Sunday 22 March 2015

Andrew Kliman on Marx’s Capital and the TSSI.

(source)

"Reclaiming Marx’s Capital", by Prof. Andrew Kliman. From the Introduction:
“This book seeks to reclaim Marx’s Capital from the century-old myth of internal inconsistency. Since internally inconsistent arguments cannot possibly be right, efforts to return to and further develop Marx’s critique of political economy, in its original form, cannot succeed so long as this myth persists. The myth serves as the principal justification for the suppression and ‘correction’ of Marx’s theories of value, profit, and economic crisis. It also facilitates the splinttering of what was, originally, a political-economic-philosophical totality into a variety of mutually indifferent Marxian projects.
Logical considerations compel none of this. As this book shows, Marx’s theories need not be interpreted in a way that renders them internally inconsistent. An alternative interpretation developed during the last quarter-century—-the temporal single system interpretation (TSSI)--eliminates all of the apparent inconsistencies. The very existence of the TSSI carries with it two important consequences. First, the allegations of inconsistency are unproved. Second, they are implausible. When one interpretation makes the text make sense, while others fail to do so because they create avoidable inconsistencies within the text, it is not plausible that the latter interpretations are correct. Thus the charges of inconsistency, founded on these interpretations, are implausible as well.
“None of this implies that Marx’s theoretical conclusions are necessarily correct. It does imply, however, that empirical investigation is needed in order to determine whether they are correct or not. There is no justification for disqualifying his theories a priori, on logical grounds.”

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John Bates Clark and Knut Wicksell had their own reasons to advance a theoretical argument against Marxism: deny the need for social change. They, like expensive defense attorneys, were interested in arguing for their client’s absolution. The arguments of the prosecution had to be countered.

That’s easy to understand. A lot harder to understand are the reasons behind Marxists' willingness to accept the defense attorneys' critiques of Marx..

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