Date: Mon, 27 Nov 1995 14:29:31 -0800
From: James Miller <jamiller-AT-igc.apc.org>
Subject: John Ernst


SOMETHING WIERD THIS WAY COMES

   In his Nov. 26 post, John Ernst set up a numerical
example dealing with a change in constant capital.
   Starting with:

   10 c(fixed) + 90 c(raw mat.) + 100 v + 100 s = 300

he then changes the makeup of the constant capital to
reflect new, more productive machinery, giving:

   80 c(fixed) + 900 c(raw mat.) + 100 v + 1920 s = 3000

   Anyone familiar with Marx sees this as remarkably
bizarre. John has not added any workers to the labor
force, yet suddenly they are producing nearly 20 times
the surplus value. 
   So in my last post, I asked John: "Where did the extra
surplus value come from?" I thought he would see his
mistake. But no.
   In his post of Nov. 27, John defends his schema, saying
"at any rate, the 1920 is the social value created if there
is no price reduction." Recognizing that people are not
going to believe this, he continues a bit further, "in the
next line of numbers [80 c(f) + 900 c(rm) + 100 v + 920 s
= 1180], I drop the surplus value to 920, indicating the
usual Marxian assumption [regarding relative surplus value]."
   As much as John has read of Marx, he's never seen anything
like this, although he may have seen something like it in
the writings of the neo-Ricardians. It flies in the face of
the law of value, which John has said he is trying hard to
defend. IMO he's not really trying.
   How can a group of workers produce 200 new value per day,
then suddenly be producing 2020 new value as soon as the
new equipment is installed? Apparently, John is thinking that
the new value is coming from the machine. That's Steve Keen's
view, and I thought that John had understood something about
the difference between Marx and Keen. Maybe not.
   His reference to the change in relative surplus value is
a subterfuge. There isn't any change in relative surplus value,
either plus or minus, that can cause workers who are producing
200 value per day to suddenly be producing 2020 value per day.
The value that labor produces is a function of the time of
labor. In all the examples Marx gives, the value produced in
a day remains the same as long as the number of workers and
the number of hours worked remains the same. This is but the
ABC of the law of value. Value is a function of labor time.
   It becomes clear now what a vast theoretical gulf exists
between John and Marx. Juan Inigo saw that a little more
clearly than I did, although Juan sometimes got a little
carried away with his feelings (and I've been there myself).
   I regard this as a breakthrough in the discussion. The
reason that John has been so evasive is that he has felt
himself attracted to the analysis of the Ricardians, but
didn't know how to reconcile it with what he knew about
Marx. And he felt that he wanted to remain within the Marxist
theoretical framework.
   Here we can see that John is going the same way as Keen,
except that Steve has made his differences with Marx more
explicit. John claims to uphold the labor theory of value,
while Steve repudiates it openly. John is still unwilling to
overtly cast off the labor theory of value, but can no
longer allow it to affect his thinking. (Actually, I don't
know how well John defended the law of value in the past,
but I'm assuming he did it better and is now losing his
grip.)
   This also explains why he earlier complained that he
felt that his belief in the law of value was like a religious
commitment. He couldn't rationally justify the law of value
in his own mind. Nonetheless, he doggedly continued to sign
his posts "in orthodoxy," reflecting his determination to
remain on the turf that he had previously staked out.
   Referring to the tendency of the rate of profit to fall,
John indicates some of the factors that are pulling him
away from Marx, and he calls them by name: "the works of
John Roemer, an analytical Marxist, Ian Steedman, a neo-
Ricardian as well as professed Marxists like David Laibman
and Maurice Dobb."
   There is a polarization going on. Those within the academic
community who have successfully come through the great
hoop-jumping contest by writing their theses on Marxistic
themes, and this includes both self-dubbed Marxists as well
as neo-Ricardians and others, are now distancing themselves
from Marx, first in substance, and then in form. John, though
not an academic, follows this trend, and says so openly. All
that remains is for him to make his break formally.
   At any rate, I really don't want to continue the kind of
discussion John wants to have. This confusion and evasion
goes nowhere. But I would like to try to debate with him
if he could make an effort to change his pattern and open
up a serious and thoroughgoing exchange on the fundamental
question of value. What is value? What is its source? How
can we know that labor is the source of value? How is the
division of labor regulated by the law of value, etc.? These
are the issues we ought to discuss. But such a discussion
would only be possible if John were able to break out of
the framework he's in now, and open himself up to the
process of going to the root.
   By the way, Louis Proyect recently posted a passage from
Ellen Meiksins (?). I think that's her name. She was talking
about the lure of academia, its conservatizing effect, etc.
But we shouldn't overgeneralize here. I think it's possible
for professors to be revolutionists, or at least to come
close to it. Granted, we don't see much of that today. But
we should take each person at their word in these discussions,
and judge them by what they say, and not resort to ad hominem
arguments.
   I only called attention to John's holding up Roemer and
Steedman as exemplars as an indication of where he thinks
he's going. So I'm not accusing him of something he hasn't
already admitted. And I think many people on this list
understand a bit about the significance of those names.

Jim Miller
Seattle


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