Subject: Re: HoPE article
Date: Tue, 22 Oct 1996 18:02:33 -0400 ()


     BTW, there was a fifth man as well, later to be 
revealed to have been John Cairncross, brother of the 
economist Alec Cairncross.  Maurice Dobb apparently served 
as a more or less unwitting talent spotter for Soviet 
intelligence at Cambridge in the 1930s.
Barkley Rosser
On Tue, 22 Oct 1996 01:18:21 -0400 (EDT) Justin Schwartz 
<jschwart-AT-freenet.columbus.oh.us> wrote:


> 
> I guess I am sympathetically agnostic towards the eraser theorem. I don't
> think it makes Marx into a minor post Ricardan for lots of reasons, not
> least bedcause there's a lot more to Marxian pol econ that can be
> expressed in a formalized value theory--a good thing, in my view, because
> as you know I think value theory is a dead end for a lot of reasons quite
> apart from the eraser theorem. 
> 
> I agree with you that Baumol also expressed a deep appreciation of Marx
> from an NCE perspective, but I don't think that means that Samuelson also
> didn't. He thought through Marx very thoroughly, which more than you can
> say for most NCE-ers.
> 
> I think Steedman takes Marx pretty seriously, at least in Marx After
> Sraffa: the object of the book, whether successfully realizedor not, is to
> save a Marxian analysis, taking Sraffa's results as given. Lippi, same
> thing. I think bothof them consider themselves tobe Marxists; as do Howard
> and King, who may be analytical Marxists (I'd be glad to have them in the
> tent), but they do seem critically sympathetic to Sraffian analysis, as I
> am; while expresseing certain reservations about its assumptions. I
> suppose I pretty much agree with them, although I think that leaves all
> three of us somewhat up in the air about the ultimate validityof the
> Sraffian critique.
> 
> My friend at Cambs, a student of Sraffa, said that in his rooms at Trinity
> he had the Collected Works of Stalin heavily marked up and stuck all over
> with little slips of annotated paper, along with the collected Lenin, less
> marked up, and only selected works of Marx.
> 
> In his obit printedin the Kings' College annual, there was a story I think
> I've mentioned on the list; at the time of the Fourth Man controversy in
> the British Press, before it was revealed that Blunt was the Fourth Man
> (after Philby, Burgess, and MacLean), someone asked S whether he was the
> Fourth Man. Waving his handsin an "iniminatble Italian expressive gesture,"
> if I recall the language of the obit, S said, "I forget which number I was."
> 
> S was indeed a friend of Gramsci. He is also one of the three people
> Wittgenstein acknowledges as important influenceson the Philosophical
> Investigations. According to Monk's bio of W, W was persuaded of
> Communism, or as persuaded of it as he could be of anything, in part as a
> result of his discussions with S.
> 
> --Justin 
> 
> On Mon, 21 Oct 1996, Gerald Levy wrote:
> 
> > Justin Schwartz wrote:
> > 
> > > Jerry, you know more about economics than I do, but I thought the "minor
> > > post-Ricardan" line was PAul Samuelson's.
> > 
> > It was indeed a line from Samuelson, but the Neo-Ricardian critique of
> > Marx, especially by Steedman, echoes Samuelson's "eraser theorem" charge.
> > 
> > > In S's favor I
> > > will say that, what is rare among neoclassical economists, he thought
> > > long, hard, seriously, and fairly sympathetically about Marx and published
> > > some very deep criticisms in his scholarly work, as opposed to that absurd
> > > textbook that so many of us were subjected to.
> > 
> > I don't agree. I think that Baumol showed much more understanding of
> > Marx from a nc perspective. I also think that Baumol was the clear
> > "winner" in the debates in the '70's in the _Journal of Economic
> > Literature_ (JEL).
> > 
> > > What neo-Ricardans areyou talking about?
> > 
> > Steedman especially, but also Lippi, Roncoglia, et. al..
> > 
> > > Sraffa never considered Marx as
> > > minor anything. (Actually friendsof mine at CAmbridge who were students of
> > > S said that he was a moderately hard core Stalinist in politics in the
> > > early 1980s, i.e., to his death.) Steedman certainly doesn't think Marx is
> > > minor. Howard and Kinh don't. So who does?
> > 
> > I view Howard and King more as Analytical Marxists, rather than
> > Neo-Ricardians.
> > 
> > As for Sraffa, he -- evidently -- was a Stalinist ... but so were many
> > Neo-Ricardians in Europe. He was also a friend, I am told of Gramsci, but
> > that says very little as well.
> > 
> > Jerry
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >      --- from list marxism2-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
Rosser Jr, John Barkley
rosserjb-AT-jmu.edu




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