What strikes me about Andrew's reply (4910) to my (4908) is that he did not respond at all to points 3 and 4 in my post. That is, even if I am mistaken about market prices and the rate of profit in Chapter 6 of Volume 3, this does not affect the validity of my criticism of Andrew's interpretation of Marx's prices of production. (I don't think I am mistaken, since Marx so clearly states that the entire chapter "lies outside the scope of this work" and belongs instead to a later continuation on competition and the credit system; more on this in a subsequent post). Andrew's argument is that his prices of production change due to changes in the rate of profit and the rate of profit changes due to changes in market prices. However, Andrew explicitly states in his articles that he is abstracting from market prices altogether: "ABSTRACTING FROM THE PROCESS OF COMPETITION, WE WILL SHOW NO MARKET PRICE OSCILLATIONS." (p. 70; emphasis added) Therefore, changing market prices cannot possibly be the cause of changes in Andrew's prices of production. All the prices in Andrew's example are prices of production - the inputs at prices of production of the previous period and the outputs at prices of production of the current period. There are NO MARKET PRICES in this example. Andrew's rate of profit changes from period to period because the inputs of constant capital and variable capital change from period to period, not because of changes in market prices. There are no market prices. Therefore, Andrew's prices of production continue to change from period to period because the inputs of constant capital and variable capital, valued at prices of production, continue to change. And, as explained in my previous post, the inputs of constant capital and variable capital continue to change because Andrew assumes that input prices are not equal to output prices. This has nothing to do with market prices. Therefore, even if prices of production may change due to changes in market prices (I don't think so), this is irrelevant to Andrew's interpretation. Andrew's prices of production change, even though there is no change in the productivity of labor AND even though market prices are abstracted from altogether. Andrew's prices of production change because he assumes that input prices are not equal to output prices (both in terms of prices of production). There is nothing like this in Marx's theory. Andrew, I look forward to your response. Thanks in advance. Comradely, Fred
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