In reply to 4091. John wrote: "what you now seem to be saying is that ... the value lost by the machine due to aging, when it is used as well as when it is not used, is not transferred to the output." No, my point was that, in Marx's theory, what allows the value of a means of production to be preserved (by being transferred) is that it is used in production. If the same kind of item is *not* used in production, but depreciates through aging (a machine is idled in a slump, and rusts out), its value is lost along with its use-value. Marx discusses this in Capital I, Ch. 8. And it is obvious in any case. If a machine doesn't produce any output, it can't transfer value to that output. I think the importance of this case here is that it makes clear that depreciation and the transfer of value are two different things. Ciao, Andrew
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