You are correct that both the Monthly Review school and Veblenian institutionalism provide major ingredients for the 'capital as power' (CasP) approach that Nitzan and Bichler (N&B) are creating. I would add Marx, Kalecki, Mumford and Castoriadis as additional major contributions. However, I CasP cannot be reduced to any; it has significant emergent properties.
Additionally, you are correct that N&B are returning to some pretty fundamental debates. That is one of their major starting points. They fully recognize that there are many self-identified Marxists who have abandoned the labour theory of value (LToV). However, they contend this cannot be done so easily if you wish to retain central Marxian concepts. They argue that we need a theory of value if we are going to describe, explain and theorize political economic events. The theory begins with three rejections that are not entirely shared with either the Monthly Review school or institutionalists:
1. rejection of dual-quantity theories of value 2. rejection of the duality between 'real' and 'nominal' spheres 3. rejection of the duality between 'economy' and 'politics'
The first says that observable financial quantities cannot be explained by some other unobservable quantities, abstract labour-time in the case of the LToV. The second says that we have no basis to proclaim some separation between a real sphere of production and a nominal sphere of financial representation. In part, this is because we have no way of quantify a supposedly 'real sphere.' This creates problems for explanations of the recent crisis on the basis of a so-called 'bubble.' Prices were supposedly inflated; against what? What ought prices to have been? How can we tell? The last says that accumulation - which they argue is judged solely in financial terms and must be judged *differentially* - cannot be explained by any one set of institutions that can be described as the 'economy,' but instead depend on a vast, diverse array of social relations that transcend any analytical division between 'economy' and 'politics.' That is why they cannot be dismissed as merely more thinkers talking about "cost-plus pricing, with a differential profit margin depending on market power." The power of capitalists is far more diverse and complex than that. On the basis of these three rejections, N&B advocate a quantity-quality methodology that examines changing financial values against a broad narrative of changing qualitative realities.
Of course, many other theorists have said some of these things, in pieces. In particular, the narrative form of describing qualitative aspects of capitalist power that transcend 'economy' is popular. But, I know of none that have put them together in this manner, especially with a renewed focus on quantitative analysis. It is for this reason that CasP represents a major departure from existing value theories and offers powerful new analytical tools.
D.T. Cochrane
On Thu, Nov 4, 2010 at 7:50 PM, Mike Beggs <mikejbeggs at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 5, 2010 at 9:42 AM, D. T. Cochrane <dtc at yorku.ca> wrote:
>
> > Full disclosure: I am a student of Professor Nitzan's and one of the
> > organizers of the 'Crisis of Capital, Crisis of Theory' conference. I can
> > state that Kourkoulakos is not a student of Professor Nitzan and
> certainly
> > was not asked to send the letter. His motivation was based on a
> presentation
> > by Professor Nitzan at a Poli-Sci event last year that was not attended
> by
> > any faculty and provoked no response from any faculty, despite the fact
> that
> > Professor Nitzan was questioning some of the foundational bases for their
> > analyses.
> >
> > Given the purpose of N&B's work, it seems worthy of some sort of
> response.
> > They are trying to address some central issues and problematic concepts
> > within political economy.
>
> I went through a lot of the Bichler and Nitzan stuff a long time ago
> now - haven't been in touch with it for about six or seven years. I
> thought there was a lot of interesting stuff, Nitzan’s courses look
> great – but I’m not sure about the theoretical project. My impression
> is that at the core it’s Monthly Review school + Thorstein Veblen (and
> of course there was always a lot of American Institutionalism in the
> Monthly Review school). A major focus on imperfect competition and
> insofar as it involves a theory of prices or value, it’s all about
> cost-plus pricing, with a differential profit margin depending on
> market power.
>
> It’s a legitimate position to come from, defend and develop, but it’s
> not particularly new. Bichler and Nitzan seem to have taken a very
> conscious ‘school-building’ approach, which involves a strong product
> differentiation effort. Again, there’s nothing illegitimate about that
> – it’s a strategic manoeuvre in the scholarly field with a lot of
> precursors. But as a strategic manoeuvre it has its downsides – such
> as a ‘with us or against us’ vibe which can alienate people who might
> potentially engage. The great risk with school building is that if
> your school doesn’t conquer a fair amount of territory you become a
> sect.
>
> >
> > To name just a few:
> > Is Marx's value theory vital to his body of thought? Is that theory meant
> to
> > explain prices? Is that theory meant to explain accumulation? Does it
> > succeed in explaining prices and/or accumulation? If it does not, what
> does
> > explain prices and accumulation?
>
> These are all interesting questions and worth discussing – but it’s
> not like they haven’t been debated at great length for the last 50
> years, within and without ‘Marxian economics’, with a great variety of
> positions. I guess Panitch came into this primarily because he was a
> close target, since all concerned are at York. (Maybe Ted Winslow
> should organise a sit-down.) But as Panitch makes clear, he’s not all
> that concerned about a fundamentalist ‘labour theory’ conception of
> Marx’s theory of value and neither are a lot of people in the
> tradition – these debates have moved on since the 1970s and this kind
> of value theory is not exactly the thing to beat anymore if you want
> to set up a new theory of value within the broad church of heterodox
> economics. It’s not exactly a straw man – but they’re talking about a
> subset of Marxian economics.
>
> Mike Beggs
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>