Date: Tue, 8 Oct 1996 16:37:08 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: Marxist theory



Doug's comment is useful but a bit cryptic if you know little about Roemer
(as most members of the list do) and about stick markets (as I at least
do). It would be helpfyl for Dough to explain the role of s/m in Roemer's
picture and discuss in a bit more detail why they cannot serve the
function he wants to give them. It would be nice if Doug also took into
account possible differences either built in Roemer's account or pluasibly
flowing from it if not explicitly stated between the capitalist s/m on
which Doug bases his critique and the sort of "socialist" s/m Roemer
advocates. I mention this point by analogy with certain misconceived
attacks on Schweickart's market socialism (which has no s/m) that turn on
the assumption that certain feeatures of the capitalist market will
persist in S's own model, despite S's elimination of the causes of those
features in his model.

--Justin

On Tue, 8 Oct 1996, Doug Henwood wrote:

> At 11:23 AM 10/8/96, Kevin Cabral wrote:
> 
> >        You are correct about Roemer, and Nove. But what is your opinion
> >on Schweikart of Loyola?
> 
> Don't know; haven't read him. Will soon though.
> 
> Justin asked about my beef with Roemer on stock markets. Basically - and
> I'm doing this from memory, it's been a while since I read him - he seems
> to buy all the bourgeois propaganda about stock markets (which I always
> like to abbreviate as s/m) providing guidance to managers about levels and
> types of investment - of providing social signals about the allocation of
> investment. What nonsense. Stock markets are extremely unreliable narrators
> that grossly overvalue the last piece of news, and depend, as Keynes argued
> (and he not only knew, he knew how to profit from the knowledge) on
> perceptions about perceptions of future perceptions. Stock markets are
> institutions for the intra-class management of ownership and control, but
> serve no serious economic function. And they have almost *nothing* to do
> with providing finance for real investment - not only in the U.S., but in
> other First and even Third World countries as well.
> 
> Doug
> 
> --
> 
> Doug Henwood
> Left Business Observer
> 250 W 85 St
> New York NY 10024-3217
> USA
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> 
> 
> 
> 
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