So it seems that today’s Marxists (Neo-Ricardians, Sraffians) seem to agree with Austrians when it comes to the heterogeneity of capital, namely that aggregating capital as a homogeneous structure called “K” is a major theoretical problem. So do Austrians and Neo-Ricardians disagree on this issue at all? If so, how and where do they disagree?
It’s kind of odd (not really) that the Austrians weren’t included in the debate at all, and the “capitalist” side was represented by the likes of Samuelson and Solow. Any more information on this topic would be great.
I think they agree that the neoclassicals were wrong but they disagree on the reasons why austrians disagree due to heterogenous capital and ricardians for some other reason I forget. I think someone lectured on this under the keynesianism category of the media section. Anyways consider this a bump.
The Cambridge Capital Controversy was about whether or not lower interest rates necessarily correspond to greater amounts of capital. The debate around heterogeneity was in relation to the term “greater.” Austrians enter the picture because Bohm-bawerk had a theory in which lower interest rates lengthened the period of production. Lelnad Yeager wanted to add a time element to the measure of capital, the Cambridge economists wanted a pure physical measure and everyone else wanted a standard value measure.
The takeaway is that nobody really cares about capital theory anymore and so it doesn’t matter. Don’t worry about it. The only place where I see it mattering is in certain renditions of the ABCT. I ignore any mention of “lengthening production processes” as they don’t do anything to further the argument, generally.