Re Steve K's [5327]: > Technical change is one of those processes > which is clearly discrete at the > individual level, but which is suitably modelled > as continuous at the aggregate level. Thanks for the food for thought, but ... I guess the question, then, is whether technical change is, as you assert , suitably modeled as continuous at the aggregate level. This of and in itself raises the question of the whether there is a *feedback mechanism* between the level of individual branches of production, the micro level, and aggregate, macro, activity. In the Keynesian model, the aggregate level is all there is. Within Marx's theory, where competition is a necessary form appearance of capital, the perspective is different. > For example, birth and death are clearly discrete events at the individual > level. But population models which presume a continuous rate of population > growth are very accurate for large populations. A similar perspective is > possible for technical change. I think this is a poor analogy and we can not assume that the same way of modeling changes in population growth (_or_ decline) can be used for modeling technical change. Moreover, population _growth_ is, btw, not continuous and for long periods of time might be declining or stable. > As for which Marxist first began to model technical change as a continuous > process, that's possibly a question better asked of the HES list. However, > clearly this concept was used by Goodwin in 1957. But Goodwin didn't look at quite the same issues, e.g. the age stratification of constant fixed capital and the discontinuous process of moral depreciation, did he? In solidarity, Jerry
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