> Paul writes[14/4/98 09:37] Slightly changing his original order:
>
> > About a mile from here there is a large ship being
> > constructed by Kavaerner in Govan for Sea Launchers. The ship has been
> > under construction for over a year. Just down the road there is a bakery
> > selling scones which were baked last night.
> >
> > If we were to follow your procedure and add up the stock of goods for
> > sale in the country we would be adding the ship( or its labour content)
> > to the scones (or their labour content). If we expressed this as a daily
> > product we would overvalue the ships contribution. If we expressed it as a bi-yearly
> > product we would undervalue the scones contribution.
>
> I understand Paul's concern but I think there is a difference between
> adding the ship to the scones, and adding the labour-content of the ship to
> the labour-content of the scones.
>
> For me, that's the whole point of value, or at least, a very large part of
> the whole point. If I proposed to add the use-value of the ship to the
> use-value of the scone, I think Paul's criticism would be valid. But that
> isn't what I propose to do.
No I would not expect you to make such an obvious error.
What I am saying is that the national value product is shorthand for the
the annual value product. That is, value per unit time. Since stocks
have dimension value, they can not be used to estimate value per annum.
Since the dimension of value is person hours, the dimension of value
per annum is simply persons.
My objection is simply that you are attempting to derive a flow from
a stock, nothing more than that.
I will deal with the rest on some later occasion. I have to go to a meeting.