[ show plain text ]
Many thanks to Steve for the quote from Wage-Labour and Capital; it seems to
me that this can be read as strong textual evidence for Fred M's (and of
course also Andrew K and Alan F's) interpretation. The crucial words are:
"If in exchange for these goods [the commodities sold by the
capitalist] he
> receives a quantity of other goods whose production has cost less, he has
> lost. If he receives in exchange for his goods a quantity of other goods
> whose production has cost more, he has gained."
>
Assuming that Marx understood the "other goods" received by the
capitalist to be means of production, this seems about as clear a statement
as one could wish for that he *intended* a system in which input prices did
not necessarily equal input values, and that his alleged mistake in the
transformation problem was not an oversight.
Julian
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Aug 31 2000 - 00:00:03 EDT