From: Gil Skillman (gskillman@mail.wesleyan.edu)
Date: Sun Sep 22 2002 - 13:13:30 EDT
Fred, My post 7693 was written in haste, and as a result I got ahead of myself. The last line of the post should instead read: "So far as I can see, one cannot simultaneously and coherently maintain these assumptions and the statements you make here. What am I missing?" To restate the main points succinctly: I don't yet see how it is possible to assert M, C, V, m and L as independent exogenously given magnitudes under the analytical conditions established by Marx in K.I., and thus how it is possible to assert that total prices P and aggregate surplus value S are "yielded" as dependent magnitudes by these parameters. Specifically, so far as I can see, given the magnitude of M, the data required to determine individual commodity labor values, and the assumption that all commodities exchange at their respective values, then m, C, V, L, P, and S are already completely determined. Again as I understand what Marx wrote, to assert otherwise suggests either that labor values are not in fact determined by socially necessary labor time, or that C is not determined by average input requirements, constant capital input prices (assumed by Marx to be proportional to respective commodity values), and total output; or that V is not determined by average labor input requirements, the wage rate (assumed by Marx to be proportional to the value of labor power), and total output; or that the total levels of C and V (and thus output and L) that can be financed are independent of the initial quantity of money capital advanced; or something else that at this point appears to be equally puzzling and contrary to Marx's formulations. As a separate comment, I don't yet see how m is defined in the case of fiat money, since in that scenario the value of money is presumably equal to 0, and thus the inverse of the value of money is undefined. As a reflection of the above, it's not clear to me how the Sraffian framework is *fundamentally* different from Marx's or yours; rather it just makes certain necessary relationships explicit where Marx often leaves them implicit, without evidently (at least to me) denying that they must hold. Gil
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Tue Sep 24 2002 - 00:00:01 EDT