Oops. Yes. I can't move a post to a comment, though.

But the two theories predict the same observations, because art is a good strategy to get sex.

Most quotes have a justification lurking about somewhere, either within the quote itself, or in shared experience. A quote that's just an unsubstantiated claim shouldn't be quoted.

Externalities exist in the transaction (the territory), not in a model of the transaction (the map). The "decision", remember, is not "a" decision made by a World Ruler. It's a market transaction made by multiple parties, subject to agreed-on rules or arbitration. Externalities are created by the terms of the transaction. The terms of the transaction are only a model of the transaction in an extreme Marxist analysis such as Althusser would make (who basically turned materialism into strict behaviorism by saying ideas don't exist, only actions--e.g., he would say a contract isn't a transaction; people pushing green pieces of paper across the table is a transaction).

You're right! Thank you for correcting me.

He has not got much data, though. That which he has is nearly all in his footnotes, and so far I haven't seen any of it used to support his major claims, but only on tangential matters.

Skimming the first 200 pages (8 chapters) of an unabridged version (Penguin) of Capital Book 1, this is all the data I find. All but the first two were relegated to footnotes, and I don't immediately see that any of it supports important claims. So this is one tangential piece of data per 20 pages.

So the reason I read so much Marx without seeing any data could be that, when one abridges Marx to present only Marx's explanation and justification for his important ideas, there is very little data in that part.

Or it could be that abridgers don't think data is important. After all, students won't be tested on the data.

What he has much, much more of is (a) reasoning without data, and (b) working-out of examples of made-up data, e.g., "Suppose that in spinning cotton, the waste for every 115 lbs. used amounts to 15 lbs., which is converted, not into yarn, but into “devil’s dust.” Now, although this 15 lbs. of cotton never becomes a constituent element of the yarn, yet assuming this amount of waste to be normal and inevitable under average conditions of spinning, its value is just as surely transferred to the value of the yarn, as is the value of the 100 lbs. that form the substance of the yarn...".

Book 1 Chapter 3

Section 3: Money

"Vanderlint, who fancies that the prices of commodities in a country are determined by the quantity of gold and silver to be found in it, asks himself why Indian commodities are so cheap. Answer: Because the Hindus bury their money. From 1602 to 1734, he remarks, they buried 150 millions of pounds sterling of silver, which originally came from America to Europe. [40] In the 10 years from 1856 to 1866, England exported to India and China £120,000,000 in silver, which had been received in exchange for Australian gold. Most of the silver exported to China makes its way to India."

Data, but it does not support the claim he's using it to support.

"To what extent this transformation depends upon the general conditions of production, is shown, to take one example, by the fact that the Roman Empire twice failed in its attempt to levy all contributions in money. The unspeakable misery of the French agricultural population under Louis XIV., a misery so eloquently denounced by Boisguillebert, Marshal Vauban, and others, was due not only to the weight of the taxes, but also to the conversion of taxes in kind into money taxes. [55] In Asia, on the other hand, the fact that state taxes are chiefly composed of rents payable in kind, depends on conditions of production that are reproduced with the regularity of natural phenomena."

Not really data, but at least references to external reality.

Footnote 46: "According to a Parliamentary document of 1864 on the gold and silver import and export of India, the import of gold and silver in 1863 exceeded the export by £19,367,764. During the 8 years immediately preceding 1864, the excess of imports over exports of the precious metals amounted to £109,652,917. During this century far more than £200,000,000 has been coined in India."

Data, but he didn't supply any other data to use together with this to enable any conclusion to be drawn from it.

Footnote 53. "As an example of how little ready money is required in true commercial operations, I give below a statement by one of the largest London houses of its yearly receipts and payments. Its transactions during the year 1856, extending to many millions of pounds sterling, are here reduced to the scale of one million.

Receipts. Payments. Bankers’ and Merchants’ £533,596 Bills payable after date £302,674 Cheques on Bankers, &c. payable on demand 357,715 Cheques on London Bankers 663,672 Country Notes 9,627 Bank of England Notes 22,743 Bank of England Notes 68,554 Gold 9,427 Gold 28,089 Silver and Copper 1,484 Silver and Copper 1,486
Post Office Orders 933
Total £1,000,000 Total £1,000,000 “Report from the Select Committee on the Bank Acts, July, 1858,” p. lxxi."

Footnote 56. "Although the average effective circulation of bank-notes in Scotland is less than three millions sterling, yet on certain pay days in the year, every single note in the possession of the bankers, amounting in the whole to about £7,000,000, is called into activity. On these occasions the notes have a single and specific function to perform, and so soon as they have performed it, they flow back into the various banks from which they issued. (See John Fullarton, “Regulation of Currencies.” Lond. 1845, p. 86, note.)"

Footnote 59: "About 25 years ago the ratio expressing the relative value of gold and silver was 15-1/2:1; now it is approximately 22:1, and silver is still constantly falling as against gold. This is essentially the result of a revolution in the mode of production of both metals. Formerly gold was obtained almost exclusively by washing it out from gold-bearing alluvial deposits, products of the weathering of auriferous rocks. Now this method has become inadequate and has been forced into the background by the processing of the quartz lodes themselves, a way of extraction which formerly was only of secondary importance, although well known to the ancients (Diodorus, III, 12-14) (Diodor’s v. Sicilien “Historische Bibliothek,” book III, 12-14. Stuttgart 1828, pp. 258-261). Moreover, not only were new huge silver deposits discovered in North America, in the Western part of the Rocky Mountains, but these and the Mexican silver mines were really opened up by the laying of railways, which made possible the shipment of modern machinery and fuel and in consequence the mining of silver on a very large scale at a low cost. However there is a great difference in the way the two metals occur in the quartz lodes. The gold is mostly native, but disseminated throughout the quartz in minute quantities. The whole mass of the vein must therefore be crushed and the gold either washed out or extracted by means of mercury. Often 1,000,000 grammes of quartz barely yield 1-3 and very seldom 30-60 grammes of gold. Silver is seldom found native, however it occurs in special quartz that is separated from the lode with comparative ease and contains mostly 40-90% silver; or it is contained, in smaller quantities, in copper, lead and other ores which in themselves are worthwhile working."

Chapter Six: The Buying and Selling of Labour-Power

Footnote 14: "In London there are two sorts of bakers, the “full priced,” who sell bread at its full value, and the “undersellers,” who sell it under its value. The latter class comprises more than three-fourths of the total number of bakers. (p. xxxii in the Report of H. S. Tremenheere, commissioner to examine into “the grievances complained of by the journeymen bakers,” &c., Lond. 1862.) The undersellers, almost without exception, sell bread adulterated with alum, soap, pearl ashes, chalk, Derbyshire stone-dust, and such like agreeable nourishing and wholesome ingredients. (See the above cited Blue book, as also the report of “the committee of 1855 on the adulteration of bread,” and Dr. Hassall’s “Adulterations Detected,” 2nd Ed. Lond. 1861.) Sir John Gordon stated before the committee of 1855, that “in consequence of these adulterations, the poor man, who lives on two pounds of bread a day, does not now get one fourth part of nourishing matter, let alone the deleterious effects on his health.”"

Chapter Seven: The Labour-Process and the Process of Producing Surplus-Value

Footnote 18: "Laing estimates that in England (and Wales) the livelihood of 11,300,000 people depends on unskilled labour. If from the total population of 18,000,000 living at the time when he wrote, we deduct 1,000,000 for the “genteel population,” and 1,500,000 for paupers, vagrants, criminals, prostitutes, &c., and 4,650,000 who compose the middle-class, there remain the above mentioned 11,000,000. But in his middle-class he includes people that live on the interest of small investments, officials, men of letters, artists, schoolmasters and the like, and in order to swell the number he also includes in these 4,650,000 the better paid portion of the factory operatives! The bricklayers, too, figure amongst them."

Chapter Eight: Constant Capital and Variable Capital

Footnote 5: "In The Times of 26th November, 1862, a manufacturer, whose mill employed 800 hands, and consumed, on the average, 150 bales of East Indian, or 130 bales of American cotton, complains, in doleful manner, of the standing expenses of his factory when not working. He estimates them at £6,000 a year. Among them are a number of items that do not concern us here, such as rent, rates, and taxes, insurance, salaries of the manager, book-keeper, engineer, and others. Then he reckons £150 for coal used to heat the mill occasionally, and run the engine now and then. Besides this, he includes the wages of the people employed at odd times to keep the machinery in working order. Lastly, he puts down £1,200 for depreciation of machinery, because “the weather and the natural principle of decay do not suspend their operations because the steam-engine ceases to revolve.” He says, emphatically, he does not estimate his depreciation at more than the small sum of £1,200, because his machinery is already nearly worn out."

Quote some. I took an entire class on Marx, and read hundreds of pages by him, and don't recall seeing any data. Nor can I find any, now, going through Selected Writings (ed. David McLellan). EDIT: See above.