Re Rakesh 6372, citing Gil 6362: Gil wrote: >> Let's pursue that point a second. Do you accept the possibility that >> profit-seeking capitalists would choose among available production >> techniques based on relative prices of inputs (so as to minimize costs)? >> And if so, since the choice of production techniques determines the direct >> and indirect abstract labor requirements for production, wouldn't it be >> more appropriate to say that prices "come before" total value? And, what are those ghost-like "production techniques"? Who DID produce them? How? How is it that they are "available"? Did they drop from the sky? In a real, historical capitalist society, what should "come before" if we are going to have "production techniques" and "prices"? Reading this passage by Gil, it seems to me that he reads "Capital" as it were a Microeconomic textbook. What wonders me is that he goes on to it as it were a completely natural and uncontroversial procedure... Perhaps it would be worth to ask: Is "Capital" a Microeconomic textbook? Is there any difference between the method and purpose of Marx's book and, say, Varian's? Was Marx simply a primitive version of Lancaster? A.R.
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