Probably very little difference for most folks, I suppose, including people who think Marx's ideas are important. The debate concerns a point of intellectual history: What exactly was Marx getting at in his value theory, and how does that relate to his larger conception of how capitalism functions?
The answer matters to the extent that intellectual history matters. Kliman & others who work broadly in his line seem to argue, rather paradoxically in my view, that if Marx's analysis of value isn't airtight, Marx's critics are somehow justified in dismissing pretty much everything else he said. Hence the mere suggestion that Marx didn't get it entirely right makes one an enemy of Marx.
Very few serious historians of ideas would apply that rule to any important philosopher or social scientist of the past. Mainstream economists regard The Wealth of Nations as analytically primitive, yet esteem the book as chock-full of still-relevant insight. From the 1940s up to the early 1970s orthodox Keynesians treated The General Theory as a work that got some important things right and some other things wrong; the things it got wrong were thought to be fixable with some tweaking, and the resulting model provided the framework for a relatively progressive approach to macroeconomic policymaking--which is not to say that I endores that particular reading of Keynes.
I consider myself a Marxist, but I think Marx made some genuine missteps in articulating his conception of value. I also think some such errors were, for all practical purposes, inescapable, given the state of development of the theory of value & distribution at the time Marx was wrestling with these ideas, in particular his lack of access to simultaneous equation methods. But his understanding of how prices & distribution are regulated under capitalism was essentially correct, and he made remarkable advances over Ricardo given the tools at his disposal.
The approach advocated by Kliman, I think, "rescues" Marx by interpreting him in a way that trivializes his value analysis (making it say virtually nothing) and by ignoring much of what Marx said about what he was trying to do. There is indeed an air of "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin" about the controversy. But most debates in intellectual history debate will seem that way to people who aren't directly engaged in them.
Still, Doug is right that it's hard to see why some people get so worked up about it. I've argued with Kliman et al. about these issues because they are interesting to me. But I wouldn't presume they will be interesting to most people. And I sure don't see why the debate can't be collegial & constructive.
Gary
>>> <lbo-talk-request at lbo-talk.org> 11/25/07 6:30 PM >>>
>
> From: bhandari at berkeley.edu
> Subject: [lbo-talk] malicious liar
> Almost without exception the economists have rejected both of Kliman's
> argument. I think that's a terrible mistake.
>
> But it can surely be taken as a compliment, can't it? After all, the
> critique of political economy was never intended to make friends and
> influence people within the economics profession. Being far from New
> York, I cannot comment on Kliman's personality, but I have found his
> ideas interesting.
I've avoided this whole value controversy like the plague. Say Kliman is right. So what? What difference does that make to anyone outside the IWGVT?
Doug
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