[OPE-L:4464] Re: Re: Re: Re: what is Volume 1 about?

From: Rakesh Narpat Bhandari (rakeshb@Stanford.EDU)
Date: Mon Nov 06 2000 - 12:28:47 EST


>
>  >
>>Are there no quantitative variables determined?
>
>yes, total living labour and total necessary labour: i.e. the total
>exploitation time of the working class, and the total labour time embodied
>in the goods left available to <orkers (the 'subsistence'). 'macro'
>magnitudes which are independent from the rule governing 'micro'
>exchange-ratios.

Riccardo,
let's not confuse the determination of total value with its 
resolution, as Allin has.

To be sure, the value of a commodity is  determined not as cost price 
+ surplus value, as Andrew K, Alejandro and Fred all have it, but as 
the direct and indirect labor time which it embodies, though of 
course that labor time is socially determined. This part Ajit and 
Allin have correct.

This total value, a labor time category, is indeed the primary, basic 
magnitude that is then broken down or resolved into cost price + 
surplus value. Since the commodity value is given in advance as a 
fixed entity, any increase in one of its parts (i.e., cost prices) 
invariably leads to a fall in the other (i.e., surplus value). The 
parts move in inverse relation to each other.

Though a neo Ricardian, Allin does not understand this basic 
difference between determination and resolution in Marx.

In the B-S-Cottrell models, the first two Depts have a relatively 
higher OCC than Dept III. The equalisation of the profit rates means 
then that their prices rise relatively. Since these two depts provide 
the inputs for all depts, cost prices are raised by the equalisation 
of profit rates.

This now means total value is resolved into

(1) (cost price + a) + (surplus value - a)

For example, Marx discusses how "the increase in wages would affect 
the unpaid part of total labour, and with this the SURPLUS 
VALUE...The SURPLUS VALUE, firstly, falls by a third of its former 
amount, from 150 to 100." (see Capital 3, p. 995 vintage). That is, 
since total value is resolved into cost price and surplus value, an 
increase in the former due to a rise in the wages leads to a fall in 
the latter.

All the best, Rakesh



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