In my 4362, I had written: The fourth equation says that the mass of surplus value [total value-(modified) total cost price] does not equal but DETERMINES WHAT THE BRANCH PROFITS ADD UP TO. _______ there may be some controversy as to how I define surplus value. but Marx himself is quite clear: "the surplus value or profit consists precisely in the excess of commodity value over its COST PRICE, ie., in the excess sum of the total sum of labour contained in the commodity over the sum of labor that is ACTUALLY PAID FOR IT. The surplus value, from wherever it may derive, is consequently an advance over and above the total capital advanced. This excess then stands in a certain ratio to the total capital, as expressd by the fraction s/c, where C stands for total capital. We thus obtain *the rate of profit* s/c=s/c+v, as distinct from the rate of surplus value." capital 3, p. 133 (vintage; my emphases) I am at a total lost why the mass of surplus value has been stipulated to be equal in the unmodified, so called value scheme and the transformed, so called price scheme. Total value/price of course should remain equal. BUT SINCE THE MASS OF SURPLUS VALUE IS TOTAL VALUE, LESS COST PRICE AND THE INCOMPLETENESS OF THE TRANSFORMATION IS PRECISELY ABOUT THE FAILURE TO TRANSFORM THE INPUTS AND THUS MODIFY THE COST PRICES, HOW COULD ANYONE THINK THAT AFTER THE MODIFICATION OF THE COST PRICES, THE MASS OF SURPLUS VALUE WOULD REMAIN THE SAME? What the second equality means for Marx is that the sum of surplus value is determined first by subtracting from total value the sum total of the cost prices, which then divided by that sum total of cost prices yields r or the so called mark up which then applied to the respective industry cost prices generates a sum of profit equal to the mass of surplus value. The second equality is a relation of determination, from the macro magnitude of the mass of surplus value to the average profit rate on total capital to the prices of production at the micro level of individual industries. Macro magnitudes are prior to, and determinative of, micro magnitudes. In the transformed, so called price scheme, the mass of surplus value/profit should be different than it is in the unmodified, so called value scheme! But instead Bortkiewicz-Sweezy-Cottrell all allow for total price (1000) to exceed total value (875) in the transformed, so called price scheme. This allows prices to be determined free of value determination even in the aggregate; there is no way a transformation on Marx's premises should be allowed to do that. How could a change in the price of the input means of production change the value of those means as consumed in the commodity output? How could a change in the price paid for a certain quantity of wage goods with which workers are hired change the new value which this same number of workers are adding to those means of production? The transformation of the inputs should have no effect on the total value as given in the unmodified, so called value scheme. That so called equality is an invariance condition; the equality (mass of surplus value=sum of branch profits) is not an invariance condition or an identity; it is a relation of determination. All the best, Rakesh
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