hi Apostolis,<br><br>my impression is that the last 20 years, if not more, of critical economic (and philosophical) thinking have been to undermine rational choice theory in all sorts of ways ... and I personally don't know anybody that acts purely rationally, (and if he/she did, I would see it as a sign of pathology), if that is taken as the essence of rational theory; in my view, it strips human agency of all kinds of crucial embeddeness in structures and relations.<br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Dec 26, 2011 at 3:04 PM, Apostolis Xekoukoulotakis <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:xekoukou@gmail.com">xekoukou@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
I just found him. His methodology seems very similar to mine. He also has an interest to equality of opportunity.<div><br></div><div><br></div><div>From <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_Marxism" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_Marxism</a></div>
<div><h3 style="background-image:none;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);margin:0px 0px 0.3em;padding-top:0.5em;padding-bottom:0.17em;border-bottom-style:none;width:auto;font-size:17px;font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19px">
<span>Exploitation</span></h3><p style="margin:0.4em 0px 0.5em;line-height:19px;font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">
At the same time as Cohen was working on <i>Karl Marx's Theory of History</i>, American economist John Roemer was employing neoclassical economics in order to try to defend the Marxist concepts of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploitation" title="Exploitation" style="text-decoration:none;color:rgb(11,0,128);background-image:none" target="_blank">exploitation</a>and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_class" title="Social class" style="text-decoration:none;color:rgb(11,0,128);background-image:none" target="_blank">class</a>. In his <i>General Theory of Exploitation and Class</i> (1982), Roemer employed <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_choice" title="Rational choice" style="text-decoration:none;color:rgb(11,0,128);background-image:none" target="_blank">rational choice</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory" title="Game theory" style="text-decoration:none;color:rgb(11,0,128);background-image:none" target="_blank">game theory</a> in order to demonstrate how exploitation and class relations may arise in the development of a market for labour. Roemer would go on to reject the idea that the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_theory_of_value" title="Labour theory of value" style="text-decoration:none;color:rgb(11,0,128);background-image:none" target="_blank">labour theory of value</a> was necessary for explaining exploitation and class. Value was in principle capable of being explained in terms of any class of commodity inputs, such as oil, wheat, etc., rather than being exclusively explained by embodied labour power. Roemer was led to the conclusion that exploitation and class were thus generated not in the sphere of production but of market exchange. Significantly, as a purely technical category, exploitation did not always imply a moral wrong (see section <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_Marxism#Justice" style="text-decoration:none;color:rgb(11,0,128);background-image:none" target="_blank">Justice</a> below).</p>
<p style="margin:0.4em 0px 0.5em;line-height:19px;font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><br></p><p style="margin:0.4em 0px 0.5em;line-height:19px;font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">
I am unfamiliar with his beliefs. I for example believe that the ownership of the means of production are those that create trading routes that allow the market exchange to magnify wealth inequality. I am uncertain though as to who is the victim of exploitation. I think that dependent on the ocassion both the consumer and the workers could be exploited.</p>
<p style="margin:0.4em 0px 0.5em;line-height:19px;font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">Even If it turns out that I disagree with him, He uses rationale choice theory to explain things like I do. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_choice_theory" style="background-color:transparent" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_choice_theory</a></p>
<p style="margin:0.4em 0px 0.5em;line-height:19px;font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><br></p><p style="margin:0.4em 0px 0.5em;line-height:19px;font-family:sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">
I wonder what happened to this school of thought, most importantly why it hasnt replaced marxism all together. I dont think that this theory is plagued with revisionism, It isnt difficult to avoid determinism while you keep using mathematical models. it has in fact better more concrete foundations than before. </p>
<div><br></div><font color="#888888">-- <br><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;border-collapse:collapse"><pre style="white-space:pre-wrap"><br></pre><pre style="white-space:pre-wrap">Sincerely yours, </pre>
<pre style="white-space:pre-wrap"> Apostolis Xekoukoulotakis</pre></span><br>
</font></div>
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