Voice of Ox and Horse: Criticism of Classicism

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Classicism Criticism

2017-11-06?Xu Guangwei?Voice of Ox and Horse

Spring is Coming and Send a Few Branches

——Quotation

Wedge

(1)

In 1871, Mr. N. Dibel, professor of political economics at Kiev University It has been proved in his book "The Ricardian Theory of Value and Capital" that my theory of value, money and capital is, in its main points, a necessary development of the Smithian-Ricardo theory. What strikes Western European readers as they read his excellent book is the consistency of the purely theoretical point of view. (Marx: Postscript to the second edition of "Das Kapital")

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We have seen that Smith first decomposed value into wages, profit (interest) and land rent, and later In turn, they are said to be independent components of commodity prices. In the former view he speaks of hidden connections, in the latter of external manifestations. (Marx: "Theory of Surplus Value" Volume 3)

(3)

In the 1820s, Ricardo's value theory and surplus value were used for the benefit of the proletariat. In all the literature that theoretically opposes capitalist production and uses the bourgeoisie's own weapons to fight against the bourgeoisie... (and) Owen's entire communist doctrine is based on Ricardo when conducting economic polemics. . (Engels: Preface to Volume II of "Das Kapital")

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D. McClellan's (1979) "Marxism after Marx" clearly stated that The history of Marxist thought has rarely relied on the specific analytical methods used in Capital. Here, economics plays only a small role, and even so, a large part of this history is devoted to demonstrating the need to abandon Marx's analysis, or at least make it ' modernization's series of struggles. Colletti's (1972) paper "Bernstein and the Economics of the Second International" provides a thorough analysis of this revision process and its theoretical roots. See also Perry Anderson's (1976) provocative book Exploring Western Marxism. (Anwar Seck: "The Poverty of Algebra")

(5)

This is especially true when it comes to dealing with the issue of "abstraction". Generally speaking, you are indeed too Demeaning "abstract". The difference here is that Marx summarizes the different contents existing in things and relationships into their most general thinking expressions, so his abstraction only reflects the content that already exists in things in the form of thoughts. Rodbertus, on the contrary, created for himself a more or less incomplete representation of his ideas, and used this concept to measure things, to which they had to conform. He seeks the real, eternal content of things and social relations, but their content is essentially evanescent... You take a similar attitude toward value. The current value is the value of commodity production, but as commodity production no longer exists, the value "changes", that is, the value itself still exists, but the form has changed. In fact, economic value, a category peculiar to commodity production, will disappear with commodity production, just as it did not exist before commodity production. The relationship between labor and products, whether before or after the production of commodities, is not expressed in the form of value. (Engels: "To Karl Kautsky, September 20, 1884")

(6)

The theory of marginal utility as a determinant of value relies on this kind of reasoning and was established.

This theory was developed in many countries by some very knowledgeable people... Kautsky did not understand, or was unwilling to understand... So he pointed his pistol at my chest: "It's either this or that"... To this, I have only this answer: Please stop talking nonsense. This bed sheet is not woolen or velvet, but woolen and velvet; it is good, strong woolen velvet... Of course, I did not act like it. Kautsky, as he infers in a way that I cannot understand, thought of calling this general social relation a "purely ideological structure", but rather the labor value which Marx used as the basis for his analysis of that value relation. It is an idea, or proof according to my point of view. Whether or not this proof of mine is successful, what Kautsky raises against me not only fails to refute it, but does not even touch upon it. If, as Kautsky says, “we Marxists” seek the key to the structure of the capitalist mode of production in the concept of value, then this “concept of value” should be “actual, historically developed social relations.” "Portrait" is nothing more than a "purely ideological structure". (Bernstein: "The History and Theory of Socialism")

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Not long ago, the fashionable trend in orthodox social science was to declare that the halcyon age had arrived: poverty had disappeared. ; Alienation is gone; ideology is over. Of course, these are just theoretical remarks. On the other hand, the reality of capitalism continues to develop in its harsh and crisis-ridden way, dazzlingly disregarding the tender feelings of its theorists. This was the most devastating blow to orthodox economics, whose entire position was subject to what Marx once called the "practical critique of reality." At the same time, the well-deserved decline in the status of orthodox economics has been accompanied by a rapid resurgence of interest in Marx and Marxist economics... But the trouble is that there are considerable differences between Marx and Marxist economics. It took Marx more than 25 years to write Capital, a monumental work, and this central part of his planned larger work was never really finished. Moreover, he had hoped that his successors would systematically complete this plan, but this task was never actually completed. On the contrary, in the more than 100 years since his death, Marxist economics has developed very unsteadily, with only sporadic connections to Marx's own works: now an equation is used here, now a production schema is used there, and everywhere Dialectics and class struggle, use whatever materials you have to fill in the gaps. Most of these materials were taken from orthodox economics. The result was that the original relationship between Marxist theory and capitalist reality was "subtly but steadily replaced by a new relationship between Marxist and bourgeois theory." Now, after a gust of wind, we are all Keynesians again. (Anwar Sek: "The Poverty of Algebra")

The so-called Smith problem

A certain production relation entity is the product of the historical movement of production, and its cognitive form is What is revealed is the result of people's work after the historical movement of the production relations itself has reached a certain stage. In fact, people can always clarify and dissect the working structure of the social entities contained in them after long-term observation and research on the historical movement of certain production relations. For example, the social relations of commodity production have been recognized, and in terms of ontology and form of realization, they are summarized as a close combination of production relations and exchange relations; by the same principle, product society (the corresponding work of commodity society) can be said Cheng is a closely integrated form of production relations and distribution relations. As for the germination of the original homogeneous form, it started from the close and direct relationship between production and consumption. For classical political economists, the carrier that supports the historical movement of certain production relations exists, which is the general regulations of production: production, distribution, exchange, consumption, etc. In short, this kind of sports regulations does exist, but it is still some vague premises and has not yet been dealt with in an organized manner.

Neoclassical Criticism

Author?Xu Guangwei?Niu Ma Zhi Yin

——This article is excerpted from "In Defense of Capital" (revised edition)

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——Title Quotation

Wedge

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Kant’s " Since "things in themselves" are fundamentally different from "our" objects of experience, empiricists (positivists) believe that it is only an "ontological commitment" and a pure assumption. But Kant himself does not think that it is just a hypothesis, but affirms that it is a necessary existence, an existence outside of empirical things. Lukács believes that this point not only shows the contradiction of Kant’s philosophy, but also shows the greatness and depth of Kant’s philosophy. The meaning Kant gave to the concept of "thing-in-itself" is that it completely transcends the scope of people's intelligibility and becomes an elusive given existence. This "existence" does exist, and people have truly felt its role and influence. However, because it is transcendent, established, and given, it is completely alien to human cognitive rationality. Alien, human reason has never participated in its generation, so there is no way to grasp its historical origin and inner essence... The materialized structure of bourgeois society is just like Kant's "thing in itself" from the perspective of materialized consciousness. . For this kind of "thing-in-itself" (materialized structure), the limited rationality (cognitive ability) of the bourgeoisie can only recognize and grasp its phenomenon, but cannot recognize and grasp its totality and essence. According to Lukács’ understanding, Kant’s theories of “thing-in-itself” and “antinomies” are essentially the philosophical reflection of the materialized phenomenon and materialized consciousness of bourgeois society. The historical contribution of Kant's philosophy is that he finally discovered and profoundly elucidated the dual opposition and inherent contradiction between subject and object, thinking and existence in bourgeois society. (Sun Boon: "Lukács and Marx")

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Human reason is the most impure. It only has incomplete insights and encounters problems every step of the way. New problems to be solved. (Marx: "The Poverty of Philosophy")

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The economic explanation of history is one of Marx's immortal contributions to Western academia. (Samuelson and Nordhaus: "Economics" 18th Edition)

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Marx's challenge, especially in gaining more and more The support of the militant working class put capitalism on the defensive. But Marx's theory has a theoretical weakness, namely its foundational value theory. Soon, in Europe and America, a new economics emerged. Jevons in England, Valleras in Switzerland, Menger, B?hm-Bawerk and Wieser in Austria, and John Bates Clark in the United States all claimed that the labor theory of value was obsolete. "Classical" analysis gave way to "marginalist" analysis. Neoclassical economics was born. (D. Schweikart: "Against Capitalism")

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Since the 19th century, economists who are timid in the face of natural science have been committed to imitating Physics is used to construct its own discipline (the concept of "equilibrium" is a manifestation of "bowing down" to imitate the methods and language of natural science)... Austrians have always opposed neoclassical economists' continued attempts to reduce economics Efforts for Newtonian mechanics concerning human affairs. (G.B. Madison: "Phenomenology and Economics")

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The dominant school within orthodox economics is of course the neoclassical school. After 1870, it was this school that swept across the bourgeois intelligentsia and loudly declared that it was "scientific" and "objective" and thus did not belong to any political faction. Most neoclassical economists were particularly anxious to distance their "science" from the radical ideologies of socialism that had been tainted by the preclassical schools, especially the influence of Marxism. These neoclassical economists believed that the same standards of scientific justification found in physics must be implemented in economic research. They believe that this first means that economics should leave the particularities of history to explore universal principles and categories.

They tried to find a systematic method of analysis that could be applied to all economic systems, all forms of human society, and all historical processes. Their abstraction from history itself thus severed the connection with politics and the study of specific social institutions. Thus, in order to be a science, economics must be transhistorical, transsocial, and transpolitical. (Hodgeson: "Capitalism, Value and Exploitation")

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Like all sciences (including spiritual sciences and natural sciences), economics also contains An implicit philosophy, that is, a view of what constitutes "reality" (in modern times, the dominant Cartesian view is that "reality" is fundamentally a matter of movement), and the related understanding of Views on the nature and function of human understanding (its object is "reality"...Modern people generally regard "mind" as a simple "mirror image" of nature). This philosophy is often only implicit and not clearly stated. However, it does permeate even the most "empirical" scientific research, often with unfortunate consequences if the philosophy is inappropriate for the subject area of ??the subject. Phenomenologists believe that this philosophy often resorts to positivism - as is often the case with mainstream neoclassical economics - and that it is completely unsuitable for studying the basic research object of economics, that is, the economic activities of existing people. (G. B. Madison: "Phenomenology and Economics")

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Although the impact of operationalism on economics is not as great as its impact on psychology, But it seems that Samuelson also turned operationalism on its head. This - like the strain of Mill's Ricardian empiricism, Keynes's vigorous refutation of criticisms of Ricardian economics, Keynes's Marshallism, the connection between political economy and methodology in the work of Robbins, the Austrian School and Hutcheson, and Friedman's efforts to suspend assumptions—beginning to question methodological perspectives that merely lifted (relatively primitive) ideas off the shelves of scientific philosophy. It seems that politics, circumstances and chance are deeply embedded in the selection process... Philosophy remains a source of methodological development. (D. W. Hands: "Open Economic Methodology")

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Utopian capitalist economics in the East and West are unwilling to recognize the principles of classical economics The starting point is political economy, not the microeconomics of supply and demand equilibrium. (Chen Ping: "The Warning Bell of Neoliberalism: The Utopia and Reality of Capitalism - Comment on Piketty's New Book" Capital in the 21st Century")