re 6347 > > >Nonetheless, it was an unfortunate choice of words (an example of 'loaded >terminology') on Gil's part -- but, at least, he didn't refer to his >perspective in-print or at a public meeting as being Copernican. Jerry, I don't see why it bothers you whether TSS'ers think of a non simultaneous conception of value as Copernican breakthrough. Big deal! They are excited about, thinks it leads to exciting results, opens up new questions, makes possible a new kind of dynamic (or truly dynamic) analysis. The TSS'ers do raise several interesting and tremendously exciting debates about what happens when we try to understand the expanded reproduction of capital without the assumption of input prices=output prices or constant values/prices--a PROVISIONAL assumption that is built into not only Marx's own vol II schemes but also Bauer's. I am now looking at the debates between Foley, Laibman, Kliman and Freeman in Research of Political Economy, and I think we should all thank Paul Z for sponsoring this debate. It's interesting indeed, the discussion is rigorous and high level, the questions important. I say good on TSS for having sparked debate, opened up avenues of discussion that even if they are not new (they're in Marx) had been closed off or ignored. Yet here's my criticism of the TSS tables that Alan F showed at Barcelona according to one of the RPE articles. I am sending the criticism now though I haven't checked it yet. You will be interested to know that I attempt to show why the TSS demonstration fails because it makes the assumption of V=0; guess where I got that idea from? So here is Alan F's table which shows how despite rising productivity and a rising material/simultaneous rate of profit, the rate of profit falls if the conception of value is temporal: TABLE 3 (in terms of hrs of socially necessary abstract labor time): TSS View Period C (hrs) L(hrs) X(hrs) ROP [(X-C)/C] 1 50 10 60 0.200 2 60 10 70 0.167 3 70 10 80 0.143 4 80 10 90 0.125 the value of the commodity grain decreases with time, i.e., 5, 4.67, 3.5, and 2.86 hr/kg. __________ Now I Rakesh say: There seems to be a problem here. The purpose of means of production is to absorb surplus labor, but despite the growth in the volume of the means of production, no more labor and surplus labor are absorbed in each period. But this runs contradictory to Marx for whom the growth in *use values* enables the greater production of *value* or absorption of surplus labor: ..the development of labour productivity contributes to an increase in the existing capital value, since it increases the mass and diversity of use values in which the same exchange value is represented, and which form the material substratum, the objective elements of this capital, the substantial objects of which constant capital consists directly and variable capital at least indirectly. The same capital and the same labour produce more things that can be transformed into capital, quite apart from the exchange value. These things can serve to absorb additional labour, and thus additional surplus labour also, and can in this way form additional capital. The mass of labour that capital can command does not depend on the its value but rather on the mass of raw and ancillary materials, of machinery and elements of fixed capital, and of means of subsistence, out of which it is composed, whatever their value may be. SINCE THE MASS OF LABOUR APPLIED THUS GROWS, AND THE MASS OF SURPLUS LABOUR WITH IT, THE VALUE OF THE CAPITAL REPRODUCED AND THE SURPLUS VALUE NEWLY ADDED TO IT GROWS AS WELL. Capital 3, p. 356-7. vintage The growth in the material output matters a great deal for the value magnitudes, contrary to what TSS is implying. To correct your model then I'll then allow the numbers in the L column to rise in each period. L rises here on the assumption that each input kg of grain absorbs one labor hour--the assumption which you make for the first period in your initital table. Period C (hrs) L(hrs) X(hrs) ROP [(X-C)/C] 1 50 10 60 0.200 2 60 12 72 0.200 3 72 15 87 0.222 4 87 20 107 0.230 So the rate of profit rises even on TSS assumptions. Per TSS unit values are also declining with time. My coffee shop calculation gave me something like 5, 4.8, 4.4, 3.9. Of course since you have made the (absurd) assumption that v=0 or that workers live on air, the greater quantity of labor employed by capitalists is costing them nothing, so the denominator in the profit rate is not increased even with the employment of more labor. What this implies is that if the rate of exploitation has no limit--that is, v=0--then the rate of profit has no tendency to fall. The limit of capital is thus not capital but the resistance of the working class. rakesh
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