re Andrew's 4515:
>
>
>I had written that in Rakesh's interpretation, "The magnitude of
>aggregate surplus-value clearly becomes
>dependent on how it is distributed." He has responded "Of course."
>
>The problem is that Marx said the opposite. There's direct evidence of
>this -- I don't have time to locate it -- but also the very purpose of
>the transformation discussion is to show that the magnitude of
>surplus-value is determined in production, not in the market. The total
>is distributed differently, but unaltered in the aggregate.
My point is that when the transformation only applies to the outputs,
we are indeed taking a given magnitude of surplus value and
distributing it.
IT HAS BEEN AN INCORRECT LOGICAL LEAP THAT ONCE WE ALLOW FOR THE
MODIFICATION OF COST PRICE ON THE BASIS OF THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE
INPUTS--which Marx never did--THE MASS OF SURPLUS VALUE SHOULD AGAIN
REMAIN THE SAME FIXED MAGNITUDE AND THEN DISTRIBUTED.
I am arguing that this makes no sense, Marx never said so much, and
the assumption relies on an adding up theory of price. Again it is
not possible to take a commodity output of a given and fixed
magnitude of value and modify its cost price without modifying
surplus value in the opposite direction. If one does not modify the
mass of surplus value and just add it on the modified cost price--see
for example Allin's and Duncan's transformation examples--then total
price is no longer determined by total value. It is rather total
value or price (its monetary expression) which is determined before
distribution or resolution into cost price and surplus value.
Now let me take your post in sequence:
>A brief reply to OPE-L 4514 (I'm rushing off to school):
>
>
>Rakesh wrote
>: Moreover, what is your formula for the determination of value?
>:
>: money laid out as constant and variable capital + surplus value = C?
>
>Yes. More precisely, a commodity's value is, and is determined by, the
>value added by living labor plus the sum of value represented by the
>money needed to acquire the used-up means of production.
But Andrew, this is inconsistent: why are you adding the value of the
money sum laid out as constant capital not to the money sum laid out
as variable capital but to the value added by living labor?
In terms of value determination, I put to you the same question Fred
does to Duncan, but mine is in the opposite direction! Fred wants
both inputs in money terms (I do too in terms of value resolution);
but in terms of value determination, I want both inputs in terms of
value: value of the consumed means of production plus newly produced
value.
Why not just add the value of the means of production as they are
consumed and reappear in the commodity output to the value newly
added by living labor? Less headache!
In the passages which I cited, this is what Marx is doing. Then we
have total (indirect and direct) labor value which is expressed as a
price, depending on the monetary expression of labor value.
>
>
>Rakesh:
>: So any change in the money sum invested results in rising value or
>: price (as monetarily expressed)?
>
>No. If variable capital (the value of wages advanced) differs from the
>value of labor-power (or of means of subsistence), then surplus-value
>likewise differs, in the opposite direction. The sum of v + s always
>equals the value added by living labor. Calling it L, s = L - v.
Yes, but
s = L - v
implies that
s + v = L, which implies that
(v + a) + s = L + a
this is an adding up theory of value or price
Why does this not follow from your own formulation?
>
>Rakesh:
>: Then what of Ricardo's critique of Smith? Simply because wages--the
>: money laid out as variable capital--rise does not mean the value
>: objectified in the product and thus its price rise. If it did, class
>: conflict would be attenuated. See TSV, pp. 417-8
>
>According to the above, a rise in wages will not affect L and thus not
>affect c + L.
But I don't understand how and why you rule out a rise in wages
issuing in greater total value and price (its monetary expression).
>
>
>Rakesh:
>: Rather the value of the product as determined by indirect and direct
>: labor objectified therein is a prior and given magnitude which is
>: then resolved into cost price (the replacment money costs of the used
>: up c and v) and surplus value which vary inversely.
>
>I agree with this. I do not agree with your interpretation of the
>concept of "indirect and direct
>labor objectified therein." The sum of value needed to acquire the means
>of production is objectified labor and indeed value, represented in
>money.
Yes the sum of money used to purchase the inputs is objectified labor.
> (I thus also deny that the passages you cite support your
>interpretation, since they esssential refer to objectified labor, not the
>value of the used-up means of production, as a determinant of value. The
>passage on p. 294 is also not relevant because it is non-definitional and
>based on an assumption that the constant capital happens to equal the
>value of the means of production.)
Here I disagree. On p. 294 Marx clearly looks at the value
determination of a final product (yarn) as one single labor process,
such that value is determined entirely by labor time: "Hence in
determining the value of the yarn, or the labour time required for
its production, all the special processes carried on at various times
and in different places which were necessary, first to produce the
cotton and the wasted portion of the spindle, and then with the
cotton and the spindle to spin the yarn, may together be looked on as
different and successive phases of the same labor process. All the
labour contained in the yars is past labour; and it is a matter of no
importance that the labor expended to produce its constituent
elements lies further back in the past than labour expended on the
final process, the spinning."
>
>Rakesh claims that the following is "non-responsive":
>
>: >Specifically, the already determined c and v have the form of
>appearance
>: >k. The magnitude of k DOES NOT differ from the magnitude of c + v.
>See
>: >Part 1 of Vol. III.
>: >
>: >Yet in Marx's theory, k does differ, as you have acknowledged, from
>the
>: >values of the used-up means of production and subsistence.
>: >
>: >It therefore follows that c is not -- IS NOT -- the value of the
>used-up
>: >means of production. Q.E.D.
>
>I think it is responsive and indeed that it goes to the heart of the
>matter. Rakesh's whole argument is based on the notion that k deviates
>from c + v. I maintain that the text says otherwise. How much more
>responsive can one get?
No c and v expressed as (c + v) is cost price, k.
We are agreed that they are the money sums which the capitalist has
laid out as constant and variable capital, and that money is replaced
by deducting it from total value, which has a price expression based
on the monetary expression of labour value. Total value or price is
thus broken down into k and s.
But I am saying that c and v have different meanings in value
determination. Here c refers to the value of the means of production
as they are used up and reappear in the final product.
And in terms of value determination (v + s) is the newly produced
value. Newly produced value is the direct labor objectified in the
final product by the use of labor power. Newly produced value is thus
not strictly speaking (v + s),
for unlike the means of production, the wage goods either in their
value or money form do not reappear in the value of the final
product. They are simply extinguished by working class consumption.
This is exactly why a simple rise in the value or price of wage goods
does not result in greater output value or price (its monetary
expression) but rather lesser surplus value.
(v + s) is thus a convenient expression for the fact that due to the
duality of labor power the direct labor objectified in the final
product is greater than the value of the wage goods.
But happens if for example the input wage goods are no longer
assumed to sell at value.
Two things: the mass of surplus value is modified; the rate of
surplus value is modified. But total value or price (its monetary
expression) cannot change as a result thereof.
For example if wage goods now sell above value, necessary labor time
is increased and thus surplus value decreased. Again, we see how the
modification of cost price leads to an opposite change in surplus
value
That is,
C - (v + a) => s - a {a can be positive or negative}
So Marx writes: "The 20(v) can similarly diverge from its value, if
the spending of wages on consumption involves commodities whose
prices of production are different from from their values. The
workers must work for a greater or lesser time in orer to buy back
these commodities (to replace them) and must therefore perform more
or less necessary labour than would be needed if the prices of
production of their necessary means of subsistence coincide with
their values." capital 3, p. 309.
That is, allowing input wage goods not to sell at their value does
not change the labor which is objectified in the production; it
changes the relation between necessary and surplus labor in the
production process. That relation is determined then partially in the
realm of distribution, and depends on how the price of production of
the wage goods deviates from their value.
That there is surplus value at all depends on the exploitation which
results from the use value of labor power. The magnitude of that
surplus value however is partially depedent on distributional
variables. The essence of surplus value is unpaid labor; the quantity
of unpaid labor depends on the distributional consideration of how
much has to be paid for indirect and direct labor.
To return to my main point: it makes no sense to assume a commodity
the value of which is a fixed magnitude and then change its cost
price without changing in the opposite direction, the mass of surplus
value which it represents.
>
>Rakesh's reply, as far as I understand it, just restates his position.
>It does not respond to my proof.
>
>I deny that the passage on p. 309 of Capital III (Vintage) states or
>implies that "The value of the means of production [... is] transferred
>to the final product ...." I interpret it as saying the opposite, namely
>that the *cost price* of used-up means of production is transferred to
>the product. The crux of the whole matter, again, is whether k differs
>from the magnitude of c + v. I maintain that in Marx's theory it does
>not. I think Rakesh needs to adduce evidence that it does differ.
Well here is the full passage:
"because the price of production of a commodity that diverges in this
way from its value enters as an element into the cost price of other
commodities, WHICH MEANS THAT A DIVERGENCE FROM THE VALUE OF THE
MEANS OF PRODUCTION CONSUMED MAY ALREADY BE CONTAINED IN THE COST
PRICE quite apart from the divergence that may arise for the
commodity itself from the difference between average profit and
surplus value. " P. 309
This is how I understand it:
So we have
c (v + s) V
A. 100 150 100 350
B. 200 180 120 500
Output Transformation on the basis of r=.349 (220/630)
c (v + s) P
A. 100 150 87 337
B. 200 180 133 513
Now let us assume means of production sold at 10% above the value
which has been transferred from this (we'll make no adjustment for
v); I read Marx as saying that this will not affect the total value
since the value of the means of production as consumed in the output
has not been changed.
So it still all has to add up to 850, but the mass of surplus value
will vary in inverse direction to the rise in cost price. So the rate
of profit will now drop to .289
c (v + s) P
A. 110 150 75 335
B. 220 180 115 515
So we see that price-value deviations on both the input and output
side have contributed to the determination of how prices diverge from
values.
Again while distributional changes effected by the transformation of
the inputs affects the mass of surplus value and the rate of profit,
it must be remembered that the reason that the total value can
contain an excess of value at all is that the use of labor power
allows for surplus labor to be objectified in the final product.
That labor has gone unpaid is the reason why there is surplus value
left after the capitalist has covered the direct and indirect labor
for which he has paid.
Now Andrew could ask me what happens if the means of production sold
so above value that cost price would more than swallow up the total
value as indirect and direct labor; my reply would be that such
production would not be undertaken or bankruptcy would be filed.
There would be no negative surplus value--there would simply be no
surplus value and perhaps not sufficient value for the replacement of
k either.
Andrew includes another objection about which Julian has inquired.
I'll take it up in another post sometime in the evening. Back to work.
Yours, Rakesh
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Nov 30 2000 - 00:00:05 EST