Content area
Full Text
ABSTRACT: A recent trend among Marxist economists tries to vindicate Marx, in opposition to criticism from mainstream economics and to developments in what may be called the mainstream of Marxist theory in the 20th century. It does this, however, by insisting on the literal truth of Marx's formulations, especially in Volume III of Capital. Well-known difficulties with these formulations are countered by resort to a "temporal" interpretation, in which inputs and outputs are differently time-- dated. This, however, reduces either to the abandonment of theory altogether, or to replication of firmly established results in value theory. While temporal dynamics contributes to our understanding of both value formation and capitalist accumulation, no good purpose is served by a fundamentalist orientation, argument by appeal to textual authority, and denigration of the achievements in Marxist economics in the time since Marx wrote.
Author's Note
This paper was written for the International Working Group in Value Theory, and presented at two conferences of the IWGVT, in preliminary form in New York, March 1995 and in completed form in Boston, March 1996. The delay in publication must therefore be explained.
The IWGVT organizers, who are proponents of the "Temporal Single System" (TSS) approach to value theory (as it has subsequently come to be called), asked me to prepare a critique of their work, and then proposed to publish this critique in book form, together with replies from themselves and from others writing from related standpoints, as well as additional papers from the 1995 conference. I readily agreed, and reserved the paper for that project. The volume was to be entitled The New Value Controversy and the Foundations of Economics. A publisher, I was told, was actively engaged. My paper was sent to a referee for comments, which resulted in a revised version in May 1996.
Since that time, however, and until the time of this writing January, 2000), no progress toward publication has been made. Repeated inquiries have produced no results. A recent communication from the publisher makes clear that no contract has been signed for publication of the book, nor any date set for delivery of camera-ready copy. "Frankly, it has been a long time since we were last in touch about the book, and I had assumed...