On Wed, 14 Feb 2001, Alan Freeman wrote: > Thus when Fred speaks of prices of production as 'centres of gravity' (with > great unconscious irony, given the Copernican debate) it never even occurs > to him that this term can mean two entirely different things, according to > the way one thinks, or that Marx might have meant, with these same words, an > idea different to his own. He simply identifies the phrase, as if no other > idea were possible, with 'long-run equilibrium'. Alan, I am still not completely clear just exactly what is your alternative interpretation of prices of production (and you don't tell us in this post). And I am also not sure what you mean when you say that my interpretation assumes "long-run equilibrium" prices. So let's try to clarify. As I have said many times, what I understand by Marx's prices of production is the following four characteristics: 1. RATES OF PROFIT ARE ASSUMED TO BE EQUAL ACROSS INDUSTRIES not as an actual fact in every period, but as a long-run tendency. 2. SUPPLY AND DEMAND EQUAL FOR ALL INDUSTRIES again, not as an actual fact, but as a long-run tendency. 3. FUNCTION AS LONG-RUN "CENTERS OF GRAVITY" PRICES, around which actual market prices fluctuate from period to period, due to supply and demand. In other words, prices of production are long-run average prices, not the actual prices of any given period. 4. CHANGES ONLY IF there is a change in the productivity of labor, or the value of commodities, somewhere in the economy. Alan, you say that you have a different interpretation of prices of production as "centers of gravity" than mine. Would you please explain exactly how your interpretation is different from the above? Thanks. > Yet only two years ago he debated a paper, still sitting on the web-site, > which exhaustively demonstrates the alternative, shows that it is > quantitatively distinct, establishes that it is textually utterly compatible > with everything Marx wrote, and proves that if Marx had employed the concept > which Fred attributes to him, it would have been logically impossible not > only for the profit rate to fall but even for any two profit rates to > diverge from each other. I don't think I have ever seen such a concise collection of exaggerated claims - all of them false! Alan's "proofs", even if they were true, are not about my interpretation of prices of production, but are instead about "Sraffian equilibrium prices". Here (as elsewhere) Alan identifies my interpretation with the Sraffian interpretation. But I continue to insist that my interpretation is different from the Sraffian interpretation. Besides that, even the definition of "Sraffian equilibrium prices" is not correct; it assumes that these equilibrium prices MUST ACTUALLY OCCUR IN EVERY PERIOD, which contradicts the classical concept of "center of gravity" prices. Therefore, Alan's "proofs" apply only to a erroneous definition of "Sraffian equilibrium prices" that is of interest to nobody. Check it out for yourself on the IWGVT website. I look forward to further discussion. Comradely, Fred
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