"Andrew_Kliman" <Andrew_Kliman@email.msn.com> said, on 10/28/00: >Paul: "... but I do think the abstraction in Volume 1 from variations >across industries of differing compositions of capital is of >significance." >I've been trying to indicate that Marx doesn't abstract from unequal >compositions of capital in Vol. I. He abstracts (from Ch. 6 onward, and >then not always) from price-value deviations. Equal value compositions >are one factor that, together with others, could ensure that prices = >values, but there are other ways of obtaining that equality. E.g., one >could let profit rates differ. I understood your point, Andrew. But I think equal profit rates are rather easier to accept than equal compositions. Thus, I focus on the more difficult presumption. Second, for profit rates to vary JUST enough to compensate for variations in compositions of capital seems farfetched. Having said this, I reassert that the presumption of price-value equivalence in Volume 1 is an important indication that Marx is NOT so very interested in the non-equivalence cases. Those cases become a nuisance and a distraction from more important problems. >Marx doesn't even do that. He simply stipulates the equality as an >assumption. Yes, but see my previous answer. >One reason why this is important is that, if one asserts that he's >dealing with the whole social capital when explaining the origin of >surplus-value, one misses the fact that he's locating the origin in the >production process of an *individual* (i.e., each individual) capital, >and one begins to think of profit as an aggregate phenomenon, which >depends on a whole complex of conditions and interdependencies. For >someone like yourself who emphasizes class struggle, I wouldn't think >that's an attractive vantage point. I got a little lost in this paragraph. Is it the focus on "individual" capital which is supposed to emphasize class struggle or the focus on the aggreate? In either case, I don't quite understand want you to convey. Pau Z.
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