> > > >>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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