>On Wed, 4 Oct 2000, Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@Princeton.EDU) wrote: > >> In 3947 Paul C wrote: >> >> >Note that the definition of value in vol 1 is done in abstraction from >> >changes in technology over time. >> >> False. From the beginning, Marx emphasizes that an increase in the >> amount of material wealth may correspond to a simultaneous fall in >> the magnitude of value... > >I guess you read Paul's first sentence but didn't pause to read >the next. Of course Marx talks about the effects of changes in >labour productivity on values. What he doesn't do is explore >the implications of continuous technical change for the very >definition of value (as the labour-time socially necessary for a >commodity's production). As I noted to Paul C soon after you cut me off here, then how do you make sense of the chapter on the production of relative surplus value which is nothing but a study of the implications of the declining unit value of wage goods, thereby allowing a rising rate of exploitation. If this is not an analysis in terms of a dynamic definition of value--that is, in terms of a continuous decline in the socially necessary labor time needed to reproduce wage goods--then what would be? What would have Marx had to have done to prove to you that for him value is an inherently temporal, dynamic category? He is shouting it on the first few pages, so obviously this is not enough for you. What more do you want? By the way, the chapter on relative surplus value is in the first volume. > That definition is unproblematic >(unambiguous) if one is doing comparative statics -- figuring >the value of a commodity "before" and "after" a discrete change >in technology. It needs more work in a context of continuous >change. > >In the post to which Paul was replying you mention that I hadn't >responded to an earlier one of yours. True, but -- I hope this >is not regarded as a "flame" -- you have a certain tendency to >shoot from the hip without apparently investing much effort in >understanding the opposed point of view, which can make extended >debate a bit wearisome. Allin, you don't even read my posts, so this is quite funny. Again you only responded to the very first few lines, and this one wasn't even that long. I shoot from the hip? The powers of projection on this list never fail to astound me. You told me that Marx would have welcomed a solution in which by assumption the input prices are set equal equal to the output prices. I then indicate passages in this same chapter on the transformation problem where it is clear Marx is making no assumption. So we have your textually unsubstantiated declaration versus textual counter-evidence--and you are accusing me of shooting from the hip? Paul then responded on your behalf, and completely ignored the pasages I cited. My maths ability is very rusty. Right now I am working through Casti on optimisation techniques, the fixed brouwer theorem, and other things and Ian Stewart on knots, difference equations and the like, so I'll try to get up to speed,though I'll probably always be relatively slow in comparison to many of you here. I also agree with you that I do not know Sraffa or neo Ricardianism (except say for now that Meek review which Harcourt touts as still one of the best), but I have read Marx. You have accused Marx of making a logical (second order) error and proposed a way to solve it. On the basis of my careful reading of Marx (and a wealth of secondary material on Marx)--and this is a list for the discussion of Marx knowledge of whose writings I am willing to go toe-to-toe with you or Ajit or Paul or Gil or Steve --I have argued that he made no such logical error (indeed if he had had the inputs transformed in the second tableau he would have been making a serious logical error in terms of assuming the category of price of production before he had derived it properly) and that your proposed solution is inconsistent with his own aims. Let me make a simple logical point--that the inputs have to be transformed into prices of production (remember we do agree on this) does not mean that they have to be transformed into the same set of prices of production as the outputs. All the best, Rakesh
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