The Deconstruction of the Temporal-Single-System-Interpretation TSSI

The Pragmatic-Deconstruction of the Temporal-Single-System-Interpretation:
(A Refutation of the TSSI Myth of Consistency in Marx’s Capital)
Michel Luc Bellemare©
Introduction:
There are internal inconsistencies, i.e., contradictions, with the Temporal-Single-System-
Interpretation (TSSI), pertaining to its claims of having rectified the logical contradictions within
Marx’s Capital, concerning the law of value. This paper will not be going extensively into what
the temporal-single-system-interpretation is reacting against, namely, the charge against Marx of
internal inconsistencies, which, for over a one-hundred years, have hung over Marx’s work like a
dark foreboding cloud. Instead, this paper will be presenting the internal consistencies of the
Temporal-Single-System-Interpretation, itself, in relation to Marx’s work, which by association
also presents the internal consistencies within Marx’s own analysis. In sum, TSSI’s
demonstrations have not succeeded in refuting the century old proof of Marx’s logical
inconsistencies because TSSI passes over in silence many of the contradictory claims Marx made
about the characteristics of the law of value. Dmitriev, Okishio, Bohm-Bawerk and Bortkiewicz
may have faltered in fully outlining the inconsistencies in Marx’s Capital, nevertheless, they
were correct that Marx’s analysis, i.e., law of value, is riddled with irreparable, internal-logical
inconsistencies.
Foremost, the TSSI imposes unto Marx’s analysis, a framework that is just not there in
Marx’s work. In actually, TSSI has simply side-stepped certain Marxist premises over others,
i.e., picked certain premises over others, which are contradictory, so as to arbitrarily construct a
truncated Marxist interpretation, which can enable TSSI to dubiously claim that it is the only
interpretation able to rescue Marx’s labor theory of value from its century old prison term, the
damning sentence of internal-logical-inconsistency. In fact to believe TSSI one would have to
live in a perpetual state of suspension of disbelief, to pass over in silence, the many internal
contradictions, emanating from Marx’s own statements, concerning the law of value.
Specifically, having an interpretation that forgoes some of Marx’s premises, for others, does not
remove the claim of internal inconsistency. One can find the Bible internally consistent, as well,
if one chooses to pass over certain contradictory passages and premises. The bible, or any other
text, will as well make sense, and seem logically plausible, if one refuses to acknowledge, or deal
with, the conflictual premises and statements within a text. Contrary to Kliman, when one
interpretation makes a text make sense does not make it more plausible, or more correct, when
the particular interpretation abandons core premises and statements the text makes in favor of
more sympathetic premises and statements. When this sort of thing happens, we have left the
solid ground of reason and are in the mystical clouds of ideology and theoretical fetishism.
I
First and foremost, TSSI is a reductive and distorted interpretation of Marx’s analysis in
the sense that TSSI has abandoned many of the premises Marx outlined, pertaining to the law of