======================= HES POSTING ================= In response to my comment: > > > ... My initial intervention in response to an aside in one of Tony > > Brewer's posts was intended to refute the suggestion that there was > > not continuing an active and interesting body of work in the Marxist > > tradition. ... > Tony wrote: > I would like to put on record that I did not make the suggestion that > seems to be attributed to me here. In the posting concerned, I said > nothing about continuing work in the Marxist tradition. I have said a > fair bit about it elsewhere, but I wouldn't want it to be summarized in > such simple and dismissive terms. My remarks were about Marx himself, > not his successors, and were directed only to the question of the > consistency of Marx's wage theory. In my view, Marx's definition of the > value of labour power in terms of subsistence requirements (with a > 'historical and moral element'), which plays a fundamental role in his > theory of surplus value, is inconsistent with, or at least not based on > or connected to, what he himself said elsewhere about the way in which > wages are actually determined. That is a judgement about the history of > economics, not about modern work of any description. > As to the implications of what Tony originally said, I unreservedly apologize for grossly overstating anything that could be inferred from it about modern Marxist scholarship. I certainly did not intend to be 'dismissive'. I did have in mind some of his published work on the subject, that is, as Tony points out, not reducible to any such simple sweeping assertion as that which I made. As to Marx's own work, I have already indicated that I cannot see the incompatibility between the two aspects of M.'s theory of wages to which Tony has drawn attention. No doubt we can develop this after Tony's up-coming editorial. Finally, in Tony's original post from which this thread branched off, I do seem to remember some phrase about the implications for *all* 'surplus' approaches if Tony's critique of Marx's (and in as much as they share the same problems) the Classicals' theory of wages are valid ... ? Dr Michael Williams Department of Economics School of Social Sciences De Montfort University ============ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ============ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]