From: Gerald A. Levy (Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Mon May 17 2004 - 16:36:05 EDT
Hi Jurriaan. > Marx himself explicitly acknowledged in Capital Vol. 3 that the accounting > identity of total prices=total values, which he assumes in his models on > the basis that he thinks the quantitative deviations between them cannot be so > great, does not really apply in reality, given continual shifts in the > relationships between socially necessary labour-time and market demand > during any one accounting period. The identity, though, was that the sum of values equal the sum of prices of production. Yet, Marx explicitly excluded entire sections of the economy from the transformation when he stated that monopolies are excluded. Yet, the commodities produced by capitalist firms which are monopolies have value -- even if the market price of those commodities does not equal their value. It therefore follows that the claim that the sum of value equals the sum of prices can not hold at a more concrete level of abstraction. It also holds, if we factor in what you referred to recently as the ongoing process of the primitive accumulation of capital which involves plunder (including, in the most recent period, privatization) that products which didn't take the commodity-form can now have a price. Yet another reason why the sum of value can not equal the sum of prices. In solidarity, Jerry
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Tue May 18 2004 - 00:00:01 EDT