Samuelson's work is an odd one, because it attempted to fit Marx into a pre-defined model, and the model is convincing from a mathematical point of view. For whatever reason, Marxists (but especially analytical Marxists) decided this was enough to give up on the labour theory of value, or at least work in Samuelson's terms. The only proof of the redundancy of the theory of value Samuelson could offer was in the case of identical inputs and outputs, two homogenous goods, and we take labour as embodied and invariable[0]. Kliman and many others (especially those trained as economists rather than philosophers) accept this premise. Samuelson's other criticisms were repeats of Bohm-Bawerk's, and though it would take a few more years for better objections than Hilferding's to specifically reply to the critics and their criticisms, they got there eventually, and they're here today.
Your analogy would be more apt if it turned out that the refutations of phlogiston or the aether were flawed, both in the model used to construct the premises in the refutation and the refutation didn't hold much (if any) water. As it turns out, scientific revolutions can be just as politically motivated as anything else. But even then, Kliman and others are more than happy to work given the premises constructed by Samuelson. Okishio, at least, admitted the imperfection of the model his theorem is based on. Samuelson, even after contemporary early critiques from Paul Mattick, Geoffrey Kay, Ben Fine, and others never did. At some point Samuelson's conception of Marx's theory as one purely of prices and "proving" the notion of exploitation shows just how shallow the analysis goes. You can determine prices without reference to labour values (as Sraffa showed) and you can demonstrate exploitation in capitalist society without reference to the traditional (Marxian) labour theory of value (Nitzan & Bichler, Roemer, Veneziani & Yoshihara, Arthur DiQuattro, Hardt & Negri, even Bowels & Gintis). In fact, the only conclusion you really throw out is the falling rate of profit.
Even if nothing I said is true, the neoclassical paradigm was attacked just as much in the Cambridge capital controversy to the point where if we were to use the same standards you are using for Marxism, it would be just as dead. At best, neoclassical economics is the phlogiston, and Marxism is the aether. Sraffa would be happy, at least? Marxism as a mainstream question started dying while every other heterodox opinion was moribund too. Ironically, Marxist polecon is the only radical economics that still lives. That, at least, should show its resilience. What you said can be said three times over for Post-Keynesians, Sraffians, neo-Ricardians and pretty much everyone else on the sidelines.
The "reason" in "for whatever reason" is that Samuelson is right, and most people saw that pretty quickly. Samuelson never returned to the question (he did write a later New Palgrave entry on it) because he had more productive things to do with his time. Samuelson wrote more than 300 papers on macroeconomics, trade, finance, money, everything.
Your final paragraph has a basic misunderstanding of the Cambridge capital controversy that is surprisingly common among the heterodox. There was a primitive theory of capital to which the CCC applied. But modelling improved, and this theory was completely superseded by the 70s. But somehow the heterodox have inflated it into being the core proposition of all of mainstream economics. The modern theory of capital is completely immune to the arguments of the CCC.
>But somehow the heterodox have inflated it into being the core proposition of all of mainstream economics.
My argument wasn't that neoclassical economics should be discounted as a result of CCC, but rather the grounds upon which it took place, where Marxian (well, labour accounting) economics took just as much of a hit as neoclassical economics did. My argument was that if your proposition is that the status of a discipline should be counted based on what transpired between 1960 and 1980, Marxian economics would only be as poor today as neoclassical economics was. Neoclassical economics improved its models, and Marxian economics either attempted to salvage an orthodox interpretation of Marx or to move on to other research projects (Analytical Marxism, Rational Choice Marxism) that do away with his "mystical shell".
I suppose when one thinks of trying to salvage Marx as trying to prove Fermat's Last Theorem (in fact, it is very much like that with the Fundamental Marxian Theorem), what Kliman et al. are doing given the models and notation set out by Samuelson and Leontief, or what Veneziani and Yoshihara are doing given neoclassical methods is a whole lot less objectionable. Neoclassical economics isn't dead because of Sraffa, and Marxian economics isn't dead because of the century-old presumption that Marx was an equilibrium theorist, or the presumption that he was a physicalist.
Your analogy would be more apt if it turned out that the refutations of phlogiston or the aether were flawed, both in the model used to construct the premises in the refutation and the refutation didn't hold much (if any) water. As it turns out, scientific revolutions can be just as politically motivated as anything else. But even then, Kliman and others are more than happy to work given the premises constructed by Samuelson. Okishio, at least, admitted the imperfection of the model his theorem is based on. Samuelson, even after contemporary early critiques from Paul Mattick, Geoffrey Kay, Ben Fine, and others never did. At some point Samuelson's conception of Marx's theory as one purely of prices and "proving" the notion of exploitation shows just how shallow the analysis goes. You can determine prices without reference to labour values (as Sraffa showed) and you can demonstrate exploitation in capitalist society without reference to the traditional (Marxian) labour theory of value (Nitzan & Bichler, Roemer, Veneziani & Yoshihara, Arthur DiQuattro, Hardt & Negri, even Bowels & Gintis). In fact, the only conclusion you really throw out is the falling rate of profit.
Even if nothing I said is true, the neoclassical paradigm was attacked just as much in the Cambridge capital controversy to the point where if we were to use the same standards you are using for Marxism, it would be just as dead. At best, neoclassical economics is the phlogiston, and Marxism is the aether. Sraffa would be happy, at least? Marxism as a mainstream question started dying while every other heterodox opinion was moribund too. Ironically, Marxist polecon is the only radical economics that still lives. That, at least, should show its resilience. What you said can be said three times over for Post-Keynesians, Sraffians, neo-Ricardians and pretty much everyone else on the sidelines.
[0] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/08969205155717...