> I want to state more crudely a point I tried to develop a week or so a
> go & no one responded to.
>
> Context: Postone's claim that Marx wrote a Critique OF Political
> Economy, NOT a critical Political Economy -- that is, Marx does NOT
> provide a "scientific" economic theory, that can produce the sort of
> technical commentary on current economic events that the mainstream
> economists claim to provide. Or, put more briefly and comphrehensively:
Hi Carrol - I did respond to that the other day and I'd be interested in your response:
"Finally, I can't resist a little Marxology myself: contra Carrol, the fact that Capital is subtitled 'a critique of political economy' does not mean that it is not also a positive contribution to political economy, or that we should not engage in economics. Kant's book is called the 'critique of pure reason' not because he wanted to rule out of court all a priori judgments, but to inquire as to what makes them possible. Likewise, Capital is an inquiry as to what makes political economy possible, and proceeds by way of a lot of reflection on what makes economic phenomena appear as such, as a relatively autonomous social sphere open to a semi-autonomous social science - and conversely, the limits to their autonomy resulting from the embeddedness of the economy in a historically-developing social whole."
Mike Beggs