Sunday, May 14, 2017

Michael Roberts — William Baumol and the transformation problem


Roberts explains how Baumol showed that there is no transformation problem in Marx. Marx's critics did not understand Marx's argument correctly and attacked a straw man.
It is no accident that it is the Keynesians and post-Keynesians like Joan Robinson that were (and are) the most vehement against Marxist economic theory – because Marxism is the main opponent of Keynesian influence in the labour movement.
William Baumol may have been as mainstream an economist that you could find – an exponent of the neoclassical equilibrium and marginalism. But he was also a surprisingly acute observer of Marx’s exploitation theory of capitalism. As a result, he could show the Keynesian (and neo-Ricardian) claim that Marx’s value theory was an ‘irrelevant and unnecessary detour’ was wrong. For that, we can thank him.
Michael Roberts Blog
William Baumol and the transformation problem
Michael Roberts