On Feb 5, 2009, at 11:59 PM, Mike Beggs wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 3:32 PM, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>
>> Then he is either using "model" as a mere (and not too good) synony
>> for
>> "abstraction" or he is wrong. Models as used in economics havd no
>> placve in Marx.
>>
>
> If this is true, which I don't think it is, then it is so much the
> worse
> for Marx. What do you see as the essential difference between
> 'model' and
> 'abstraction'?
Yeah, no kidding. A lot of model-building in orthodox econ is nonsense, but models are far from useless and I don't see how anyone acting in the spirit of Marx wouldn't want to appropriate bourgeois techniques toward better ends. What an anti-intellectual and self- marginalizing position on the part of Cde Cox.
Doug