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This is a response to Andy B.'s (3655). I am sorry, but I am telnetting
from afar, so I can't include Andy's post in my reply. Andy basically
argued that, since I am assuming that constant capital is equal to the
CURRENT costs of the means of production, rather than the actual HISTORICAL
costs, I cannot take constant capital as GIVEN, as I have claimed. Please
see (3655) for Andy's full post.
Andy, I don't see the problem here. Why can't the constant capital be
taken as given in terms of current costs?
Let's take Marx's example of cotton and yarn. The constant capital
invested in the cotton is initially taken as given as the actual,
historical price of the cotton. If the price of the cotton does not change
before the yarn produced from it is sold, then this actual historical cost
is taken as given in the determination of the price of the yarn. However,
if the price of the cotton does change any time between the purchase of the
cotton and the sale of the yarn, then the NEW, CURRENT PRICE OF THE COTTON
IS TAKEN AS GIVEN in the determination of the price of the yarn. This is
true whether the change in the price of the cotton occurs in any one of the
three phases of the circulation of capital:
Phase 1: while the cotton is in inventory before the start of production
Phase 2: during the production of yarn from cotton
Phase 3: after the yarn has been produced, but before it is sold
I don't see the problem with this. Why must the constant capital be taken
as given only as the actual, historical cost of the cotton? Why can't it
be taken as given as the current cost of the cotton?
Marx clearly thought that this was not a problem. In at least two
passages, Marx explicitly stated that, even though the price of the means
of production changes, the current price of the means of production IS
STILL TAKEN AS GIVEN in the determination of the price of output. These
passages are: Marx-Engels Collected Works, vol. 30, pp. 79-80 and p. 413
(the latter passage is also in Theories of Surplus-value, vol. 1, p. 109).
I won't quote the entire passages, but only a small excerpt from each:
"These changes in their [the means of production] value, however, always
arise from changes in the productivity of the labor of which they are
products, and have nothing to do with the labor process into which they
enter as finished products with a GIVEN value. Their change of value stems
from alterations in their own conditions of production, which occur outside
and independently of the labor process into which they enter as material
and means; not as a result of an operation occuring within the labor
proces. For they are always values of a GIVEN, PREPOSITED, magnitude, even
thought owing to external agencies, acting outside the labor process, they
are now PREPOSITED as a GREATER OR SMALLER MAGNITUDE than was originally
the case." (MECW. 30: 80)
"It is true that the value of this constant part can fall or rise,
depending on whether the commodities of which it is composed have to be
reproduced at less or greater cost. This CHANGE OF VALUE, however, NEVER
ALTERS THE FACT that in the process of production into which it enters as a
condition of production, it is a POSTULATED value which must reappear in
the value of the product." (MECW. 30: 413)
In addition, in many other passages (documented in my IWGVT 2000 paper),
Marx argued that the magnitude of the constant capital will change if the
price of the means of production changes. In order to be consistent with
the above two passages, and the many other passages in which Marx stated
that the constant capital is taken as given, these additional passages also
imply that, even though the magnitude of the constant capital may change,
the new current magnitude of the constant capital is still taken as given
in the determination of the price of the output.
So, Andy, would you please explain further why you think there is a problem
here. Why is it "peculiar" to call the magnitude of constant capital
"given" if its magnitude changes. Why can't the current magnitude be taken
as given, just as well as the original magnitude, as Marx clearly assumed?
Thanks very much for your clarification.
Comradely,
Fred
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