The young Sidney Hook, in his *Towards the Understanding of Karl Marx* had an interesting discussion of the LTV. He argued that from the standpoint of pure logic one cannot prove or disprove any theory of value. He then drew an analogy with theories of geometry. Just as physical space can be described in terms of multiple systems of geometry(Euclidean, Lobachevskyian, RIemmanian etc.), so the same is true for the description of economic phenomena in terms of multiple theories of value. Experience cannot disprove any given geometric system, only make description in terms of a system, more or less complex. For the physicist, that geometric system, will be "true," to the extent that it in combination with other physical hypotheses, yields the simplest description of his experimental findings. However, to the extent that experimental control is not in question, the physicist can always save the appearances by introducing subsidiary assumptions and ad hoc hypotheses so that he can describe physical reality in terms of any geometric system that he chooses. Hook contended that the same was true for theories of economic value as well.
He argued that economic reality can be described in either marginalist terms or in terms of Marx's LTV. In either case, the economist must necessarily rely upon subsidiary hypotheses, such that it is not possible to refute either Marxian value theory or marginalism on the basis of empirical obervations. And Hook argued that Marx in *Capital* anticipated all of the major ojections to LTV. In any case, LTV can with sufficient tweaking of subsiduary hypotheses, always be saved from refutation. And in any case, neither LTV nor any other alternative theory possesses any predictive power .
But then Hook asks, if it is the case that we can always save LTV from empirical refuation, why would we want to save it. And his answer was because LTV is ultimately not a Sorelian myth or an ideology but is ". . . the self-conscious theoretical expression of the practical activity of the working class engaged in a continuous struggle for a higher standard of living - a struggle which reaches its culmination in social revolution. . . To the extent that economic phenomena are removed from the influences of the class struggle, the analytical explanations in terms of the labor theory of value grow more and more difficult. The labor theory of value is worth saving if the struggle against capitalism is worth the fight."
On Thu, 07 Apr 2005 09:29:43 -0400 Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol at jhu.edu>
writes:
> Justin:
> > Has it occurred to you that the last figure of the
> > first magnitude on this list died over 120 years ago?
> > No disrespect to Sweezey, but he wouldn't put himself
> > in that list either. Andthere have not been any
> > successors, either. When does a reserach program start
> > to degenerate? How many scores of years do you wait
> > without progress before give up?
>
> Scientific paradigms or "research programmes" (as Imre Lakatos calls
> them)
> survive because of vested interests in maintaining them rather
> because of
> their explanatory power. The facts do not fit to the theory - so
> much for
> the facts. There are elaborate progressive and degenerative
> "problemshifts," Lakatos claims, from saving theories from empirical
> falsification. Progressive problmeshift is a conceptual edifice that
> reconcile the core assumptions of the programme with the inconvenient
> empirical evidence - either by introducing auxiliary assumptions or
> "special
> cases.' Degenerative problemshifts boil down to reducing the scope
> conditions of the paradigm i.e defend the theory from refutation by
> limitn
> its empirical relevance.
>
> When we are to economic modeling - most of them, especially those of
> the
> neoclassical variety - have little or no explanatory power, but that
> does
> not slate them for empirical falsification, because there are
> political
> interests in maintaining them as the "founding myths" of the
> established
> institutional order (the role served by the flat-earth, geo-centric
> astronomy in the middle ages). So despite their embarrassingly weak
> record
> in predicting novel empirical - the only proof of a theory that
> really
> matters - these models are resuscitated by degenerative
> problemshifts (focus
> on mathematical models rather than empirical data) and heroic
> assumptions
> about human behavior (see for example my piece "The death knell of
> the
> utilitarianism" _Voluntas_ 2000, 11(4): 375-388).
>
> To be honest, the so-called Marxism was a research programme as
> well, and
> died not because it did or did not fit the facts, but because
> political-instituional interests that used it as their founding myth
> waned.
>
>
> It is probably safe to say that in social and behavioral sciences,
> about 50%
> is science and 50% is politics and ideology. In economics, however,
> that
> ratio is closer to 25% science and 75% politics and ideology.
>
> Wojtek
>
>
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