X-Original-To: [log in to unmask]
Delivered-To: [log in to unmask]
X-RAL-MFrom: <[log in to unmask]>
X-RAL-Connect: <jatiuca.ofm.com.br [200.199.65.2]>
X-Priority: 3
X-CCLRC-SPAM-report: -4.7 : BAYES_00,HTML_50_60,HTML_MESSAGE
X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.39
Date: Mon, 17 May 2004
14:30:38 -0300
Reply-To: Vladimir / Snia Micheletti
<[log in to unmask]>
Sender: "To complement the journal 'Capital and Class' (ISSN 0
309 8786)" <[log in to unmask]>
From: Vladimir / Snia Micheletti <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Value demonstrated in geometrical order / Heisenberg / Marx /
Freeman
To: [log in to unmask]
X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new at gn.apc.org
X-Spam-Status: No, hits=0.0 tagged_above=-999.0 required=4.2
X-Spam-Level:
Dear
friends
Alan Freeman
has asked me to subscribe him to the Brazilian Society of Political
Economys List of Discussion. I thank Alan Freeman for moving the
discussion forward. I have argued that his critic writings (Marx
and Non-equilibrium Economics, for example; and many others
critics) never reached the level of critic set by
Keynes.
The
following is a copy of the message just mailed to the Brazilian
list.
Thanks for
your attention.
Vladimir D.
Micheletti
Departamento
de Economia
Universidade
Federal de Alagoas
Northeast of
Brazil
[log in to unmask]
This
equation, exchange-value=use-value [bisector line], or limit of
the inverse proportional function, ev=f(1/uv), is extremely
important, even though we can dispense it in proceeding the analysis
on value theory.
Why is it
[vt=vu] so important, at the same time,
nonessential?
1) First,
you Alan Freeman like Marx and all the physicians based on
relativistic quantum mechanics may consider it nonessential
because it has no special quantitative relationship with
labour-value.
Despite
the Heisenberg uncertainty principle {Dx Dy >
h/m), this uncertainty
occupies only the mind of the physicians not attained to the
relativistic quantum mechanics. Heinsenberg said that this uncertainty
principle should not preclude the physics proceedings because it
was knowledges problem. So, Dx Dy =
h/m prevailed and the
relativistic scientists proceeds their works.
Wouldnt this knowledges problem be analogous to the Spinozas
hour that never passes? I mean, Spinoza brought an example based on
the duration of an hour that never reaches the full hour: to get the
full hour the indicator must pass the first half, than the half of the
rest, than the half of the next rest, and so on that it continues
passing / separating / dividing and never reaches the full hour.
Spinoza explained this never happening hour by the entity of
REASON [x2; the duration minded] that differs from the real
entity [x; the time presented by the clock].[1] (Is
it a knowledge or mathematicals problem? well see this
later).
We all know
that you (Alan Freeman), Marx, Einstein, Bohr, Malaguti, Paulo de
Tarso, Menezes, Frederic Lee, Alfredo Saad-Filho, Mszros[2],
etc. find this difference, between the hour presented by the
clock and the hour reasoned by our minds, meaningless. Who cares about
this meaningless difference? It is just a fraction (0,000000000123),
the remaining thing, the residue, the Statistical
error, that doesnt make any difference.
Spinoza,
Comte, Marx (from the Mathematical Manuscripts, Economic and
Philosophic Manuscripts, and Ethnological Notebooks)
dont think this residue is meaningless.
Why did Marx
think of this residue as meaningless, at the same time, as
important? (the real and therefore the simplest relation of the
new with the old is discovered as soon as the new gains its final
form, and one may say the differential calculus gained this relation
through the theorems of Taylor MacLaurin. Therefore the thought first
occurred to Lagrange to return the differential calculus to the firm
algebraic foundation (auf strict algebraische Basis). Perhaps his
forerunner in this was John Landen, an English mathematician from the
middle of the 18th century, in his Residual Analysis. Indeed, I
must look for this book in the [British] Museum before I can make a
judgment on it (p. 113, Mathematical manuscripts, New
Park Publications, 1983).
First, Marx
considers it meaningless because it did not obstruct the construction
of his economic theory (Marxist Economic Theory MET), and the
Conventional Economic Theory was just being born at that time (Engels,
at the preface of tome III in reality, however, this theory
is merely a paraphrase of the Marxist). Second, this
residue is a mathematical problem, and even being a mathematical
problem, Marx tried to solve it as the latter quotation
shows.
Let us come
to our discussion. You said: therefore for me, it [use-value =
exchange-value; bisector line] has no special quantitative
relationship with labour-value. You are right. The relativistic
physicians dont care neither about the Heisenberg uncertainty
principle, but they operate their categories in the
micro-world.
What about
you?
Do you
believe that the alternative is that education be directed
towards a non-instrumental aims, or at list, that there is a better
balance between the two [MET and CET]. Clearly, heterodox ideas [Marx,
Keynes, and someone else] have a major role to play in a
non-instrumental economics education. However, there is also a role
for the orthodox [neoclassical or CET]. As it can be used to achieve
specific intrinsic aims. The question then becomes one of balance
[equilibrium? Bisector line?], (why Marxist economics
should be taught but probably wont be!, Clarke and Mearman,
Capital & Class, n 79, spring 2003)?
Do you
really think Marxs theory does not carry an instrumental aim? That
we cannot operate it?
Do you
really believe that Marxist Economic Theory should be taught as part
of a parallel perspective approach as Clarke and Mearman said?
Is that for the students to reveal their preferences?
Arent you
all observing that MET actually is the residue or the
remaining thing that doesnt make any difference?
I think we
should, I mean, we must revert this situation.
How can we
revert it?
Let us
return to your question. The question you and Carchedi have posed at
the Foreword of your own book: a further question is however
posed by this conclusion. How, for nearly the whole of this century,
could Marx have been systematically misrepresented even by those with
every reason not to?.
But now I
include you, Malaguti, Paulo de Tarso Soares, Reinaldo Carcanholo,
Claus Germer, Jason, Frederic Lee, Menezes, Idaleto, Fred Lee, Alfredo
Saad-Filho, etc. among those you and Carchedi have thought of,
because you all have not reached the level of critic posed by
Keynes.
2) Dare I
say this value demonstrated in geometrical order is the only
and scientific way to make MET robuster (from the residual
condition to main paradigm), but we must reach some agreements
before the presentation of why, how, and when the equation
excgange-value=use-value, as a result or limit of the
proportionally inverse function, ev=f(1/uv), and also the
salto vital (Lenin / Engels) and powered residue (Spinoza /
Comte / Durkheim) makes the difference, I mean, is extremely
important.
First, we
all should agree with: the Twentieth century has been nothing if
not innovative. Its technological miracles would have astonished the
Victorians. Cosmology has reshaped space and time; physics has
abandoned determinacy and biology defies the laws of evolution. There
are, however, two exceptions to this pageant of revolutions: religion
and economics. Adam Smith has been re-instated as prophet of the
market, Ricardo as the oracle of trade, and economic gospel reduced to
the following: the market satisfies all and wastes nothing; no-one
could be better off without it, and no-one goes without work who takes
the going wage. The foundation of this cathechism is a dogma: that
supply equates itself to demand. Its formal basis, despite the
beatification of the classicals, was laid in the 1870s and bears the
name of General Competitive Equilibrium. Since then Arrow, Debreu,
Hahn and others have added some rigor, time preferences have been
tacked on, and the elastic distinction between short and long run has
tied down some loose ends. But the basic instruments are as Walras,
Jevons and Menger bequeathed them. Keyness brief excursus has been
assimilated into what Arestis (1992) calls the Grand Neoclassical
Synthesis and todays economics is a theory of supply curves,
demand curves and simultaneous, instantaneous market clearing
(Freeman and Carchedi, 1996, p. vii). But this Grand Neoclassical
Synthesis is false because it just misrepresented the real keynes
synthesis. Actually the Neoclassical Synthesis is the General
Equilibrium that you and Carchedi rejected the first line of
investigation, as the title implies, is thus a thoroughgoing rejection
of equilibrium (p. x). That means, we shall not reject the
general equilibrium because this equilibrium may be the utmost
objective of MET.
Second,
Keynes almost reached the dialectical way of thinking
(bidimensional) the composition of this book has been for
the author a long struggle of escape, and so must the reading of it be
for most readers if the authors assault upon them is to be
successful a struggle of escape from habitual modes of thought and
expressionWhen I began to write my Treatise on Money I was still
moving along the traditional lines of regarding the influence of money
as something so to speak separate from the general theory of supply
and demand and is in this way linked up with our fundamental
theory of value. We thus led to a more general theory, which
includes the [neo]classical theory with which we are familiar, as a
special case (Keynes, 1964, preface).
I said
Keynes almost reached the level of critic posed by Marx
/ Engels (and he left you all behind) because Keynes, at least, noted
the residue. Keynes appropriated the terms speculation and
enterprise, and said: even apart from the instability due
to speculation, there is the instability due to the characteristic of
human nature that a large proportion of our positive activities
depend on spontaneous optimism rather than on a mathematical
expectation, whether moral or hedonistic or economic. Most, probably,
of our decisions to do something positive, the full
consequences of which will be drawn out over many days to come, can
only be taken as a result of animal spirit [potential
spinozistic?Comtean Anomia?] of a spontaneous urge to
action rather than inaction, We should not conclude from this that
everything depends on waves of irrational psychology
(Keynes, ch.12).
Keynes did
not know the origin of this irrational psychology and how it
could become a constituent power. That is why he said: for
my own part I am now somewhat skeptical of the success of a merely
monetary policy directed towards influencing the rate of interest. I
expect to see the State, which is in a position to calculate the
marginal efficiency of capital-goods calculated on the principles I
have described above [constant marginal utility/efficiency -
bissetriz] (ch.12).
You, Alan
Freeman, in despite of NOT noting the residue (this
irrational aspect left besides even by the mathematicians,
therefore, these gentlemen accepted it as number four or six centuries
later) have also found that mathematics does not help him [or
neoclassical] in this respect; the problem is not its use but its
abuse, which this chapter seeks to end (Freeman, p. 227). But
the problem is also mathematical. Mathematics, as you said
suffers the same limitation as formal logic, which has to separate
things conceptually that are not isolated actually (p. 226)
so all we have to do is to attack this formalism (this one-sided way
to think of; mathematicians think the form, they dont think about
the content) and NOT to develop a complete alternative way of
going about things so as to break [separate] the stranglehold of
equilibrium thinking [the first and actually neoclassical
Synthesis, the combination] (Freeman, p. 226).
[Griffon mine].
What about
this contradiction? Why do you attack the real synthesis, to separate
the combination?
Arent you
being capitulated before this critic to the false
neoclassical synthesis and the unilateral mathematics?
When I say
that you and many of ours colleagues have not reached the level of
critic posed by Keynes, I mean that you have not noted the residue
and its meaning. Therefore, others supposedly Marxists even make
fun of the Marxist categories (I have read so many texts that the
object is: the abstract labor is opposed to concrete labor;
no, the concrete labor is opposed to abstract labor).
3) You said
that: geometry. I have problems with |Vladimirs use of this
word. I need that he should explain more clearly what he means by a
geometric demonstration exactly what his system of value really
is (Message, May 12, SEP).
First, I
have no system of value, I just brought up the Marxists categories
using some equations and a graphic, and considering that Marx used the
dialectical triade, which Hegel had obtained from the Holy Trinity
(Father, thesis; Son, antithesis; and Holy Spirit, synthesis). These
equations and graphic have provided us the understanding / observation
of many others categories like Spinozian, Comte (it seems to me that
Comte were the first to use the category uneven and combined
development), Paretos optimum, and the real neoclassical
synthesis.
About the
geometrical demonstration of value, I think this Spinozas
example is sufficient: Let there be three numbers given
through which it is required to discover a forth which shall be to the
third as the second is to the first. A merchant does not hesitate
to multiply the second and the third together and divide the product
by the first, either because he has not yet forgotten the things which
he heard without any demonstration from his schoolmaster, or because
he has seen the truth of the rule with the more simples numbers, or
because from the 19th prop. In the 7th book of Euclid he
understands the common property of all proportional. But with the
simplest numbers there is no need of all this. If the numbers 1, 2, 3,
for instance, be given, every one can see the fourth proportional is 6
much more clearly than by any demonstration (Spinoza, Ethic,
propXL). The solution is: thesis or induction - (1+2+3=6); antithesis
or deduction (6=3+2+1), therefore, the fourth proportional is 6,
the bisector line or limit of the function commented
before.
About the
salto vital: Engels plainly employs the salto vitale
method in philosophy, that is to say, he makes a leap from theory
[antithesis] to practice [thesis]. Not a single one of the learned
(and stupid) professors of philosophy, in whose footsteps our Machians
follow, would permit himself to make such a leap, for this would be a
disgraceful thing for a devotee of pure science to do. For them
the theory of knowledge, which demands the cunning concoction of
definitions, is one thing, while practice is another. For Engels
all living human practice permeates the theory of knowledge itself and
provides an objective criterion of truth. For until we know a law of
nature, it, existing and acting independently and outside our mind,
makes us slaves of blind necessity. But once we come to know
this law, which acts (as Marx pointed out a thousand times)
independently of our will and our mind, we become the masters of
nature. The mastery of nature manifested in human practice is a result
of an objectively correct reflection within the human head of the
phenomena and processes of nature, and is proof of the fact that this
reflection (within the limits of what is revealed by practice) is
objective, absolute, and eternal truth. (Lenin, 1982, p.144)
[Griffon is ours]
About the
residue, I think
the work of Marjorie L. DeVault Feeding the family: the social
organization of caring as gendered work is extremely important
because it shows the theory of caring, it presents the newest
kind of work the gendered work originated from the
families (the residual families) that have become the
constituent power. This new kind of work is opposed to the
labour that measures prices / value, that is, it is intrinsically
gendered and cannot be priced.
This way we
pose the limit to function commented before.
Mathematicians have no other alternative if not
accepting this limit (the limit to formal logic, but the combination
with the dialectical logic).
I hope you
all will not wait to long to accept this value demonstrated in
geometrical order. I mean, the mathematicians took 4 or 6 centuries to
accept the irrational into the set of numbers, and we all know
how important these irrational numbers are.
Well, I
better go now.
Thanks for
the attention.
Abraos.
Vladimir D.
Micheletti
Departamento
de Economia
Universidade
Federal de Alagoas
[log in to unmask]
[1] I am
supposing you have read about the function of knowledge
presented by Pierre Fougeyrollas: Suponhamos que esta fonte seja a
realidade atual (soruce of the text = reality). Voc, eu and a
religious wo/man are observing this same reality (x). Ns trazemos
para dentro de nossa mente a representa-o desta realidade,
we cannot bring the objective reality into our mind, so we
subjective the reality (characteristic of or belonging to reality
as perceived or known as opposed to reality as it is in itself or
independent of mind), isto , ns re-presentamos (repetimos
a presenta-o na mente), ent-o, em nossa mente temos a
relidade2, mesmo porque realidade = x and we represent it
into our mind: x.x = x2 . A representa-o mental do homem /
mulher religioso pode at ser x5, xn, porque as relaes
que o religioso faz com os fatos (sociais) na mente podem ser
extremamente complexas. Keynes, por exemplo, disse: we have reached
the third degree where we devote our intelligences to anticipating
what average opinion expects the average opinion to be. And there are
some, I believe, who practice the fourth, fifth and higher degree
(ch.12, Long-term expectation).
O
que este terceiro grau que Keynes comenta? What third degree
is this? Is it Spinozian third kind of knowledge? o terceiro grau
de conhecimento de Spinoza? Is it Comtes third state? o
terceiro estado de Auguste Comte? (teolgico [tese]; metafsico
[anttese]; positivo [sntese]). Com certeza, o third degree
de Keynes pode ser ambos os princpios de Spinoza e de Comte, pois
todos dois apresentam seus princpios com base trade dialtica
(tese, anttese e sntese), ainda que n-o se referindo
diretamente a esta trade. Alm do mais, ambos apresentam a
potncia (ou anomalia selvagem de Spinoza) e a anomia
(Comte; que Durkheim, mais tarde apresentar como
resduo).
[2] The
first phrase of his book Beyond Capital: towards a theory of
transition Mszros wrote: The little corner of the
world of which Marx spoke in 1985 is no longer a little
corner. At chapter 1, he returns to it and say: given the
obvious global of the historical transformation experienced since
Marxs day, no one could confine any longer the prospects of
fundamental social upheavals to a little corner of the
world (p. 36).
--
Chris Jones
CSE / Capital and Class
25 Horsell Road
London, N5 1XL
02076079615
www.cseweb.org.uk