Monday, December 20, 2010

Videos And Papers From 50th Anniversary Conference On Sraffa's Book


In comments on my previous post, a blogger from Revista Circus links to a presentation of Gary Mongiovi on Marxian exploitation. This is too modest. The blog has organized a plethora of videos, abstracts, and draft papers from the recently completed international conference in Rome on Sraffa's Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities:
  • Pierangelo Garegnani's presentation and a paper on the present state of the capital controversy
  • Fabio Petri's paper and presentation on bringing sense back to the theory of aggregate investment
  • Franklin Serrano's presentation on elements of continuity and change in the international economic order: an analysis based on the modern classical surplus approach
  • Gary Mongiovi's paper and presentation on the concept of exploitation in Marxian economics
  • Heinz Kurz's paper and presentation on reviving the "Standpoint of the old classical economists": Piero Sraffa's contribution to political economy
  • Tony Aspromourgos' paper and presentation on Sraffa's system in relation to some main currents in unorthodox economics
  • Marc Lavoie's paper and presentation on should Sraffian economics be dropped out of the post-Keynesian school?
  • Esteban Pérez Caldentey and Matías Vernengo's paper and presentation on Raúl Prebisch's evolving views on the business cycle and money
  • Roberto Ciccone's presentation on public debt and the determination of output
  • Antonella Palumbo's presentation on potential output, actual output and demand-led growth
  • Heinz Kurz's closing remarks

Update: In the comments, Saverio Fratini informs us that all the available papers are accessible from the conference web site.

7 comments:

Rodrigo said...

It´s really sad the it can hardly be heard...

Alejandro Fiorito said...

These videos are not intended to be profesional. I made them myself while attended the conference.

I founded that is a picture of such special meeting. I thank for all your comments.

alejandro Fiorito
Circus

Anonymous said...

Gary Mongiovi: "By the time of his critique of Proudhon, Marx had arrived at many of the essential elements of his account of exploitation. He recognized that workers can be exploited because they have been alienated from the means of production through a historical process of expropriation and technological transformation."

There is no such theory of exploitation in "The Poverty of Philosophy." There is, however, such a theory in Proudhon's "System of Economic Contradictions". Building upon his arguments in 1840's "What is Property?", Proudhon presents a comprehensive analysis of how exploitation occurs in production within capitalism.

First, Proudhon stressed that labour did not have a value but what it created did and so produces value only as active labour engaged in the production process. Second, consequently, when workers are hired there is no guarantee that the value of the goods produced equals their wage as the proprietor secures a profit by controlling both product and labour. Third, this hierarchical relationship allowed exploitation to occur:

In short, the capitalist firm "with its hierarchical organisation" means that workers had "parted with their liberty" and "have sold their arms" to a boss who controls them, appropriates the product of their labour and, consequently, the "collective force" and "surplus of labour" they create. Machinery was used as a weapon by the capitalism and so produced "an increase of poverty" as well as bringing "us slavery" and so increased "the abyss which separates the class that commands and enjoys from the class that obeys and suffers."

Gary Mongiovi: "This insight, and the method of analysis by which he arrived at it, are impressive scientific achievements."

Yes, they are -- shame they were first expounded by Proudhon, not Marx!

For more discussion on this, see my discussion Proudhon and Marx on exploitation. Also, the appendix on "The Poverty of Philosophy" in my new Proudhon Anthology Property is Theft! may be of interest.

Iain

Saverio Fratini said...

All the papers (and further informations) are on the web site:

http://host.uniroma3.it/eventi/sraffaconference2010/

Robert Vienneau said...

Thanks for the comments. I was interested to see what some my favorite economists look like.

Rodrigo said...

I am grateful for posting the videos and the papers. A best audio would be a good way to promote Sraffian economics via Youtube.

Alejandro Fiorito said...

As Garegnani said: there was a bad acustic in that room....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQYd8l1LXLI