robbo203
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twc wrote:.On the other hand, it is remotely possible that his Sraffian economy may treat pristine inputs in the same way as it treats all other inputs—as variable capital.Variable-capital inputs may continue to be productively consumed/used [even long] after they have reproduced their own maintenance cost. Consequently, pristine raw materials (considered as variable capital) will always contribute toward profit since they take absolutely no time to reproduce their own [zero] maintenance.Again, you’d have to check if he treats them as such, i.e. as actual inputs, on equal par with machinery and possibly working animals.If he doesn’t you’d consider asking him why not, since these homeopathic inputs contribute miraculously to profit?
As long as Keen treats machinery as variable capital, then whether or not he treats pristine raw materials as variable capital too, his theory will run into insurmountable conceptual problems. This is why I mentioned pristine raw materials which are different from machinery inasmuch as the latter obviolusly has embodied labour content. Its a way of calling into question his treatment of machinery as varable capital
twc wrote:In the Sraffian context, Keen raises the issue of machinery and animal labour as variable capital rather than constant capital. Read Keen’s Debunking Economics.How does he classify pristine raw materials in that case?
Lew wrote:robbo203 wrote:His book Debunking Economics is a must-read (and I haven't read it yet)I have read it and it's a waste of time:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2003/no-1182-february-2003/book-reviewsLew
Lew, What I mean is it is a "must-read" if you are going to debate with the guy. Its his main book, innit? I can't comment on its worth, mind you , as I haven't read it but I am to at some point …..
ALB wrote:He's actually based in the Kingston University which falls within the area of West London branch, so we could contact him. What, a debate on "Is the Labour Theory of Value" valid?Hmm. You might find a title like that for a debate a little too dry and abstract to attract any but the most hardened enthusiasts although I could be wrong. Keen is quite well known in certain circles , I even have a work acquaintance here in Spain who installed my solar panel who is quite ..er.. keen on him (sorry, couldn't resist that). Maybe a more generalised title like "The Economics of Capitalism – is Marxism still relevant? Just a thought. I would advise, though, to gem up on where he specifically stands within the spectrum of heterodox economic theory. I don't know enough about his writings to quite place him except to say that he regards himself as a post Keynesian sympathetic to some aspects of Marx's thought and critical of neoclassical economics. . His book Debunking Economics is a must-read (and I haven't read it yet) and of course there is ton of stuff you can get on the internet by googling Keen
ALB wrote:robbo203 wrote:He would probably say that even with relatively labour intensive businesses, machines still add value to the product as opposed to simply transfer the value congealed in them over the lifetime of the machine.But does Keen actually say this? And does he say that it is only machines that add surplus value and not the other elements of Marx's constant capital (academic economics's "non-labour inputs")? If so, why does he exclude buildings, raw materials and power from creating surplus value too? Or does he accept the concept of "constant capital" but wants to narrow it to exclude machines? If so, again why?I'm a bit surprised that, as an academic economist even if one who wants to make a name for himself as a bit of an unorthpdox one, he has any use for the concept of "value" at all and doesn't want to try to analyse the capitalist economy in terms of price only.(which the so-called "transformation problem" is basically all about).
Adam,Im not too sure whether Keen makes a distinction between machinery and other elements of constant capital. That would be an interesting line of enquiry to pursue precisely because of the embodied labour content of machines. I haven't read enough of the guy to give you an informed opinion but it could be an Achilles Heel in his argument What I can say is that he:1) rejects the labour theory of value on grounds of its "unjustified asymmetrical treatment of the labor and non-labor inputs to production" (http://keenomics.s3.amazonaws.com/debtdeflation_media/papers/Keen1993UseValueDemiseLabourTheoryValue_JHET15pp107-121.pdf) 2) that he subscribes to the "surplus appropriation" school of thought, which means that he considers workers are still exploited – despite his rejection of the LTV. As such, this puts him in the same boat as some "Analytical Marxists" like G A Cohen who argue that you dont need the LTV to show that workers are exploited Why doesnt the SPGB invite Keen along to a debate or discussion? I think he is based in London but I might be mistaken
A quote from John Ramsay McCulloch, The Principles of Political Economy (5th ed.) [1864] http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/mcculloch-the-principles-of-political-economy-5th-ed-1864 "That commodities could not be produced without the co-operation of the powers of nature, is most certain; and we are very far, indeed, from seeking to depreciate the obligations we are under to our common mother, or from endeavouring to exalt the benefits man owes to his own exertions by concealing or underrating those which he enjoys by the bounty of nature. But it is the distinguishing characteristic of the services rendered by the latter, that they are gratuitous. They are infinitely useful, and they are, at the same time, infinitely cheap. They are not, like human services, sold for a price; they are merely appropriated. When a fish is caught, or a tree is felled, do the nereids or wood-nymphs make their appearance, and stipulate that the labour of nature in its production should be paid for before it is carried off and made use of? When the miner has dug his way down to the ore, does Plutus hinder its appropriation? Nature is not, as so many would have us to suppose, frugal and grudging. Her rude products, and her various capacities and powers, are all freely offered to man. She neither demands nor receives a return for her favours. Her services are of inestimable utility; but being granted freely and unconditionally, they are wholly destitute of value, and are consequently without the power of communicating that quality to any thing" The implication of this is that value (and hence surplus value) is essentially a social relationship based on generalised commodity exchange. Machines, like pristine raw materials, do not enter into an exchange with the capitalists but unlike pristine raw materials have labour already congealed in them. Workers on the other hand , do enter into an exchange relationship with the capitalists. Labour power is exchanged for a wage. So there is a qualitiative difference between labour power and machines. At the end of the day, machines are simply the extension or amplification of human labour One further point, I think. Value (and surplus value) is only comprehensible as a concept at the level of the economy as a whole. As stated, it is not a thing but a social relationship. The suggestion that machines produce surplus value is an attempt to "concretise" (turn it into something with "thinglike" qualities) the concept of value by locating it within the confines of the individual business firm employing machinery to raise the productivity of its workforce. This makes no sense in terms of the labour theory of value Finally, if machines produce surplus value then you could just easily assert that slaves produce surplus value (or indeed animals). But they dont. Slaves produce an economic surplus but not surplus value. I like Mandel's succinct explanation of the difference betrween surplus value and other forms of the economic surplus: It can take the form of straightforward unpaid surplus labour, as in the slave mode of production, early feudalism or some sectors of the Asiatic mode of production (unpaid corvée labour for the Empire). It can take the form of goods appropriated by the ruling class in the form of use-values pure and simple (the products of surplus labour), as under feudalism when feudal rent is paid in a certain amount of produce (produce rent) or in its more modern remnants, such as sharecropping. And it can take a money form, like money-rent in the final phases of feudalism, and capitalist profits. Surplus-value is essentially just that: the money form of the social surplus product or, what amounts to the same, the money product of surplus labour. It has therefore a common root with all other forms of surplus product: unpaid labour (Ernest Mandel, 1990, "Karl Marx", Marxian Economics, John Eatwell, Murray Milgate & Peter Newman (eds.), London 1990, p.1-38).
Some interesting comments in these links to a blog which seems decidedly hostile to Marxian economics…. http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com.es/2015/05/karl-popper-on-labour-theory-of-value.html http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com.es/p/the-labour-theory-of-value-as-presented.html http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com.es/2015/04/the-labour-theory-of-value-and-animal.html
ALB wrote:robbo203 wrote:I think the belief that they do is implicit in "Okishio's theorem" – the argument that investing in more machinery must raise profitability otherwise the capitalists wouldnt make such an investment from which it is inferred that machines must ipso facto produce surplus value.As I suspected, it seems that there is a confusion between the creation of (value and) surplus value and its realisation. Due to the averaging of the rate of profit, capitalist enterprises with relatively more fixed capital tend to capture more surplus value (from the pool of surplus value created by the working class as a whole) than is created in them — otherwise there'd be no incentive to invest in more up-to-date and productive machinery. But it is not the machinery itself that creates the surplus value.
Wasnt Marx's argument that the innovating capitalist would attract higher than normal profits to begin with but as others followed the rate of prpfit would tend to decline with the overall rise in the organic composition of capital? I understand the point you are making about more capital intensive businesses capturing more surplus value as a result of the averaging of the rate of proft but I suppose Keen would say he is not talking about this but rather about the more fundamental point of whether machines produce value and therefore surplus value . He would probably say that even with relatively labour intensive businesses, machines still add value to the product as opposed to simply transfer the value congealed in them over the lifetime of the machine. Intuitively I think this argument doesnt make sense but I am trying to marshall the array of different arguments that can be used against it
robbo203 wrote:ALB wrote:What is Steve Keen's objection? Has it something to do with the averaging of the rate of profit meaning that constant capital "attracts" more profit than the value its transfers?No, I dont think so. That was Bohm Bawerks line of argument – wasn't it? – were he talked of the fatal "contraction" between vol 1 and vol 3 of Das Capital which I think was dealt with by Hilferding and Bukharin.
Slight correction. He does appear to have gone along with the conventional argument against Marx's views respect to the so called transformation problem"- now put to rest by the good folk from TSSI camp like Kliman and Freeman – but it was not his primary line of attack on Marx. That as I said seems to focus on the question of whether machine produce surplus valueI think the belief that they do is implicit in "Okishio's theorem" – the argument that investing in more machinery must raise profitability otherwise the capitalists wouldnt make such an investment from which it is inferred that machines must ipso facto produce surplus value.
ALB wrote:What is Steve Keen's objection? Has it something to do with the averaging of the rate of profit meaning that constant capital "attracts" more profit than the value its transfers?No, I dont think so. That was Bohm Bawerks line of argument – wasn't it? – were he talked of the fatal "contraction" between vol 1 and vol 3 of Das Capital which I think was dealt with by Hilferding and Bukharin. Keens particular gripe with the LTV centres on something else which is nicely explained in this link I came across Keen decidedly joins the latter, contending that Marx’s labor theory of value is invalid, because of an inconsistency that, he believes, vitiates Marx’s argument on how surplus value is produced. The inconsistency–Keen thinks–lies in the “asymmetrical” manner in which Marx dealt with labor and non-labor inputs in surplus value production. https://juliohuato.org/2012/04/06/steve-keen-and-the-labor-theory-of-value/
ALB wrote:I was once at a debate between Wedgewood Benn and the Green Party at which he made the point that revolutions are inspired by hope of a better future rather than by fear of worse one (predictably, the Green Party representative was speaking doom and gloom and predicting the end of the world in 40 years, etc, etc). I think Benn had a valid point. In fact fear can lead people to support reaction rather than revolution.That is very true and is also a very important point to make as well. There is a persistent strand of thinking that argues that things need to get worse before they can get better. You hear this kind of argument quite frequently on the Left – those social engineers with their mechanical-cum-teleological view of history. Capitalist crises and collapse brought on by the falling rate of profit, or whatever, is the only way we can move forward. It is the only way, they say, we can shake off the lethargy and compliance of the workers that bind them to the system. We have to go through the purgatory of a deep recession and grinding poverty in order to arrive at the pearly gates of a communist heaven. I’m very sceptical about this kind of argument. There is a lot of evidence around in the form of social surveys and what not that suggest workers tend, if anything, to become more conservative and unwilling to rock the boat when things are getting bad. Marx noted how the lumpenproletariat, those unfortunate workers at the bottom of the economic pile and suffering the greatest hardship, were often a force for reaction. Hitler came to power on the back of the 1930s Depression and the populist desire for a strong leader. You could say the same of Trump although Trump is not really a Hitler figure. In fact, much of right wing shift in politics in recent decades seems to be linked to economic problems. Go back to the watershed decade of the 1970s when the long post war boom came to an end and ushered in the neoliberal order commencing with Reagan and Thatcher. Sure, this is a simplification and one can point to counter evidence. The 1919 Spartacist uprising, the Anarchist collectives during the Spanish civil war (some of which sent so far as to abolish money and even – briefly – economic exchange itself) and so on, were all born out of harsh circumstances. Nevertheless I think on balance the evidence shows that when things get worse or, at any rate, when there is an expectation that things will get worse, people tend to draw in their horns. Conversely, when things get better, or seem to be getting better, people get more radical and trade unions, for instance become more militant in their demands precisely because they have a stronger bargaining position to work from All this has lessons for us socialists and the style and content of our propaganda. It suggests we need to be focussing on the more positive developments taking place around us and encourage workers to engage in a process of imaginative extrapolation to reflect on what is technically possible rather than depress them with thoughts of imminent apocalyptic collapse. That’s why I quite like memes such as “Fully Automated Luxury Communism”. Its forward thinking and positive. Yes the concept can be criticised (see for example https://libcom.org/blog/fully-automated-luxury-communism-utopian-critique-14062015) but at least it focusses on a brighter future and in so doing sheds lights on what gets in the way of us creating such a future
Bob Andrews wrote:Unlike Vin 'Mr Sincerity' Maratty, I'm not glad to see you back. You seem to do little else than bang the drum for Anarchists ( who are all policemen).Ignore the ever strange Mr Andrews and welcome back. Your contributions are always appreciated
alanjjohnstone wrote:Quote:Going off at a slight tangent, as a regular viewer of RT I have a strong suspicion that it has a hidden agenda of courting populism and giving sympathetic coverage to populist issues like immigration precisely becuase the interests of Russian state lies with a divided EuropeAlso having been a regular viewer during my absence from the internet, i can agree with Robbo here. RT has been guilty of highlighting the refugee crisis as a social problem and reporting on the crimes of refugees in their host countries.Has anybody got figures on the numbers of Syrian refugees Russia has admitted, even if only temporaily by offering advance medical treatment in their hospitals for the casualities of the civil war? As one of the major perpetrators of the conflict, Russia has failed to provide adequate humanitarian help to the victims while blaming Merkel for welcoming asylum-seekers.RT has been shamelessly pro-Trump, denouncing the protests against him such as the Women's march as a George Soros conspiracy and the Berkley University demonstrations as criminal anarchy. As you say, in the world of geo-politics a divided EU and US is in the interests of Russia's national interest and Putin's personal interest (are they the same thing?) It regularly invites UKIP policians on to their shows as commentators as well as American right-wingers from Ron Paul Institute. I should add they also make use of the SWP's Chris Banbury and Scot Nat John Wight.
All true Alan, And the guy who hosts the Crosstalk show declared himself to be frankly conservative. Somehow RT has pulled off the trick of appearng liberal in some ways while courting deeply reactionary sentiments in other ways, It is a tool of the Russian state and its reactionary oligarch leader, Putin, who is a good example of a Right wing populist . I see Putin has just signed off some bill decriminalising domestic violence. So macho violence is OK then. Like macho displays of military strength it all helps to cement the image of a strong leader which is what populism tends to cultivate. We are living in deeply reactionary times
cyberrevolution1 wrote:. Could the socialists use the populists to weaken the power of the elites so a global revolution could occur? The populists divide the global borguises, so we can conquer them.Going off at a slight tangent, as a regular viewer of RT I have a strong suspicion that it has a hidden agenda of courting populism and giving sympathetic coverage to populist issues like immigration precisely becuase the interests of Russian state lies with a divided Europe. Its the same with Trump with whom its sympathies clearly lay in the presidential contest
LBird wrote:robbo, you're moving outside the bounds of rational debate, and entering the territory of meaningless denunciation.It's impossible, by any rational political measures, to argue that a 'democrat' is a 'Stalinist'.Sigh. You never listen to what other people re saying do you LBird? I said the logic of your argument is Stalinist even if you yourself claim to be a democrat. This is because you are committed to the idea that there can be only one single planning body in communist society irrespective of how its is meant to be controlled – democratically or otherwise. In practice, there is only one way in which you can run a centrally planned economy in this sense and that is undemocratically with decisions being imposed downwards on the populaton I know you dont like the idea but that is in effect what you are advocating. Get used to it or radically change your ideas!
