>
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2007/2007-November/022492.html
>
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2005/2005-April/006924.html
>
> >From whence one of the finer one-liners on the list was expressed:
> "The neo ricardians, if you will permit my French, can go fuck
> themselves."
>
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2006/2006-December/024893.html
Good stuff - Mongiovi is right on (the first link). It is a swamp, a huge waste of time, but an occupational hazard for anyone who takes marxish political economy seriously because you keep having to argue with people about it. I have to deal with the Kliman stuff because it appeals to certain people in my local political circles. Insisting that the financial crash is just an epiphenomenon of an underlying fall in the rate of profit makes for some ridiculous politics.
Mongiovi's paper, which I hadn't come across before, is a great critique. Duncan Foley and Robert Veneziani have also written good ones. But Mongiovi's basic point is really the killer - anyone who thinks Marx's project stands or falls with a solution to the tranformation problem or the tendency of the rate of profit to fall doesn't really get Marx's project.
Incidentally, Kliman's paper quotes an LBO post of mine, reporting on Gerard Dumenil and others mocking the profit rate explanation at Historical Materialism last year. I hope it doesn't come across that I was complaining about the mockery.
Cheers, Mike