Jim Farmelant wrote:
>
> >A theory can only be refuted with another theory, he
> > disclosed.
>
> A statement, which as far as these things go,
> is pretty much a common place in the philosophy
> of science. There are certainly plenty of
> examples in the history of science of
> theories continuing to be widely accepted
> by scientists despite their inconsistencies
> with empirical data because at the time
> there were no good alternative theories
> to replace them. So I think Laibman
> does have a point here,
And it gets more complicated yet when the "science" involved is not a positivist science.
Many Marxists do of course claim that Marx produced a positist science of economics, but there are important Marxist who deny this. (I am told that Bensaid has a chapter focusing on what "science" meant in the German of the mid-196h century, and that it did _not_ mean positivistt science.)
If (as I tend to agree) Marx's Capital proceeds by looking backwards on a capitalism that no longer exists but is an object of historical study, THEN he never intended that his work should nevessarily apply to a particular empirical state of capitalism. ("The anatomy of man is a clue to the anatomy of the ap.") It's been quite a few years since I read Rubin, but I think his work is compsatible with this view of Marx's theory.
That theory identifies the _ In tendencies_ manifested in any possible capitalist political economy at a given time in a given place. It is NOT an empircal account of _any_ capitalist economy, even that of England in the 19th-c. His facts are not evidence but illustrations.
Viewed historically in the abstract, capitalism is a totality which can be dialectically elaborated. But in contemporary empirical acuality (at any time and place) it is not and cannot be such a toatlity for a number of reasons. Even in a developed capitalsit economy such as the U.S. much of human life and activity is 'ouside' capitalism, even those parts on which capitalism is dependent, such as the family, the state, and the educational system. And capitalist relations proper are always, in actuality, beset and displaced by the contingencies of history. (For example, the army of labor refuses to act as the theory calls for, or labor fails to peform well its necessary function of forcing further development of technology by securing a higher level of compensation. And so forth. And there are external factors such as the invention of nuclear weapons, or the uneven distribution of oil about the globe. No theory of capitalism could preend to factor insuch contingenies.
Only if and when capitalism is no more wil an empirical confirmation or falsification of Marx's theory be possible.
Empirical detail can falsifie a 'theory' of the course of the u.s. economy over the next year. And above all, of course, no abstract theory, not groudned in current empirical detail (and probably not even then) can explain the gyrations of the stock market over the last 5 years. Laibman & Doug, very possibly, were both talking about quite different realms, and each was correct for his focus of interest.
Carrol
P.S. I've only been trying to work out this perspective over the last two years -- i.e. precisely during the period when I was no longer able to do the necessary reading to get a decent grip on what I'm talking about.