[lbo-talk] Predestination and the labor theory of value

Tom Walker timework at telus.net
Thu Apr 7 09:11:12 PDT 2005


Justin wrote,


>But you don't need value theory to make that point,
>the theoty embroiled in complications elsewhere, it
>has made no progress and shown no results in over 100
>years. Adherence to it is now evidence (not
>conclusive) of crankery. It's time to disentangle
>what's good in Marx from the theory he inherited from
>classical political economy, and move on.

Exclusive attention to whether or not value theory "solves" a particular economic question overlooks the sociological and psychological dimensions that produced the theory in the first place and, more importantly, that *keep producing* intuitive versions of value theory. If by moving on, Justin means to stop trying to jump through the transformation problem hoops, I would agree in the abstract. But practically speaking, moving on would entail rather unprecedented collective self-restraint on the part of academics who read Marx but naturally wouldn't apply to vast legions of autodidacts who would then be more free than ever to derive classical conclusions that are less fruitful than the inconclusiveness of Marxian value theory.

I haven't heard it advanced here yet that value theory arose as a secular substitute for the theological doctrine of predestination. I'm assuming the naive question is "why are some people rich and some people poor?" So I wonder, if we "move on" from value theory does that mean we get back to predestination (no thanks) or is there something else that more adequately addresses the sociological and psychological issues that give rise to those kinds of questions? I'm sure that a lot of people would be more than happy to move on if they had any idea of what that something else was to move on to.

The Sandwichman



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