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[NOTE: This messsage is related to the "Defining Neoclassical" thread, but  
departs sufficiently to warrent a new subject. -- RBE] 
 
Anthony Brewer (in a contribution to the defintion of neoclassical 
economics) said:  
> (Marx was confused - he tried to abandon Malthusian demographics  
> but kept the subsistence wage.) 
 
This is just wrong. Following Ricardo, Marx explicitly allowed for a 
systematic 'social, historical and moral element' in the determination of 
wages. Marx, unlike Ricardo, also discussed this in terms of the market 
wage rising diverging from the (reproductive) 'value of labour power' 
over the cycle, and in response to shifts in the balance of class forces. 
Modern marxists have gone further in incorporating these insights in 
macrodynamic models of the capitalist economy. 
 
Consequently, Anthony's revisionist claim -  
> Drop the demographics and subsistence wages  
> vanish, so surplus is no longer an interesting idea. 
 
- is completely unsubstantiated. A surplus over the socially specific  
reproductive requirements of labour is a perfectly well-defined  
concept. 
 
[log in to unmask]  
Dr Michael Williams  
Department of Economics, School of Social Sciences 
De Montfort University 
 
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