hardly a
mere Stalinist broadsheet.

If the point concern Sweezey asas n economist, I would
like Brad to make clear to me what I do not
understand, why the citation in the article is the
most remarkable thing about SwSweezey'sareer asas an
economist. What about his reconstruction of the
argument of Marx's capital in The Theory Of
CaCapitalistevelopment, and his proof, for what it is
worth, that the transformation problem is
sosoluble(And I dodon'tven believe in the LTV.) Yeah,
I know Borkewiesz came up with it first. S credits
him. WaWhatbout his groundbreaking work with Paul
Baran in development theory? And, if wewe aree look to
the tip of the hat to Stalin, given the premises of
value theory, what is the emembarrassments saying that
the LoV will continue to operate in the USSR.

With all due respect -- Brad, this is an olive branch,
I'm trying to be civil, and I acknowledge with regret
that I have fallen short in that department in dealing
with you in the past. Please accept my apologies.

jks


> Let us not forget that Brad D's original statement
> commits tu quoque fallacy
> with respect to Stalin , as Michael Perelman alluded
> to. Being a mass
> murderer is irrelevant to the validity of Stalin's
> opinion on the continued
> operation of the law of value within part of the
> Soviet Union. Then , I
> think, there is a second layer of ad hominem in what
> Brad says, because he
> accuses Sweezey of bad motive in agreeing with
> Stalin. Not that Sweezey has
> made a bad argument, but that he agrees with someone
> bad. So, Brad D.'s
> argument is doubly flawed, since we are talking
> logic.
> 

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Get better spam protection with Yahoo! Mail.
http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools