From: gerald_a_levy (gerald_a_levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Fri Oct 17 2003 - 14:42:34 EDT
Rakesh wrote: > At any rate, it does not seem that Preobrazhensky had a > quantitatively worked out theory of the multiplier as did Kahn, but in > his review of this book, James Galbraith did argue (if I remember > correctly) that Preobrazhensky seemed to have anticipated many > important ideas, e.g. imperfect competition. One could equally as well claim that Marx anticipated the theory of imperfect competition in his analysis of the centralization and concentration of capital that occurs in the process of the accumulation of capital. While Marx's perspective on competition wasn't quite the same as Robinson's or Chamberlin's, all three did reject the so-called "perfect competition" model. Also, I think that other Marxists after Marx who were contemporaries of Preobrazhensky (e.g. Bukharin, Luxemburg, Kautsky, Lenin, etc.) all likewise rejected the concept of perfect competition. "Economists" came to reject perfect competition later. > I think the idea of a foreign trade multiplier is a bit static in the > sense that the real importance of widening the market is not as a > vent for a pre-existing surplus but in the dynamic economies of scale > which it allows and thus the boost to profitability which it > provides. Foreign trade is important not so much for the purpose of > securing realization and ensuring a higher employment equilibrium but > for boosting profitability. "Securing realization" and increasing economies of scale are, though, related to each other in a dynamic context. Don't you think that decisions about scale (which imply decisions about the utilization of constant fixed capital and the structure of the labor process, e.g. the extent to which there is an advance in the division of labor and specialization) and thereby decisions about the quantity of commodities produced is related to capitalist expectations regarding sales (and with that, the actualization of surplus value)? Granted -- capitalist expectations _ex ante_ regarding the market and profitability may not be realized in the manner anticipated _ex post_, but it is certainly part of the dynamic process. Maybe you agree with all of the above ... or maybe not. I'm not sure. In solidarity, Jerry
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