Re Gil's 4069
> Except for the
>possibility of divergent input/output prices, which at least is not
>*logically* alien to the Sraffian system, the indicated terms are all
>perfectly recognizable Sraffian entities.
Whether they are Sraffian entities is beside the point: your profit
rate is no longer being determined simultaneously with prices so I
don't recognize this as the neo Ricardian rival to Marx's theory of
the determination of the average profit rate. Remember Fred has laid
out two methods: the simultaneism implicit in linear production
theory or the monetary-macro theory. What you have here seems to me
Sraffian in some appearances only. But maybe I am missing the
point--it wouldn't be the first time.
>Marx's theoretical analysis of the profit rate in Capital Volume III is
>based on dividing top and bottom of this ratio by the value of labor power
>(presumably determined at the wage rate in t-1, but that's not central to
>the point here) to yield
>
>(2) {[p(t)I -p(t-1)A -wL]X / wLX}
> r = ________________________ ,
>
> {[p(t-1)A/wLX }
>
>that is, the average rate of surplus value divided by the average
>composition of capital. Note that no direct reference to wage or profit
>shares or capital productivity (Duncan's preferred theoretical categories)
>is made, and you still have to know old and new prices.
I don't get this. You are saying r=s/v divided by c/v; that would
mean that r=s/c but for Marx r=s/c+v.
What happened to the v?
By the way, I think Marx was perfectly justified in holding that
the transforming of the inputs would not change the magnitude of c+v;
so his macro determination of the profit rate as s/c+v is completed
in the second tableau despite the inputs not being transformed.
As far as I am concerned, that there is no reference to capital
productivity in Marx's determination of r is a mark in his favor.
>
>
>....Unless, of course, it can somehow be argued that specifically *labor
>value-theoretic* analysis uniquely generates statements about trends in
>profit shares and capital productivity (which I dispute), *and* that these
>predictions are determinate *even in the face of the input/output price
>divergences you've introduced**--which I also seriously doubt, but I'm open
>to a proof.
Again, I have no idea what you are talking about. How would a labor
theory of the source of new value in any way make predictions
about--let alone allow for the existence of--the productivity of
capital? This must be a fetishistically short handed way of speaking.
>
>
>Put more generally, there are plausible theoretical bases for eliminating
>the analytical indeterminacy you highlight, but these bases are necessarily
>alien to a labor theory of value, so if this issue matters, I think it
>supports my critique rather than injuring it.
I am sure this is my fault, but I don't follow. Marx's labor theory
of value is a theory of the tendency towards permanent reduction in
unit values, i.e. that is, the inverse movement in the mass of use
values and unit value.
Any attempt to formalize it must thus necessarily allow for time
subscripts. Marx obviously sees the domain of capitalist dynamics as
ordered. That is, it is obvious that Marx sees not only a sequential
order in capitalist dynamics but that sequential order as temporal
(not merely logical) and even more as temporally *directed*.
In your language, not only does one particular unit input requirement
matrix necessarily follow upon another in time; each successive
matrix should tend to represent greater productivity or decreased
unit values.
When a domain is sequentially ordered and even has clear temporal
direction, its order can obvioulsy only be shown if all the variables
are time subscripted.
So whatever your argument with Duncan, what I am saying, following
Carchedi, is that as long as we do this--temporally subscript the
variables, treat Marx's transformation tableau as one period in a
temporally ordered sequence--the transformation problem disappears
and Marx has a perfectly logical value theoretic hypothesis of how
the average rate of profit is determined, even if the neo Ricardians
do too.
It's only the right to test Marx's theory against reality that I am
interested in wresting.
Sorry for the amateurish reply.
All the best, Rakesh
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