Wow. No one should fawn, please present an argument against what I said. Your argument or someone else's (you don't have to give the person's name).
Of course I can't convince every die hard Sraffian or most economists but I know the point I made has given a most respected Sraffian theorist a reason for pause.
Moreover, what I wrote can be judged as to whether it is persuasive as to how Marx would have responded to the physicalist challenge before we assess the validity of such a response.
The physicalist response is presented as materialist, so it seems that Marx should have had sympathy for it. Indeed non acceptance of the physicalist approach has been called by Steedman the greatest obstacle to materialist political economy!
But I think this is clearly not true. Marx would have critiqued such pseudo physicalism from a realistic, processual point of view--I presented supporting quotes from Theories of Surplus Value.
Marx would have emphasized that the physical quantities posited are not real but tightly controlled inventions for the theory to be mathematically complete (once the distributional question is solved). Perhaps he would have been wrong to do so.
And what does lots of stuff mean? Whose modeling are you referring to?
Let's keep the level of argument high. I don't think I can be accused of bringing it down on this list or any other list for that matter.
As it is, you have not even intimated an argument, but you are still taking shots against me through others.
By all means let's not fawn on anyone's ideas here but by no means should the above kind of response by Ian, almost ad hominem in character, be encouraged either.
Thanks of course to Tahir.
Rakesh