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Specifically, the notion of "starting with" a given
>sum of money capital is an ideological reprise of the
>capitalist's perspective (on the way back from the bank, or the
>capital market, or having just liquidated an inheritance),
>rather than a valid starting point for scientific analysis. I
>think he has a good point.
>Allin Cottrell.
Allin,
As must be obvious to you, this sidesteps the question about whether one
need accept the assumption of input prices=output prices to study
interdepartmental relations over time. Of course one can (actually must)
accept it as an assumption to SIMPLIFY the analysis in order to isolate
certain relations, e.g., the equilibrium equation, in the study of simple
and expanded reproduction (remember Grossmann's argument about how Otto
Bauer had simply forgotten that for the purposes of cognitive tractability,
he had still built the assumptions of exchange at value and constant values
into his more realistic reproduction scheme and therfore could neither
really answer Luxmeburg nor raise the real problems of dynamics), but then
to invalidate the labor theory of value on grounds that it cannot abide by
a PROVISIONAL assumption (input prices=output prices) made for the purposes
of simplifying the analysis of reproduction seems be based on a simple
confusion of cognitive demands and reality or, as Pierre Bourdieu puts it
in a quasi Kantian moment, the model of reality for the reality of the
model (has anyone read Hans Vaihinger?)
As for starting with money, neither Marx nor Fred (or Mattick Jr or
Carchedi) does so. In the Notes on Wagner, Marx is quite clear about why he
begins with not with concepts but with the commodity the analysis of which
then shows that the necessary form of appearance (the difficult phrase
about which I have raised a question) of value is money price. This is why
any analysis of the transformation of value cannot but begin with the
givens in money terms. After this analysis, there is nothing left of the
common sense of the individual capitalist.
Yours, Rakesh
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