Date: Wed, 03 Aug 94 07:57 CDT
From: Andy Daitsman <ADAITS-AT-macc.wisc.edu>
Subject: Re: LTV: An encore


Phil Goldstein down in Delaware "anonymously" wrote:
 
>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?
>
 
Do I hear the name "Lysenko" lurking behind this post?  :-)
 
Andy
 
 
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Andy Daitsman                      +  "Without complete freedom of the press
Department of History              +   there can be neither liberty nor
University of Wisconsin, Madison   +   progress.  But with it one can barely
adaits-AT-macc.wisc.edu               +   maintain public order."
                                   +     Domingo Sarmiento -- El Mercurio, 1841
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