Date: Tue, 22 Oct 1996 09:52:48 -0600 (MDT)
Subject: M-TH: Re: HoPE article


At Khay Jin's request ... Below is a begining at a summary, mostly in 
Brewer's own words, the best way is to fill in gaps in our discussion. 
this will put those without access to HoPE at great disadvantage, but 
hopefully, the major ideas will slowly come across in each post.  Those 
without access should not hesisate to probe others to fill in the gaps.  

(BTW HOPE charges $20 dollars, plus postage for back issues)

O.K.

Brewer (p. 111) begins as follows:


"There is something odd about the way Karl Marx is viewed by historians of 
economics.  He is treated as a major figure--he gets a chapter in most 
textbook histories of the subject, the literature about his economic 
writings is immense, and so on--but his work has never had any detectable 
influence on the main lines of developemnt of the subject.  By any normal 
standard, he should not be accorded a significant position in the history 
of economics at all.  It is not just that his ideas are not to be found 
in modern textbooks, but that they were never seriously discussed by 
mainstream economists, either during or after his lifetime.  So, for 
example, the index to Alfred Marshall's *Principles of Economics* (1890), 
which effectvely defined the subject for English-speaking world for many 
decades, contains only three references to Marx ... [Brewer mentions that 
Bohm-Bawerk and Pareto are two exceptions, along with Schumpeterian 
innovation theory and in a footnote Samuelson, no mention of Baumol, 
Dobb (Dobb himself very well rehearsed in Marx had great influence in 
the development in modern Growth Theory), Meek, Robinson, Kalecki 
("Marxian" economists within the "English speaking" mainstream); nor entire 
traditions in Japan, France, German and Italy; and no mention of Marx's 
influence on Instituionalists and Austrians (in general), especially 
Schumpeter, nor Post-Keynesians and neo-Ricardians, etc., etc., .  In  this 
sense i take Brewer's comments to be directed toward the mainstream 
in U. S. and (less so) England].

"The negelct of Marx's work by the mainstream has been so complete and so 
visible that it would be a waste of space to document it at any length, 
although some minor qualifications should be noted" (112).

The next paragraph i take to be Brewer's theme:

"In any subject, new ideas have to be evaluated.  Some are taken up and 
incorporated into the mainstream.  Some are discussed seriously for a 
while, but finally abandoned, at least in their original form (though 
they may influence the development of the subject indirectly, as Marx's 
ideas did in several social sciences).  Some do not look promising enough 
to justify serious attention at all.  I argue that Marx failed at the 
first hurdle: his work simply did not seem worth discussing.  One way to 
test this hypotheis would be to look at the reception of his ideas by 
economists.  This is not likely to be helpful, both because economists 
had little or noting to say about him--it is not what they said that has 
be explained but what they did not say--and because politically motivated 
neglect might not be easily admitted openly.  Instad, I attempt a 
rational reconstuction, looking not at what manstream economists said 
about Marx, but at what Marx had to offer them" (113).

Then i think Brewer makes a mistake which will make bias his evaluation:

"The criteria by which Marx's work should be judged are the same as those 
that would be used to assess any other economist.  First, his 
contribution to economics must be judged by the novelty and usefulness of 
what he had to say *about economics*, defined as it normally is, so 
anything that would normally be treated as an econmic issue, or covered 
in economics coures, or discussed in mainstream econmic journals is 
considered an econmic issue.  The boundaries of the subject have not 
changed enough since the nineteenth century to raise any serious 
problems. ... Second, his theories must be judged by their capacity to 
explain *observable* phenomena. ... Third, he must be judged by his 
*Causal* explanations of observable phenomena. ... For example, to 
attribute the existence of non-wage incomes ("surplus-value") to 
exploitation of workers does not count as a causal explanation, since 
"exploitation" turns out to be no more than another name for the 
existence of positive non-wage incomes.  A causal explantion, in this 
case, involves specifying the mechansisms that kepp wages down to level 
below output per head."

Brewer goes on to take Marx's categories (mistakenly imo) one term at a 
time to deconstruct the notions involved, based on his three-step 
"criteria".  These sections are "Value"; "Wages and the Value of 
Labor-Power"; "Rent"; "The Concentration of Capital and the Polarization 
of Wealth"; "The Reproduction Schemes"; "Crises"; "Technical Change and 
the Profit Rate".

These sections are the substance of Brewer's argument, which our 
discussion should develop, but the form is pretty well represented (i think).


that all for now,

hans d.



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