Date: Tue, 22 Oct 1996 01:18:21 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: HoPE article



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
> 
> 
> 
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