Re: [OPE-L] basics vs. non-basics

From: Paul Cockshott (wpc@DCS.GLA.AC.UK)
Date: Wed Sep 21 2005 - 04:24:22 EDT


Ian Wright wrote:
>     In reply to Ian.
>
>     Sraffa says that in principle the wage should be split
>
>     into a portion necessary for the reproduction of labour
>
>     power, and a portion that constitutes part of the surplus
>
>     that can be struggled over. I think this is certainly correct.
>
>     If one took that view of it, the basic sector would include
>
>     those products whose production was necessary to the
>
>     reproduction of the working population.
>
>
> You can maintain this interpretation, but only at the expense of working
> with Sraffa's incomplete equation to determine prices. There are
> economic realities in which this equation either cannot determine
> prices, or cannot maintain the assumption of a uniform rate of profit
> for all sectors. This happens when the maximum eigenvalue of the i/o
> matrix A does not lie on the principal diagonal of the submatrix that
> refers to basic commodities.
> -Ian.

Please explain why this is the case.
--
Paul Cockshott
Dept Computing Science
University of Glasgow



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