From: Andrew Brown (Andrew@lubs.leeds.ac.uk)
Date: Tue Nov 12 2002 - 06:08:09 EST
re 7975:
Hi Fred and all,
> I agree mostly with Rakesh. The OCC is the VCC in a restricted sense
> - in the sense that the VCC is affected only by technological change.
> The VCC is also affected by other factors besides technological
> change, like wages, the distribution of labor and capital across
> industries, the turnover time of capital, etc. But the OCC abstracts
> from all these other factors and serves to focus the analysis solely
> on the effects of technological change on the VCC, and ultimately on
> the rate of profit. The OCC is like a general ceteris paribus
> assumption: holding all other factors constant, how does technological
> change affect the VCC? The OCC is not a constant price (i.e.
> physical) ratio, but rather a ratio in current prices, the VCC, in the
> restricted sense just described.
Rakesh is correct to note that Marx's key examples involve
abstraction from the differences in unit *value* of the raw materials
in a production process. These examples do not, therefore, fit
easily with your interpretation, as far as I can see. Marx gives the
example of two production processes involving the same proportion
between labour-power and means of production (the same TCC)
and so having the same OCC even though one processes iron and
the other copper, where iron and copper have different values, giving
a different VCC (CIII, p.244; note in this case the TCC itself can
reasonably be compared, and shown to be equal, across different
locations). Yet if (in the dynamic case) we use current prices then
differences (changes) in unit values are *not* abstracted from. That
is, your 'OCC' could change even though the TCC doesn't and this
change would be solely due to the change in value of the
components of the TCC, seemingly contradicting Marx's example
discussed above.
More generally, there seems to be no way in which the OCC in
your view 'mirrors' the changes in the TCC. If one uses current
prices then it is quite possible for the TCC to go up and the OCC to
go down, or remain the same. Therefore, your view seems to
diverge from Marx's own statements that the OCC 'mirrors' the TCC.
It is important to distinguish between measurement and concept
here. The *concept* of the OCC is, on my view, the 'value reflex' of
the TCC. The *measure* is that of constant prices (old values), a
measure which only exists in the dynamic case. This is indeed a
view whereby one 'abstracts' from the certain changes in the VCC.
Or to be precise, one abstracts from changes in the VCC which are
due to changes in unit values. Through this abstraction, the OCC
must 'mirror' changes in the TCC. As you note in your discussion
of Fine and Harris, this is abstracting from 'indirect effects' (in Fand
H's terms).
> "There is a close correlation between the two [the technical
> composition and the value composition; FM]. I call the value
> composition of capital, in so far as it is determined by its technical
> composition and mirrors the changes in the latter, the organic
> composition of capital." (C.I. 762)
>
> [Notice that the OCC *IS* the VCC, in so far as it is determined by
> changes in the TCC, i.e. by technological change.]
But notice also that it 'mirrors' changes in the TCC, something
which seems to be absent from your view.
Re Fine and Harris. Fine has since changed his definition of the
TCC: the denominator is now labour-power, valued at constant
prices ('old values'), not a quantity of wage goods. Rises in the TCC
cause rises in the OCC which entail a tendential fall in the rate of
profit (and rise in the real wage) to which countertendencies,
analysed at the level of the VCC, exist.
Michael Perleman has questioned the political significance of all
this. Let me stress, once more, that the distinction I favour has a
decisive impact upon interpreting the transformation problem and
the LTRPF, hence on crisis theory.
The definitions of the CCs that I favour are the result of a
conception of capitalism as a whole, and especially of the
concepts of value and surplus value, rather than simply a textual
examination of Marx's relatively sparse direct statements regarding
the OCC, VCC and TCC. No doubt the many different
interpretations in the literature likewise reflect divergent general
conceptions of capitalism (reflected, above all, in different concepts
of value and surplus value). A ch. of my PhD sets out my notion of
value by way of critique of the various conceptions of value(-form) to
be found in Hegel-inspired systematic dialectics. The OCC / VCC
distinction builds on the view that value is created in *production*
but realised (gains appearance form) in exchange, and that this
development of 'form' is not incidental, nor smooth.
Many thanks,
Andy
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