Date: Sun, 19 Oct 1997 23:49:07 +0000
From: vladimir bilenkin <achekhov-AT-unity.ncsu.edu>
Subject: Re: M-G: Marx, Lenin & economic theory


RAKESH WROTE:

> What I do suggest work like this is stunning? Well aside from the reason
> that it relieves the guilt-ridden non-economists among us, this kind of
> Marxist commentary allows us to critique this society, to free ourselves
> from its fetishism, to rise above and beyond it from the perspective of a
> new society.
> 
> I agree with Louis P on a few things. We must fight a gusano
> counter-revolution, whatever the nature of Castro's Cuba; and Marx's
> economics is not that important after all. His critique of economics
> however is.

This is indeed a rather inspiring reading of Marx's critique.  But it
seems to imply that Capital has only a negative value for us.  I'm a
total ignoramus in 
political economy but I wonder if, say,  labor theory of value will have
lost its
relevance under socialism?  New (transitional) society will still need
an economy and, most likely, money as well.   What about price
formation?
How to calculate costs and to measure productivity?  

Marx's concept of critique also suggests a more complex historical
relation between his thinking and the categories of the bourgeois
political economy rather than their outright negation.  Or to put it
ontologically, socialism is a dilectical negation of capitalism and as
such is still in need of those economic relations that are reflected in
in these categories.

Vladimir


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