Rakesh, Thank you very much for your challenging (and helpful) last post (4563); thanks also for the kind words. This is a brief, hastily written reply (before I leave town for three days). You said: > Look, Fred, I received a jolt of excitement from reading your lucid > and brilliant interpretation of how how the presuppositions are > posited, how in Capital 3, ch 9 Marx can finally explain to us that > the inputs have always been given to us in the form in which they > would have appeared in a market society (by the way, are you saying > that Marx has the inputs given to us in real market prices or prices > of production?) I think this interpretation is clever and brilliantly > original. > > But I think it's wrong. > > You seem to be admitting that Marx has until Capital 3, ch 9 only > allowed outputs to exchange at value or that Marx has assumed that > all outputs exchanged as if they were the product of capitals of > average organic compositions (Paul Z has in my opinion convincingly > argued that Marx had been working under the latter assumption). > > So--you seem to be arguing--while taking the aggregate variables of > total price and the sum of surplus value as already given, Marx > transforms the outputs in the second of his juxtaposed tableaux. This > simply redistributes the already given aggregate magnitudes of total > price and surplus value. > > But why does Marx need to transform the outputs? Is it not because he > has assumed that they have exchanged at prices determined by or > proportional to their values? And if he has assumed this about the > outputs, why hasn't he been assuming this about the inputs? You of > course disagree that Marx himself is underlining that he has been > making this assumption. > > Why would Marx rigorously control the exchange of outputs at (or > proportional to) value until volume 3 while always having assumed > that the inputs exchanged at prices of production or real market > prices? > > Why this asymmetry? I think you misunderstand my interpretation on this important point. I do not argue that Marx assumed in Volume 1 that the inputs are purchased at prices of production or that C and V are determined by the prices of production of the means of production and means of subsistence. Prices of production play no role whatsoever in my interpretation of Volume 1. Rather, I argue that, for the purpose of the theory of surplus-value in Volume 1, Marx DID NOT DERIVE C and V from the prices of the MP and MS. It is true that C and V are identically equal to the prices of the MP and MS (due to the nature of exchange as the exchange of equivalents). But this does not necessarily mean that C and V can only be derived from the prices of the MP and MS, or that Marx derived C and V in this way. There is another logical option for the determination of C and V: to take them as given, as the actual quantities of money-capital invested to purchase MP and LP. I think this is what Marx did, for three main reasons. 1. Because I think Marx was trying to explain the ACTUAL surplus-value produced, not a HYPOTHETICAL "surplus-value" (equal to the "direct price" of surplus-goods). And the only way Marx could explain the actual surplus-value in Volume 1 (given other aspects of his logical method, especially the determination of the total amount of surplus-value prior to its division into individual parts), is to take the actual C and V as given. 2. Because Marx's analytical framework is the circulation of capital: M - C ... P ... C' - M' and the circulation of capital begins with M, the money-capital invested to purchase MP and LP. These quantities of money that initiate the circulation of capital are the initial givens in Marx's theory of the circulation of capital (and especially of how M turns into M'). These quantities of money-capital that initiate the circulation of capital are identically equal to the prices of the MP and MS, but these quantities of money-capital are not derived from these prices. Rather they are taken as given directly, as the "first form of appearance" of capital in the circulation of capital. 3. Because of the numerous passages in which Marx explicitly stated that the initial money-capital, M, is "presupposed" or "postulated" or "a given precondition", etc. for his theory (as I have documented in several papers). As I have said before, either Marx, who had a Ph.D in Philosophy and paid a great deal of attention throughout the various drafts of Capital to questions of logical method, was extremely sloppy in these many passages or Marx intended the usual methodological meanings to the terms "given," "postulated," "presupposed," etc., i.e. that they are the initial data with which his theory begins. If this interpretation is correct, then IT DOES NOT MATTER - for the determination of C and V, and hence for the determination of total price and total surplus-value - whether the MP and MS are purchased at their values or their prices of production. Because the magnitudes of C and V are NOT DERIVED from these prices, i.e. they do not depend on whether values or prices of production are assumed. Rather, they are TAKEN AS GIVEN directly, as the quantities of money-capital invested to purchase MP and LP to initiate the circulation of capital. And then these given magnitudes are used, along with m and L, to determine the total price and the total surplus-value. In fact, as I have already discussed, Marx assumed in Volume 1, as a first approximation, that the given magnitudes of C and V are equal to the values, not the prices of production, of the MP and MS. But this is only a partial explanation of the determination of C and V. And this provisional assumption, or partial explanation of C and V, DOES NOT AFFECT THE MAGNITUDES OF C AND V. The magnitudes of C and V continue to be taken as given, as the actual quantities of money-capital invested in the real capitalist economy. So there is no asymmetry between inputs and outputs in my interpretation. Inputs are assumed to be purchased at values, just like outputs are assumed to be sold at values. However, these are only provisional assumptions, both for the MP and MS as inputs and for individual commodities as outputs. What is not provisional, and what is instead determined once and for all in Volume 1, is the total price and the total surplus-value for the economy as a whole. It might appear that taking C and V as given is a weakness of this method. However, this is not a weakness. One can still explain the total price (the sum of the given C and the new-value produced) and the total surplus-value (the difference between the new-value produced and the given V) (where the new-value produced is the product of m and Lc). And, again, this method has the major advantage of explaining the actual total price and the actual total surplus-value, rather than a hypothetical total price and a hypothetical total surplus-value, that later has to be "transformed" (along with a change of magnitude) into actual profit. According to my interpretation, the same magnitudes of C and V that are taken as given in the Volume 1 theory of surplus-value are also taken as given in the Volume 3 theory of prices of production. That is why the magnitudes of C and V DO NOT CHANGE, i.e. why they do NOT have to be transformed in the determination of prices of production. The reason why the magnitudes of C and V do not change is NOT because C and V are assumed to be equal to the prices of production of the MP and MS in Volume 1 (as you suggest), but rather because the same quantities of C and V are TAKEN AS GIVEN in both volumes! After the determination of prices of production in Part 2 of Volume 3, the given quantities of C and V are now more fully explained as the prices of production of the MP and the MS. Rakesh, what do you think? I look forward to continuing the discussion next week. Comradely, Fred
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