What about TSSI?

[automattick]

I've been curious about why there is such a fuss around the Temporal Single-System Interpretation and why those who are skeptical of it seemed to be labeled as underconsumptionists....

Anybody care to explain TSSI? Anybody here who supports it and if so, why?

[Lyev]

As far as I know, it's a way of interpreting the transformation problem - this being the dilemma of the transformation of values into prices of production. Basically, in the 1900s there was this Russian economist called something Bortkiewicz, or something like along those lines, who came along and published a paper that tried to discredit Marx, and he claimed that when Marx was taken to his logical conclusion the numbers simply didn't add up. However, the way Bortkiewicz went about this was wrong, at least for trying to work with Marxian economics and formulas and such.

The dialectic informs the economic aspects of Marxism, in that everything Marx (and Engels) did, they tried to put it into a dynamic, ever-changing framework. Bortkiewicz used a static, unmoving model to try and figure out what was going on with the perceived transformation "problem". Such a static model is totally divorced from reality because, of course, an economy is not something that is simply on graphs, charts and paper pages - it is a living, breathing thing, constantly in motion. The way said bourgeois economist tried to do his research is not the way things would happen in an economy in real life. So, if we look at the economy and prices of production through the eyes of the TSSI, through a dynamic model, rather than a static one (like Bortkiewicz did), much of the unnecessary confusion first dragged up is simply done away with.

Also, I should mention that there's a "hole trinity" that makes up an analysis the prices of production, also needed for examining the transformation problem, and I think it it's used by the TSSI. It almost goes without saying, but all the following need to be looked in the aggregate, on the whole. So, firstly: the total amount of profit is equal to the total amount of surplus-value. Secondly: the total amount of value is equal to the total amount of prices. And lastly: the total rate of profit measured in value is equal to the total rate of profit as measured in money.

Brendanmcooney is useful and informative on the matter, as always: http://kapitalism101.wordpress.com/what-transformation-problem/ and you could google "Andrew Kliman", as he's a fairly well known Marxist economist that upholds the TSSI. As for underconsumptionism, I don't really know about that. Also, some of what I say might be a bit unclear, so if anyone else who knows a bit more about it wants to pick me up on anything, that's totally fine. (Oh and this should probably be moved quickly to economics.)

EDIT: I'm a nice guy, so I googled him for you: http://akliman.squarespace.com/ :) there's various papers, essays, talks etc. that apply the TSSI to the recent economic crisis and things like that.

[BAM]

Lyev is mostly right in his post. Just to add: The TSSI crowd also defend Marx's theory of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. I think the big breakthrough for the TSSI approach came when Andrew Kliman refuted the "Okishio Theorem."

Nabuo Okishio was a Japanese Marxist who claimed to have proved that the rate of profit rises with increases in productivity. But, and this is where the critique of Sraffian simultaneous transformation comes in, it only works if inputs and outputs are valued simultaneously. That is, if input prices and output prices are the same. (This is where the "temporal" in TSSI comes from: value is created by labour through time. Value at the end of a production process is increased over and above the sum of value at the beginning.) If it is the case, however, that inputs and outputs are valued simultaneously, where is the profit coming from? Okihsio's theorem basically boils down to "physicalism", where increased profit comes from increased physical output.

As for the accusation of underconsumptionism to critics of TSSI: what examples are there of this happening, ie of a proponent of TSSI accusing someone of being an underconsumptionist because they were critical of TSSI?

EDIT: I also recommend Brendan Cooney's videos. He also has one on the falling rate of profit.

[automattick]

Thank you both. Looks like my reading list will become a bit longer...

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Since empirical data bears out the correspondence of prices and labor values, the transformation problem is irrelevant. :thumbup1:

[vyborg]

As a critic of other marxist theoretical schools the TSSI is very good. I cannot decide on the basis of their material if their explanation of the transformation problem is THE solution.

as for the tendency of the profit rate to fall I think they are a bit too mechanical. Profit rate can go up for decades without demonstrating the law is false...

[ZeroNowhere]

Since empirical data bears out the correspondence of prices and labor values, the transformation problem is irrelevant. :thumbup1:Kliman criticizes much of this 'empirical data' as well, however.