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Some time ago, Tony Brewer wrote: 
> First, it is important to distinguish between (a) what Marx said and  
> (b) what we might now think is the truth. Michael is careful about  
> that, but his post seems to move from (a) to (b). The issues involved  
> overlap, in this case, but it is still an important principle that we  
> should keep the two apart. 
 
This distinction may seem obvious, and at the most general level, I  
have no disagreement with it. Subsequently, Andrew Kliman affirmed  
his agreement with it. 
 
However, I think that it cannot do the work that Tony here, and  
Andrew here and elsewhere wants it to do - because it is not easy to  
sustain in detailed practice. The *text* (words, sentences,  
paragraphs, sections and complete works, or notes) of an author can  
of course be unambiguously identified empirically (though not without  
some fuzziness from translation and editing, and now and again  
fraudulent misrepresentation). But the *meaning* (concepts,  
propositions and arguments) is a much more mediated matter. Harking  
back to an earlier discussion, are we to be concerned with what the  
author *intended*? This is to be established, presumably, by  
reference to the text, but also to surrounding texts, correspondence  
etc,  the social, cultural and intellectual context, contemporary  
interpretations etc.. Or is the concept of the Author dead, so that  
the text itself is subject to multiple readings, again in a discourse  
presumably informed by all the foregoing, plus the interpreter's own  
perspective and concerns. Or something in between, in which the  
overall spirit of the author's intentions are to be  
discerned, and the text interpreted and examined to establish  
internal coherence, changing positions, etc around them? 
 
It seems to me that we do want to know what an author intended to  
say about her theoretical object, but that we also want to develop,  
correct, 'up-date' and so on. And in this last we will be at  
least as concerned with the logical imperatives of our authors  
vision. History of thought, I guess, focuses on the former, and those  
interested in the 'truth of the matter' about the theoretical object,  
on the latter. Of course, in this last endeavour, we should beware of  
ascribing to an author thoughts that cannot be supported by the text  
(in the light of all the other sources indicated above). 
 
An example: I am currently working on a paper arguing that Marx did  
not *need* a commodity theory of money. This is clearly concerned  
with the latter rather than the former end of the spectrum just  
identified. But I am certainly concerned to preserve the overall  
coherence of what *I* conceive to be Marx's conceptual system, and  
have (re-) read virtually every thing the old boy had to say on  
money, in researching this paper. My conclusions (so far)  are  
broadly that he didn't need a commodity theory of money (as I  
understand such a theory), that he almost certainly held such a  
theory, but that that, first, this is an historically understandable  
mistake, and, second, there is also much evidence of elements of a  
non-commodity (what *I* would call a 'value-form' theory of money)  
struggling to get out. I may be right, I may be wrong, but my  
arguments cannot, imo, be ruled out by reference to some distinction  
between what Marx said and what I am arguing to be the case about a  
moment of our common theoretical object. 
 
Another, quite different, example might be a discussion about whether  
Samuelson's famous 'over-lapping generations' model has to be  
talking about money (as his text indicates) or whether it is in fact  
only about what Thomas Mayer called 'hierlooms'. It is a matter of  
complex interpretation - only here, of course, we could ask the man  
himself about his intentions (even if we don't feel the need to be  
bound by them). Nor is it  irrelevant to the history of economic  
thought. A notion of over-lapping generations certainly informs new  
classical monetary theory (is it the same as Samuelsons? does it  
share his notion's alleged weaknesses as an account of money?) 
 
Thus, I would suggest, the distinction is not helpful to Tony's  
response to me, because I have been arguing that (my interpretation  
of) Marx's account of wages is OK, and (in part therefore) has been  
fruitful in stimulating some of the later developments to which I  
adverted. 
 
As another example, Andrew's use of the distinction has  
operated primarily in support of his position that all of  Marx's  
important results (especially in his macrodynamics) can be replicated  
by modern analytical methods, correctly used, and so are not subject  
to the various well known criticism of them (post-Sraffian charges  
of the redundancy and incoherence of Marx's labour theory of value,  
and Okishio's  demonstration of  the invalidity of his  
theory of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall).  What is  
more, Andrew (et al)'s work is intended only to demonstrate this  
replication, in particular, it does not aim to provide arguments as  
to the truth or validity of Marx's arguments. (Sorry if that's a  
caricature, Andrew.) Again, it would seem that the <What Marx  
said>/<What is true of the world> dichotomy is here collapsing before  
our very eyes. 
 
{I'll postpone any substantive discussion of Tony's  point about the  
dual determination of wages until I address his editorial.} 
 
However, it is not clear that his claim that my argument about the  
coherence of Marx's dual account of wages is 
 
> an answer to (b) [what I think is the truth] not (a) [what I think Marx asserts], and  
> fits (d) [that  wages are determined by some dynamic 
> interaction involving accumulation, technical change, bargaining 
> power, and so on, so that they are determined simultaneously with 
> profits etc.,] not (c) above [ the > claim that wages are determined by subsistence,
including a
> historical and moral element, *prior to* the determination of profit 
> (or surplus value) etc.] 
 
Nor do I agree that 
> (c) seems to be what Marx claimed  
> in the bulk of his discussion of surplus value in volume I of Capital, 
 
is a problem for me.  The logic of Marx's argument at least  
requires that the moral & historical level of 'subsistence' is  
perceived as an ever present constraint within the dynamics of ch.  
25, not in any logical sense prior to them. 
 
Furthermore, it is, imo, not the case that 
 
> Ch. 25 fits (d). 
 
Since Marx is here concerned with dynamics, not simultaneous  
determination. 
 
Whatever is correct, is certainly complex - and, I have tried to  
indicate, is not helped by positing a dichotomy between (a) and (b).  
 
Dr Michael Williams  
Department of Economics 
School of Social Sciences 
De Montfort University 
 
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