A letter and reply on the “Sraffa-based” critique of Marx

Dear comrade Nick Beams, I am a passionate supporter of the WSWS and ICFI.... The main reason I am writing to you is that ... I have discovered serious problems in the ICFI’s position in the field of Classical Political Economy. Otherwise, I consider the ICFI’s perspective to be almost perfect. The field where it is most vulnerable is Political Economy, since, in my opinion, any scholar trained in classical or surplus approach economics would be able to easily embarrass it. I know that these matters are full of prejudices (although very few people actually know the structure of the problems involved), and that the arguments run according to entrenched passions. But regardless of what one’s final conclusion is, there is one thing that is beyond dispute for me. That is: we cannot take the stand of ignoring science, and preach the eternal validity of Newtonian mechanics without caring or daring to read about Einstein’s relativity. Or, stated differently, however the discovery of the heliocentricity of the solar system, or the fact that humans evolved from monkeys, could have been perceived as hurting people’s feelings, they turned out to be a victory for human reason and the source of progress and pride for mankind. Here, I am raising, of course, the Sraffa-based critique of Marx. If something is relevant and urgent for the ICFI to consider in the field of Political Economy, then it is this major development which has given a simple and definite solution to some of the problems that Marx left unsolved or to which he left false solutions. Let me give a few quotations: “This should have been welcomed by all those working to develop the materialist account of capitalist society. It was not.” “The response of many has been not to face them but to obscure them.” “The Sraffa-based critique of Marx cannot be met head on and rationally rejected, for the simple reason that it is correct. Thus the self-appointed ‘defenders’ of Marx descend into evasion.” “The appropriate response of Marxists to the Sraffa-based critique of Marx is thus not to evade it or obscure it but to grasp it, absorb it and use it in the construction of an improved theory of the capitalist economy.” These quotations come from a major reference on the subject, Ian Steedman’s: Marx after Sraffa, 1977. I insist on this: we absolutely cannot afford not to examine Steedman’s book. It is, unlike Capital, short and easy to comprehend, recognized by the whole scientific community, cited in encyclopedias as a main reference, and it is also a rare example of an honest Marxist materialist analysis with impeccable logic. From carefully reading the WSWS I have drawn the conclusion that Steedman’s book is probably not known to anyone in the ICFI. For example, in the only article that mentions Sraffa that I could find with the WSWS search engine: “A question on Marx and Keynes” of August 8, 2001, there is only the following three lines: “Similarly, Piero Sraffa was aware of the contradictions in the orthodox theory of capital. But he attempted to develop a theory of value based on Ricardo, rather than Marx.” And the question was: “... but some of his successors (Kalecki, Robinson, Sraffa) did attempt to come to grips with Marxian economics. I am curious what WSWS has to say about the state of academic economics today, and of the science’s historical development.” So the main point of my initial correspondence with you is to draw attention to this book, and if the content of it is known, then to examine with you the position of the ICFI on the issues involved. I should warn against drawing conclusions guided by prejudices, because I think this matter has the danger of dragging the ICFI into a trap of a “school of falsification”. Political economy is just that kind of slippery ground. In my opinion, a lot of Marx’s Capital has been proved, among others by Marxist economists, to be inconsistent, and what is most important for me is that Marx (apart from not finishing his planned opus, and writing it in a manner that not only the proletariat cannot understand, but one can count on one’s fingers those who can, including in the whole Eastern bloc, where it was propagated, and, unlike quantum mechanics does not justify such confusion), despite his materialism, in Capital Marx postulated many things on sheer idealist grounds. Some amount to 2+2=6. My boldness derives from finding out that the issue is settled in the scientific community and has become a common fact. It is all simple Linear Algebra, and I would not suggest to anyone that they polemicize with Linear Algebra. But if the ICFI is confident it can rebut it, it would earn a Nobel prize in Economics for sure, and another one in Physics for constructing a perpetuum mobile. I would be glad then to admit my mistake and to restore Marx’s infallibility. I have stated my argument in a rather sharp form because the purpose is to provoke attention and caution. No one should doubt my devotion to the socialist cause. My only hope to survive meaningfully is World Socialist Revolution! I should mention that I don’t know about Steedman’s political affiliations. They might well be like those of other academicians, but that is irrelevant here. We should try to penetrate the growing movement for a resurgence of the surplus approach to economy, and influence them and bring them to the ICFI, because they badly lack political orientation. There are a lot of lessons that we could take generally out of the painful debate originating from Marx’s Capital. This is just to establish a contact. I hope to receive your initial response, and that there will then be more opportunities for debate. I wish you the best, and thank you for everything you do so successfully for the ICFI and World Socialist Revolution! Sincerely yours Dejan Popov Dear DP, The so-called Sraffa-based critique of Marxism, associated most immediately with Ian Steedman and his book Marx After Sraffa, is not an attempt to provide a solution to problems Marx left unsolved or to provide a correction to his supposed errors. It is a rejection of the entire analysis of value upon which Capital, Marx’s crowning work, is based. Steedman, at least, makes this clear. Summing up his work he writes: