Allin Cottrell wrote: > Jerry quotes Rakesh (quoting Carchedi, quoting Joan Robinson!), > > > I think Ajit is saying that Hegelian (sic) value theory has no > > answer to Joan Robinson's challenge (dubbed the infinite > > regression critique by Carchedi): "the constant capital was > > produced in the past by labour time working with then pre-existing > > constant capital and so on, ad infinitum backwards. It therefore > > cannot be reduced simply to a number of labour hours that can be > > added to the net value of the current year. And there is no > > advantage in doing so." quoted in Carchedi, 1990, p. 96. > > And asks: > > > What other answers have been offered in the literature to the > > "infinite regression critique"? > > This critique seems trivial, dumb. It's hard to believe that Joan > Robinson didn't know how to find the limit of a convergent geometric > series. > > Allin. _____________________ Allin, I don't have Joan Robinson's piece before me to interpret the quote in its context. But the significance of Marx's insistence on the commodity residue is great for economic theory as alluded by Sraffa in the appendix of PCMC: "The notion of a Maximum rate of profits corresponding to a zero wage has been suggested by Marx, directly through an incidemtal allusion to the possibility of a fall in the rate of profits 'even if the workers could live on air'; but more generally owing to his emphatic rejection of the claim of Adam Smith and of others after him that the price of every commodity 'either immediately or ultimately' resolves itself entirely (that is to say, without leaving any commodity residue) into wages, profit and rent--a claim which necessarily presupposed the existence of 'ultimate' commodities produced by pure labour without means of production except land, and which therefore was incompatible with a fixed limit to rise in the rate of profits." (PCMC, p. 94)
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