Ajit, I am slowly coming to see how correct Fred, Alejandro and Andrew are that there is not a value and price scheme. In what is being called your dual system approach, we supposedly know the input labor value of the means of production (c) and wage goods (v), and we also know from the original tableau not only the the indirect (c) but also the direct labor time embodied (1 +s/v)v in the output whose total value can thus be resolved into cost price (c+v) + surplus value (s). c, v, s are all putatively expressions of quantities of labor value. However, even Allin agrees that c and v are not in themselves quanta of labor value. It is clear that they are not; everything is given a monetary expression. If they were labor values, Marx would not have called them cost price. c and v are indeed the money sums invested as constant and variable capital. There is nothing you or I can do about that. Fred is correct. Now Allin argues that these monetary sums are just shorthand for quanta of labor value. But of course we cannot know how much labor quanta unless we know the value of money. Marx has told us that he has fixed the value of money "Firstly *the value of money*. THIS WE CAN TAKE AS CONSTANT THROUGHOUT." (capital 3, p. 142 vintage; capitals mine). Say then $1=1/2 labor hour That is, M (value of money)=1/2 hour; the monetary expression of an hour of labor (1/M) is thus $2. For the purposes of Marx's investigation it does not matter what M is; only that it remain fixed and constant. I will show that. Thus the money sums of c and v would have to be divided by M (1/2) to arrive at the labor value which these money sums represent. But now we only know the labor value represented by the monetary sums invested in the inputs. This in itself does not tell us the labor value of the inputs. So the short hand to the labor values of the inputs is not as short as Allin has it. Of course Marx's assumption has been that the money sums invested as c and v has been determined on the assumption that means of production and wage goods sold at value. So in Marx's transformation tableau the c and v are the labor values of means of production and wage goods, respectively, already multiplied by a fixed and constant 1/M (the monetary expression of labor time). We are simply not directly dealing with labor values. Fred is right. And if we wish to change 1/M, it will affect not only c and v proportionately but also the s which represents the surplus commodities (the labor value embodied in which will now be multiplied by the new 1/M) As Fred has also been arguing, Marx assumes there to be a unique 1/M (monetary expression of labor time) in the real economy at any point. In Marx's theoretical work, he simply fixes it and keeps it constant throughout. Fred is terribly correct about this. It is too bad that it is taking may of us (me included) so long to see his point. So we know that behind the monetary sums of c, v and s there is a fixed, economy-wide monetary expression of value which this 1/m has translated labor values into the money sums we have. We know that if m or 1/m were different, we would have different quantities of c, v and s but the changes would be proportional. That's Fred's point as I now understand it. He seems right to me. All the best, Rakesh
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