>So if someone insists on treating Marx's work that way, the fundamental
>question is 'What did it predict?' And the only honest answer to that
>question is "Not much."
>
Without getting into your personal pontifications on what is or is not
science (not to mention your failure to distinguish the natural from the
social sciences and the different forms that theorizing and hypothesis
testing necessarily takes in each of these very different scientific
enterprises) I might note it took you just over an hour to respond to my
post and the list of readings contained therein. I suspect you hold the
social sciences in such low esteem because your own personal research
protocols entail not the careful reading and consideration of views you
have not considered or evaluated in detail but rather involve sticking
to your emotive guns and smearing that which does not appeal to your
intuitions. The Marxists theoretical enterprise generates a series of
predictive statements which can be verified empirically as the studies I
listed indicate and there are several more. None of this says that
other theoretical enterprises cannot explain/predict the same phenomena
with a similar degree of predictability and accuracy. But this is the
nature of the social sciences.
The onus is on you to read and evaluate Marxist empirical studies and suggest specifically why they are contradictory or inaccurate. The onus is on you because you claimed they cannot predict anything- well now you say "not much." That is, this is a claim which you must substantiate with evidence. After you have done this let me know and we can have a reasoned debate. Failing this just admit that you are misinformed and we can move on.
Note the S&T was only listed to indicate that the SNAs can serve as the basis for a number of different types of studies and can themselves be manipulated to generate a different system of accounting which makes possible the empirical verification/falsification of some of the Marxist propositions.
Travis