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>I would have thought estimates of value can be greatly helped by
>price data: one approach to measuring value is through modifying
>national accounts (greatly) according to the notion of value (eg.
>distinguishing unproductive and productive labour).
Andy (B), I had another question about how we are to modify national
accounts. Let's take a fictional scenario. Let's say there is a cartel in a
strategic commodity which is practically embodied in every other commodity.
And let's say that this cartel priced this strategic commodity in only
rallod which is the currency of just one country, call it the Peoples'
Republic of Acirema (PRA).
Now the government of PRA does not have to produce goods and services in
exchange for that strategic commodity until the cartel used rallods for
goods and services. But not only that. All other countries have to pay
rallod for the strategic commodity but cannot simply print the currency.
These other economies are going to have to trade goods and services for
rallods to pay the cartel. So long as the cartel holds on to these rallods,
instead of spending them, it seems to me that PRA is enjoying a double
transfer of value on a global scale.
Where or how would this show up in the national accounts of this fictional
country?
There's a less fictional treatment of such a scenario in David Spiro The
Hidden Hand of American Hegemony: Petrodollar Recycling and International
Markets. Ithaca: NY: Cornell University Press, 1999: 121-22.
Yours, Rakesh
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