The transformation problem has provoked controversy within Marxism and derision from without for more than a century. Bourgeois economists in particular (beginning with Ladislaus Bortkiewicz, and continuing, most notoriously, with Paul Samuelson) have seized on it to argue for…
  • quarrk [he/him]English
    1•5 months ago

    Ian Paul Wright is a rehashing of Ian Steedman, who himself is a neo-Ricardian and should be ignored on that basis. This version of the transformation problem is a problem with their neo-Ricardian theory, not Marx.

    One rebuttal to this sort of thinking was offered by Alan Freeman in Marx after Marx after Sraffa. Freeman is co-author of the temporal single-system interpretation of Marx, and also happens to be the spouse of fellow Marxist Radhika Desai.

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆OP
      2•5 months ago

      Ah interesting, I do think that the analysis in the article was interesting though and it does a good job laying out the problem. At least I haven’t thought of it in those terms before.

      • quarrk [he/him]English
        2•5 months ago

        Yup I agree it’s quite interesting. I’m fairly math-oriented so I spent like 2 weeks a couple years ago reading/pondering this exact paper. I do commend the rigor of the analysis, though at points I’m wondering whether the math is actually necessary to make the arguments … seems overly complicated to me.

        Putting Marx into linear algebra terms nonetheless is quite enticing. As with all mathematical models though, the most subtle of assumptions can mean everything. And in this case I think it is a wrong interpretation of Marx to model a society as a set of simultaneous equations. It is a purely technical view of production not specific to capitalist production; such a model could be constructed for any society with a division of labor. As well, there seems to be a fusing of labor in itself and labor power which, as we know, is the essential distinction in Marx’s analysis of capitalism.