To put the same point another way: the value of total capital can be represented as k + s while total price of production can be represented as k + p. A wage led distributional shift changes neither total value nor total price of production for total capital or the value and price of production of the imagined average commodity. Marx is *not* saying here that total value is determined as k + s or even as c + mNV, as Fred and Alejandro are trying to make this passage read. Total value can for all practical purposes be represented as k + s or can be said to be equal to k + s; that does not mean Marx is saying that total value is determined that way. The formula for determination is simply the sum of indirect and direct labor time Lmp + Lc => V. total value can then be represented as or said to equal k + s. Price of production is k + p. And there are two reasons why value and price of production diverge. There is no reason why the point of double divergence and the non effect of wage led distributional shifts on total value and total price of production cannot both be made without Marx talking gibberish. Fred, I thought you held Marx to be a rigorous thinker who spoke with clarity and precision. Now you have him talking gibberish to save your interpretation! If something has to give, I think it has to be your interpretation. Yours, Rakesh >>Marx then went on in the rest of this section to argue that IN SPITE OF >>THE FACT THAT the price of the means of production are NOT equal to their >>values, the cost price is still THE SAME for the determination of both the >>values and the price of production of average commodities, from which it >>follows that the prices of production of these average commodities are >>equal to their values. The cost price that is the same for both values >>and prices of production is equal to the price of the production of the >>inputs, not the value of the inputs. > >Dear Fred, >I don't think this is what is Marx is saying. Summarizing his >chapter 11, he is saying that for this imagined average commodity a >wage led distributional shift (which is the main topic of concern in >this paragraph as well as chap 11) changes neither its value (k + s) >nor its price of production (k + p). That is, for the average >commodity which is *imagined* as a synedoche of total capital what >holds for total capital holds for it as well or rather what holds >for it reveals what holds for total capital. This imagined average >commodity is simply advanced for didactic purposes; it has no real >economic significance. For real commodities, a wage led >distributional shift will lead, c. p., to changes in individual >prices of production, which gives the illusion that a change in the >way a pie is cut can change, as Ajit once put it, the size of the >pie. > >Again, I don't see exactly why this point conflicts with the >previous point of double divergence. > >Or why Marx *must* be talking gibberish to advance both the thesis >of double divergence and his analysis that wage led change in >distribution has, c.p, no effect on the value and price of >production of total capital of which the average commodity can be >imagined as a perfect aliquot. > > Of course he may not have made the point clearly, but why can't we? > >Yours, Rakesh
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