U.S. Economy Remains in Doldrums; Recovery Stalling
July 29, 2011 by
MHI
Filed under
Economic Crisis
by Andrew Kliman, author of Reclaiming Marx’s Capital: A refutation of the myth of inconsistency.
Figures released today by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis indicate that the U.S. economy remains in the doldrums and that the post-recession expansion seems to be stalling. The country’s real Gross Domestic Product (GDP)—a measure of the physical production of goods and services throughout the country’s economy—remains lower than when the Great Recession began, three and a half years ago (see graph)..
Nils Enar on Massacre in Norway
July 26, 2011 by
MHI
Filed under
International News
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More on “Value and Crisis: Bichler & Nitzan versus Marx”
July 24, 2011 by
MHI
Filed under
Economic Crisis
The beginning of Andrew Kliman’s “Value and Crisis: Bichler & Nitzan versus Marx” was published here, along with a note which indicated that the remainder would soon follow. Bichler and Nitzan’s quick response to the first part resulted in certain problems that made this impossible, but we are pleased to be able to carry the full text of “Value and Crisis” below, together with the full text of Kliman’s response to Bichler and Nitzan’s rejoinder. They were first published in issue #4 of the Journal of Critical Globalisation Studies, a special issue on “Crisis.” (For the differently-paginated versions of the papers published in the journal, click here.)
PDF of “Value and Crisis: Bichler & Nitzan versus Marx,” by Andrew Kliman
“This paper has shown that Bichler and Nitzan have not provided us with good reasons to accept that belief in capitalism’s eternality is crucial to its continued existence, or that capitalists do normally believe that the system is eternal, or that they have come to fear its demise. The paper has also sketched out an alternative approach to questions of economic crisis and the future of capitalism rooted in Marx’s value theory, in the course of defending that theory against their charges that it is logically unsound and that the development of capitalism since Marx’s death has undermined his logic. By showing that none of Bichler and Nitzan’s charges holds water, it has eliminated their main justifications for their claim that their “capital as power” theory is needed as an alternative to Marx’s theory.
“Charges that his value theory is logically unsound serve to disqualify it at the starting gate, depriving it of the opportunity to demonstrate its explanatory power empirically. In contrast, my response to Bichler and Nitzan’s work, while quite critical, has not tried to disqualify their theory at the starting gate, on a priori logical grounds, irrespective of empirical evidence. They are entitled to their theory. Marx is also entitled to his.”
“My paper … demonstrated, painstakingly and point by point, that none of [Bichler and Nitzan's] specific charges holds water. Their rejoinder … does not refute, or even try to refute, any of these demonstrations. They have proved unable to defend the charges they leveled against Marx’s value theory.”
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The following interesting comment on Bichler & Nitzan’s response to the beginning of “Value and Crisis,” by Peter Fay, first appeared on the “lbo-talk” e-mail list, on February 24: Read More
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