From: Philip Dunn (pscumnud@DIRCON.CO.UK)
Date: Wed Sep 21 2005 - 06:55:47 EDT
Quoting Paul Cockshott <wpc@DCS.GLA.AC.UK>: > Philip Dunn wrote: > > Quoting Paul Cockshott <wpc@DCS.GLA.AC.UK>: > > > > > >>If there is no physical net product, then no rational capitalists > >>would engage in production, since they would be better off to > >>just hold onto stocks and sell them speculatively. > >>Without a physical net product, the act of 'production' > >>is an act of destruction. > >> > > > > > > Suppose we have an all agricultural economy and there are bad harvests, so > bad > > that the physical net product is all negative. This is not rationally > > predictable, so there is no reason not to engage in production. The > following > > year the harvests could be good and the economy could recover. > > > > > > Philip Dunn > > What you have then is a famine, and the reproduction of the > population is seriously in question. A large part will die off > in the absence of relief supplies comming in. Prices are > then driven by speculation rather than costs of production and > the theory of value ceases to to have any relevance to describing > what happens. > Ex-post value accounting can still be done in these circumstances, whatever happens to prices. Simultaneous valuation theories, of course, breakdown.
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