From: Rakesh Bhandari (rakeshb@stanford.edu)
Date: Wed Oct 09 2002 - 19:12:59 EDT
re Paulo's 7783: >Jerry, the inner need to product differentiation is developed by Marx in the >Grundrisse: it comes out of the process of increasing productivity which tends >to saturate social need (=demand at market value). It is posed as the conflict >between the endless expansion of value by capital versus limited capacity to >absorb use value on the part of humans. Paulo, This is a very neat formulation. This conflict would seem to make equilibrium incapable of realisation as a permanent rule of capitalist dynamics. I am reminded here of Grossmann in his dynamics book: "The incongruence of hte value aspect and the material aspect of the process of reproduction which we have looked at from teh side of production is increased still more by forces coming from the demand side. A uniform proportional expansion of all the spheres of production rests on the hidden assumption that demand (consumption) can also be expanded in an even and proportional manner. In opposition to this Marx emphasises that individual productive use of certain commodities is tied and inelastic, which msut likewise result in an uneven material expansion of production in the various spheres. No one who finds two tractors sufficient for the cultivation of land will buy four simply because their price has fallen by a half, as the demand for tractors--all things being equal--is not a function of their price, but of the acreage of land. i.e., it is determined quantitatively. 'However use value--competition--depends not on value, but on the quantity. It is quite unintelligible why I should buy six knives because I now get them for the same price that I previously paid for one.' [Marx, TSVIII, p.119]. All these moments serve to make a uniformity of motion of the technical and value aspects impossible to achieve, and to hinder the dual proportioning of the development of the productive apparatus, in both value and quantitative terms, which is postulated by economic theory as the condition for 'equilibrium.'" Doesn't Pasinetti also put the conflict which you have highlighted at the center of his glut theory? There is another point I want to make. Well it's an analogy. You seem to be saying that the maximal valorization of value depends on the continuous development of new species of commodities, i.e., product differentiation. Similarily one can argue that in the biological evolutionary process, the maximalization of life over the surface of the earth has depended on the creation of ever new species which can fill in ever more ecological niches. In other words maximalization whether of value or life requires a kind of continuous speciation or product differentiation, i.e., the creation of new species and new commodities. Well, that's an analogy just for the fun of it. Yours, Rakesh
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