----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- Yes Mark, But there is also the question of whether an empirical retort is suitable for a logical critique. In some circumstances, it is: for example, the 'Friedmanian retort' (which itself is probably not true, of course) that Galileo ignored air resistance when developing a theory of the effect of gravity, which of course Friedman 'answers' by saying that air resistance is negligible in the circumstances of his experiment. I don't believe the same can be said of this topic, since it goes to the logical foundations of the analysis--and especially the theory of income distribution. If it can, then there's another equally devastating logical critique which could then also be said to legitimately dismiss a logical critique on the ground of empirical evidence: the labor theory of value. There are at least some modern-day proponents of that theory (Paul Cockshott, Allin Cottrell and perhaps a few others) who argue that the logical critiques of the LTV are irrelevant, since on their statisticalr research, embodied labor values are better predictors of relative prices that Sraffian or other input-output derived imputed prices. So if some economists are willing to excuse the reswitching controversy (and the other aspects of Sraffa's 1960 critique, including the income distribution and capital measurement challenges) on the basis of empirical irrelevance, are they also willing to accept that the labor theory of value could be valid, on the basis of the empirical irrelevance of the transformation problem? Cheers, Steve Keen ------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]