File spoon-archives/marxism.archive/marxism_1994/94-08-17.000, message 33


Date: Wed, 3 Aug 1994 08:03:11 -0400 (EDT)
From: Philip Goldstein <pgold-AT-strauss.udel.edu>
Subject: Re: LTV: An encore 


Paul Cockshott wrote: 
If the labour theory of value is rejected, then the entirely of
the classical and marxist objective approach to political economy
falls in favour of a subjectivist approach.
If the feasibilty of socialist economic calculation, a very
closely related topic, is rejected, then there can be no
coherent socialist politics.  
The issues at stake here are central to the struggle between
socialism and capitalism.
     I find these claims highly inflated. Are we really to imagine masses 
of people demonstrating in support of the labor theory of value? When a 
people's movement comes to power, should it demand that the goverment 
affirm the labour theory of value? What good would that demand do? I know 
that I sound very cynical, sorry; still, this defense of a labour theory 
of value sounds like the scientific Marxists wanting to define a 
socialist movement in their own terms, in advance, in keeping with their 
"objective" truths. How democratic is this "objective" approach?



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