Rakesh had written: "Marx admits that the inputs have to be transformed into prices of production. He does not say that they have to be transformed into the SAME prices of production as the outputs." Lefteris [OPE-L:4010] responded: "The above proposition ( that is approved by Kliman) I find ... highly problematic, to say the least, because it implies two systems of prices of production [--] one for inputs and another one for outputs [--] and as a result two average rates of profit." This isn't true. The proposition implies a single system with a single average profit rate, namely P[t+1]*B = (1+r)*P[t]*A (or something similar), where the P's are the price vectors of two different moments t and t+1, r is the uniform profit rate, and A and B are matrices of inputs and outputs. Lefteris: "Furthermore, what is an input and what is an output is also problematic because inputs are outputs and outputs are inputs at the same time[,] i.e. there is a single market for both inputs and outputs when the economy is viewed as a totality." Inputs and outputs are not distinguished by the nature of the good. They are distinguished functionally. Inputs are what are used in a production process. Output is the result of that process. Generally the process takes time, so that inputs precede output. I see no ambiguity here. The inputs into a production process are never the outputs of that process, nor are the outputs of a production process ever the inputs into the same process out of which the output issued. Lefteris: "So either we have a single system of prices of production or we simply do not have prices of production at all. We just have prices without the equalization of the profit rate which can be called whatever but prices of production." Again, this isn't so. See the single equation system above. Andrew Kliman
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