Re Fred's [5504]: Previously I asked: > Fred (and others): could you please specify > precisely what assumptions are required for the > > two equalities to hold? > > The next question, then, might be: what > > happens on a more concrete level of analysis > > when these assumptions are dropped (snip,JL) Fred responded: > Thanks for your question and sorry for my delay > in responding. No doubt, an increase in the production of absolute surplus value for the Mt. Holyoke College capitalist firm meant that you had less time for OPE-L recently. (for reference, see 5474). Anyway, it's good to hear from you again. > The assumptions are: (1) the same quantities of constant capital and > variable capital are taken as given in the determination of both values > and prices of production and (2) the total surplus-value is taken as given > (as determined in Volume 1) in the determination of the general rate of > profit and prices of production in Volume 3, from which it follows that > the total profit must be equal to the total surplus-value. > These assumptions are not dropped at later stages of the analysis. Well ... I think you misunderstood my questions (which are also reproduced above). When I ask whether the assumptions required for the two equalities to hold are dropped at a more concrete level of analysis, I did *not* limit my concern to the levels of concretion associated with _Capital_. Once this is recognized then one has to ask *even if one accepts your position that the two equalities are taken as given in the level of analysis associated with _Capital_*, whether these equalities will *continue* to hold as the level of concretion advances beyond _Capital_. E.g. are they still assumed to hold (and are _all_ of the assumptions that were made that led to the 'given' two equalities still valid?) at the level of analysis of 'competition' (i.e. 'many capitals' rather than 'capital in general') which was abstracted from in _Capital_? Are these equalities and the assumptions underlying them still valid when we arrive at the level of concretion of the other two major social classes (Books 2 and 3), the state (Book 4), foreign trade (Book 5), and the world market and crisis (Book 6)? Let me give a couple of examples of what I am talking about. For the equality of value and prices of production to hold, then prices of production must be brought into existence. What happens if, for instance, there are significant barriers to the formation of prices of production in the form of the lack of mobility of capital and labor? What happens if there is a 'dual economy' in which there are significant differences in market power, etc. between the two segments of the economy? If, then, POP no longer exist (assuming that they ever did), clearly there can't be an equality between the sum of value and the some of nothing. Even if one accepts your explanation for the equality between the sum of surplus value and the sum of profit (above and in 5503) in _Capital_, that does not settle the question. Thus, you write that surplus value can't be increased in circulation (agreed!) and that its magnitude then can't be decreased either following production (this is how I interpreted your response to Rakesh). Here we do not agree. I think that Marx *assumed* that the magnitude of s in Vol 1 was the same magnitude of s in Vol 3 (here I agree with you), but that doesn't mean that the magnitude of s that was assumed to exist at the level of analysis of _Capital_ is necessarily the same magnitude of s that exists at a more concrete level of analysis. Thus, value and surplus value _can_ be "lost" and it can be "destroyed" and not merely redistributed once we proceed beyond the _assumptions_ of _Capital_. I, once again, believe that a critical presentation of the political economy of capitalism MUST challenge its own assumptions. Thus, if we take something as 'given' at one level of the analysis we MUST ask whether it continues to be appropriate to take it as given as the level of concretion of the analysis advances. WE CAN NOT simply make assumptions at one level of analysis and 'justify' their continued use by the fact that they have been employed at a prior level of analysis. Here, I think the method associated with systematically and dialectically reconstructing in thought the subject matter of capitalism must differ from, say, the axiomatic method in math. In math, axioms have a place. I am very dubious of their role in political economy. Marxists and other heterodox economists have often ripped neo-neoclassical analysis for their assumptions. Marc Linder's books on Samuelson and Robinson's and Steedman's critiques of Heckscher-Ohlin-Samuelson trade theory come to mind. I think these critiques of marginalist theory are valid -- any theory that purports to be something more than dogma must challenge the assumptions that it makes. See what I mean? In solidarity, Jerry
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