From: Ian Wright (iwright@GMAIL.COM)
Date: Tue Sep 14 2004 - 17:51:25 EDT
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Julian Wells <julianwells@gn.apc.org> Date: Sun, 12 Sep 2004 20:54:35 +0100 Subject: Re: [OPE-L] OPE-L:_Wage_share To: wrighti@acm.org, OPE-L <ope-l@sus.csuchico.edu> Thanks for copying this to me: this is a quick response without reference to the text, but with this caveat feel free to pass it on the OPE-L. If memory serves the 50:50 split in F&M is deduced as a consequence of Lukacs' Theorem, in the (arguably very special?) case that the rate of surplus value has a *degenerate* distribution, i.e. has a uniform value. Since the theorem concerns a property unique to the gamma (and which is indeed used as a test for "gamma-ness" of data -- I can dig out ref.s if needed) I don't readily see how it might apply if the rate of profit is not a gamma. But n.b. that F&M's argument relates to s/v as a random variable in the firm space; it is to do with s/v as a characteristic of individual firms, not the global rate of exploitation. Obviously if s/v has a degenerate distribution =1, then the global rate is necessarily =1. But if not, offhand I can't think of any necessary relationship between the global rate and the distribution: no reason, for example, why all firms bar one could not have s/v=0, and the remaining firm[i] having s/v = sum(s)/v[i]. In your social architecture paper there is only variable capital, so the rate of profit and the rate of exploitation are one and the same, of course. Julian
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