Which Way Forward: Marx's Theory or Sraffa's Theory? A Reply to Laibman

This article is a response to David Laibman's review essay, in this journal, on my recent book Money and Totality: A Macro-Monetary Interpretation of Marx's Logic in Capital and the End of the “Transformation Problem.” Laibman argues that Marx's theory is logically incoherent (the well-known “transformation problem”) and that Sraffa's theory is the only coherent theory of prices and income distribution, and therefore the “way forward” for critical economists is Sraffa's theory. I argue, to the contrary (in my book and in this article), that Marx's theory, correctly understood, is logically coherent (no transformation problem) and that Marx's theory has much greater explanatory power than Sraffa's theory, and therefore the “way forward” for critical economists continues to be Marx's theory

A Determinação da “Expressão Monetária do Tempo de Trabalho” (“EMTT”) no Caso de Dinheiro Não-Mercadoria

Este artigo sugere uma maneira de determinar a “Expressão Monetária do Tempo de Trabalho” (a “EMTT”) no atual regime de dinheiro de crédito inconversível – uma maneira que é consistente com a teoria geral do dinheiro de Marx e é quantitativamente a mesma determinação de Marx para a EMTT no caso do dinheiro fiduciário inconversível de seu tempo. No intuito de explicar o método de determinação da EMTT no caso do moderno dinheiro de crédito inconversível, primeiramente o artigo revisa a determinação de Marx da EMTT no caso do dinheiro-mercadoria e no caso do dinheiro fiduciário inconversível. Por fim, discute as semelhanças e as diferenças entre minha interpretação e a de Saros (2007) sobre a EMTT no caso do dinheiro fiduciário inconversível

What Does the Labor Theory of Value Do?

This article is a response to two other articles in this symposium by Tiago Camarinha Lopes and David Laibman. The article focuses mainly on the important question that both Camarinha Lopes and Laibman address in their articles: what does the labor theory of value do that other theories cannot do? In other words, what important phenomena of capitalist economies can Marx’s theory based on the labor theory of value explain that other theories, especially Sraffian theory, cannot explain? Sections 1 and 2 discuss Camarinha Lopes’ article, Section 3 discusses Laibman’s article, and Section 4 presents my answer to this important question of what does the labor theory of value do

Sherman, Shakers, and Shenanigans

The first 122 pages of this book relate to Bulloch County and form Book 10: Readings in Bulloch County History. The remainder comprise the Southern Folkways Journal Review No. 3, and relate to Southeast Georgia and to the Southeastern region of the United States. The first collection begins with a poem by Dr. John Ransom Lewis, followed by three articles on Dan Bland and the biographies of prominent African American citizens. Also included are two articles on the Hardy Moore family, student papers on vanishing Bulloch County communities, information on Joseph Jackson, articles on three local churches, and the Muster Roll of Toombs Guards. The second section of this book begins with an article on Western Shakers by Dr. Dale Covington, followed by “Hostau Reminisces,” and several articles on the Cherokee and the Lumbee Indians.https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/bchs-pubs/1033/thumbnail.jp

Cytokinesis and the contractile ring in fission yeast: towards a systems-level understanding

Cytokinesis, the final stage of the cell division cycle, requires the proper placement, assembly and contraction of an actomyosin-based contractile ring. Conserved sets of cytokinesis proteins and pathways have now been identified and characterized functionally. Additionally, fluorescent protein fusion technology enables quantitative high-resolution imaging of protein dynamics in living cells. For these reasons, the study of cytokinesis is now ripe for quantitative, systems-level approaches. Here, we review our current understanding of the molecular mechanisms of contractile ring dynamics in the model organism Schizosaccharomyces pombe (fission yeast), focusing on recent examples that illustrate a synergistic integration of quantitative experimental data with computational modeling. A picture of a highly dynamic and integrated system consisting of overlapping networks is beginning to emerge, the detailed nature of which remains to be elucidated.National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (NIH grant GM05683)Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Samuel A. Goldblith Career Development Professorship)Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Faculty startup funds

Toward Large FOV High-Resolution X-Ray Imaging Spectrometer: Microwave Multiplexed Readout of 32 TES Microcalorimeters

We performed a small-scale demonstration at GSFC of high-resolution x-ray TES microcalorimeters read out using a microwave SQUID multiplexer. This work is part of our effort to develop detector and readout technologies for future space based x-ray instruments such as the microcalorimeter spectrometer envisaged for Lynx, a large mission concept under development for the Astro 2020 Decadal Survey. In this paper we describe our experiment, including details of a recently designed, microwave-optimized low-temperature setup that is thermally anchored to the 50 mK stage of our laboratory ADR. Using a ROACH2 FPGA at room temperature, we simultaneously read out 32 pixels of a GSFC-built detector array via a NIST-built multiplexer chip with Nb coplanar waveguide resonators coupled to RF SQUIDs. The resonators are spaced 6 MHz apart (at approx. 5.9 GHz) and have quality factors of approximately 15,000. Using flux-ramp modulation frequencies of 160 kHz we have achieved spectral resolutions of 3 eV FWHM on each pixel at 6 keV. We will present the measured system-level noise and maximum slew rates, and briefly describe the implications for future detector and readout design

The Science Performance of JWST as Characterized in Commissioning

This paper characterizes the actual science performance of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), as determined from the six month commissioning period. We summarize the performance of the spacecraft, telescope, science instruments, and ground system, with an emphasis on differences from pre-launch expectations. Commissioning has made clear that JWST is fully capable of achieving the discoveries for which it was built. Moreover, almost across the board, the science performance of JWST is better than expected; in most cases, JWST will go deeper faster than expected. The telescope and instrument suite have demonstrated the sensitivity, stability, image quality, and spectral range that are necessary to transform our understanding of the cosmos through observations spanning from near-earth asteroids to the most distant galaxies.Comment: 5th version as accepted to PASP; 31 pages, 18 figures; https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1538-3873/acb29

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

M – C – M’ and the End of the “Transformation Problem”

The main reason for rejecting Marx’s theory over the last century has been the infamous “transformation problem”. The critics argue that in Marx’s theory of prices of production he “failed to transform the inputs” of constant capital and variable capital from values to prices of production and thus Marx’s theory is logically incomplete and inconsistent. This paper argues that Marx did not “fail to transform the inputs” because the inputs of constant capital and variable capital are not supposed to be transformed. Instead, constant capital and variable capital are supposed to be the same in the determination of both values and prices of production – the actual quantities of money capital advanced to purchase means of production and labour-power at the beginning of the circuit of money capital (M – C – M’) which are taken as given – and thus Marx’s theory of prices of production is logically coherent and complete. An algebraic summary of this “monetary” interpretation of Marx’s theory is presented in Section 3. And examples of the textual evidence to support this “monetary” interpretation are presented in Section 4