[lbo-talk] Delong puts the smackdown on ol' Whiskers

[T Fast]

> Carl Remick wrote:
>
>>>From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
>>>
>>>It's weird - Brad picks a pretty wacko example, admits its kind of wacko, 
>>>but then claims it's important and conclusive anyway. Why does Marx make 
>>>smart people do silly things?
>>
>>Dunno, but I'm inclined to do something silly by uncharacteristically 
>>saying a good word on BDeL's behalf.  I think there is something to his 
>>conclusion, i.e.:  "If you want to make a compelling criticism of economic 
>>and social relationships, you cannot do so by saying that there is Marxian 
>>'exploitation' --which exists wherever workers are paid less than the 
>>average product of labor. You have to, instead, inquire into the origins 
>>of the wealth and property rights on which the proprietor class's income 
>>is based. The labor theory of value is simply a red herring."
>
> Yeah there are a lot of Marxist economists who've wasted immense amounts 
> of time on the transformation question and all that nonsense, but the 
> point of the Marxian concept of SV extraction is that, whatever the 
> phenomenal form of excess wealth - corporate profits, interest, executive 
> pay - its ultimate origin is in the unpaid labor of workers. That 
> understanding hardly precludes the empirical invesetigation BdL proposes.
> Doug

Also, Marx develops the LTOV in the context of a capitalist economy not in 
the rarefied historical Blip of petty commodity farm production or in the 
case of Brad's just so farmers.  On would have to show that it is Brad's 
farmers which dominate the processes of accumulation.  Now as bright as Brad 
may or may not be he can not conjure reality to match his just-so in the 
shower musings.

Travis