Rakesh wrote in [5307]: > we have criticisms of the falling rate of profit > theory which smuggle in the methodology of > comparative statics without justifying its use > in the study of continuous technical change (as > Ben Fine, Alan F and Andrew K have > pointed out). And as I have pointed out previously, we also have discussions of technical change with the assertion that it is "continuous", whereas all truly dynamic conceptions of technical change view it as a *discontinuous* process. If, for example, we had continuous technical change then it would be very hard to claim that there are waves of investment in constant fixed capital that are related to the age stratification of fixed capital and the on-again and off-again process of moral depreciation. It would also be difficult to model "leaps" in technical change happening periodically if we view this process as continuous. For the above reasons, one might view the perspective of technical change as continuous as a quasi-static rather than a dynamic postulate. A history of thought question might be to ask: which theorist first modeled technical change as continuous? Walras perhaps? Curiously, I think the Austrian marginalists well understood the importance of this issue. Where did this tradition begin in Marxism? I would be surprised to hear that Grossmann, Mattick, Sr., or Blake (all of whom Rakesh has a high regard for) were part of that tradition. Which leads to the question: who was the first Marxist who embraced the conception that technical change under capitalism is continuous? I wouldn't be surprised if that same theorist assumed away constant fixed capital with a circulating capital-only model. Yet, what kind of theory that purports to be dynamic can make this assumption? Of course, it is true that technical change can and does occur in the production of what become elements of constant circulating capital -- but that's not a continuous process of technical change either. In solidarity, Jerry
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