Rakesh Narpat Bhandari wrote: > re 4616 > > >On Tue, 5 Dec 2000, Rakesh Narpat Bhandari wrote: > > > >> Marx is not allowing the value of money to change before the > >> transformation; and he doesn't allow it to change in the > >> transformation. > >[snip] > >> Marx does not think that there is actually an invariable standard > >> of value. This is why he has to invent the constant reference point, > >> fully aware that it is a purely fictitious assumption. > > > >Rakesh, you haven't taken on board Ajit's point. There are > >theroretical situations where it's OK to make the "fictitious > >assumption" that the value of money is constant, and other > >situations where this assumption just doesn't make sense (at any > >rate, without recognizing and spelling out the further > >commitments this assumption entails). > > > >Thus at the level of Vol. 1, when Marx is talking about the > >prices of commodities changing due to changes in technical > >conditions (with prices = values), it's perfectly OK to assume > >that the value of money isn't changing at the same time (this is > >just saying that there's no technical change in gold production, > >that the labour time required to produce an ounce of gold > remains constant). > > Allin, > There is every possibility that I am missing the point; all the > subtleties and curiosities of a measure of value and a hypothesized > invariable measure of value are quite perplexing, and will certainly > take a sharper mind than mine to analyze. > > As HG has it, Marx is saying that (1) the variability of the measure > of value, or of money, is only one of the causes of price changes. > Such changes can just as well stem from causes that lie on the > commodity side of the exchange relationship. And of these latter > changes, one can be the consequence of (2a) actual change in value > (the case in which Marx is initially interested) and the other (2b) > can stem from imbalances in supply and demand. > > It seems that we are all agreed that Marx is ruling out 1 and 2b in vol 1. > > > > > > >When you're talking about the transformation, however, a > >constant "value of money" in the above sense is insufficient to > >ensure that the aggregate price of commodities remains constant. > >You need money to be invariant in a stronger sense: namely, that > >it's immune to the transformation. This can't just be "assumed" > >without cost: it would require that the money commodity is > >produced under conditions of average organic composition (or > >something of the sort), thus confining any results obtained to a > >special case. > > Well, to use Ajit's language, it all depends on what Marx's > problematic in Capital 3, ch 9. is. > > Marx's second tableau (p. 256) obviously shows, as Gouverneur has > pointed out, that in his own transformation procedure Marx holds not > only the total value of the output but also the value of money > constant; otherwise he could not have equated the sum of simple > prices which is total value * monetary expression of labor value in > the first tableau with the sum of prices of production in the second > tableau. Marx has to be assuming the invariance of m (Gouverneur uses > E) or he could not have set the two sums of price equal to each other. ______________________ That is why every sensible person on this planet thinks that Marx has a transformation problem. It is simply theoretically illegitimate to hold the value of money constant. I don't have as much stamina as Rakesh to go on with this ad nauseam. So most likely i won't say anything on this for sometime. Cheers, ajit sinha > > > Now if Marx's "problematic" here had been to demonstrate that prices > should remain invariant in the face of distributional shifts, we > could say that he has begged the question. If Marx's problematic had > been to provide a determinate price theory, we could say that his > attempt has foundered by ruling out changes in the medium in which > price has expressed. > > But since Marx's problematic here is only to provide at the most > abstract level an analysis of how the law of value cannot govern > bourgeois society directly but rather only in the very form which > seems to contradict it, it seems to me that it is perfectly fine for > him to ignore the complex and curious effects on relative and even > total prices the inclusion of the money commodity into the > transformation procedure would have. Marx is not interested in > determining prices here but resolving the Ricardo/Malthus debate on > whether the principle of the average rate of profit modifies or > contradicts the law of value. That is the "problematic" in the > analysis of which it remains legitimate to hold the value of money > constant. > > Yours, Rakesh
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