File spoon-archives/marxism-thaxis.archive/marxism-thaxis_1997/marxism-thaxis.9711, message 215


From: "jurriaan bendien" <Jbendien-AT-globalxs.nl>
Subject: Re: M-TH: surplus value
Date: Sun, 23 Nov 1997 23:36:09 +0100




----------
>Rakesh writes"
> 
> I am just finishing typing out this passage from Mattick's Marx and
Keynes,
> p. 84 as I receive yet another stimulating post from  Jurriaan. In terms
of
> his recent criticism of Mattick's fundamentalist aversion to empirical
> confirmation of value theory, I would like to note immediately that for
> Mattick the *observable* confirmation of the law value--a sort of hidden
> causal mechanism in Bhaskarian terms-- remained the persistence of the
> trade cycle. Remember Mattick had worked out Marx and Keynes years   
before it was published in 1969--that is, when there was supreme confidence
that the trade cycle had been conquered. On the basis of value theory, he
made a defiant prediction, so defiant that it seems that he could not find
a
> publisher.

I think Mattick's quote fairly well captured what actually happened, and
that is very much to his credit.  I certainly would place Mattick within
the revolutionary Marxist tradition incidentally (with crossreference to
Casey) and I profited from reading his works (Economics and Politics in the
Age of Inflation, Marx and Keynes, Crises and Crisis Theory were the once I
went through in the early 1980s). I also agreed incidentally with Pannekoek
on Lenin as a philosopher, so in that respect I am in agreement with James
Heartfield.  But okay Mandel doesn't say much that is very different in The
Second Slump, and he fleshes out the ideas in the context of empirical
events.  And I could also say that Mandel, acting on the hunch of a
Kondratieff-type development, predicted in 1964 (The economics of
"neocapitalism", Socialist Register) that the boom would come to an end at
the end of the 1960s. He was rather alone in this at that time I gather,
although Milton Friedman was pessimistic about Keynesian remedies at that
time.  I remind you I don't have the chapters and verses handy here. But as
Lenin said somewhere - this is along the lines of "a week is a long time in
politics" - the important thing in politics is to have the correct line at
the correct time. This is something which is difficult to do, because it
requires a high level of unity (resolution) of theory and practice.
(Probably you could ask James Heartfield for a penetrating insight here).  
	Evidently in that area Mandel failed, he made mistakes.  He was often too
far ahead of the movement he stood for, and sometimes he lagged behind it,
and he struggled a lot to keep up with things, as many revolutionaries do. 
But okay he wasn't alone in this, it is a problem which everybody has to
grapple with when they try to combine scientific activity with organising
"the party of world revolution".  
	Man, what a party that was.  Far out !  
	Personally I failed miserably some years ago and I lost my sense to time
altogether, I realised to my shame and horror I was approaching things from
the wrong angle.  So I thought it was a wise idea to tackle things more at
a level I could handle, and shift my bishop to another square on the
chessboard of life.  Actually just recently I lost three chessgames in a
row.  I must be going blind.  
	But to paraphrase Ernst Bloch, where there's life there's hope. I managed
to read my poem at the annual poetry reading in my local pub tonight with
only two slips.  
	It is called Meditatie bij Zonsondergang [Meditation by sunset] and
published in: Uit de Verf [literally, Dutch for "out of the paintwork",
i.e. "the fine art of surfacing"], Volume 5. Dichter bij Kromm
publications, 1997, page 3.  Signed copy available from the Royal Library,
The Hague. Printed in 125 issues.  Of which I own two.    

  



> 
> rb
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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