An Unacceptable Misrepresentation: Dismissing Marx's Value Theory by Deliberately Distorting the Temporal Single System Interpretation of Marx

Abstract

This article shows that Sinha's (2009) review of Kliman's Reclaiming Marx's “Capital”: A Refutation of the Myth of Inconsistency (2007) constitutes an unscientific and unacceptable intervention whose purpose is to stifle, instead of furthering, a long-overdue discussion of the Temporal Single System Interpretation (TSSI) of Marx's theory of value. It is unscientific because its case rests on conscious and transparent misrepresentation; it is unacceptable because it seeks to delegitimize, i.e., rule out of discussion, the work that it purports to review. Sinha's piece is ostensibly a review of Kliman (2007) which sets out to prove that, if Marx is interpreted by employing the TSSI, all charges of inconsistency so far leveled against this theory turn out to be false. To contextualize the review, this article first explains this interpretation by means of a numerical example from Kliman (2007). Then, this article establishes the unscientific character of Sinha's criticisms. These are based first on a simple misrepresentation of the argument, and second, on the charge that Kliman does not follow Sinha's own simultaneist method. Disagreements in science are of course normal; what is completely unscientific is to discount a valid, coherent alternative theory on the grounds that the reviewer disagrees with it.