From: ajit sinha (sinha_a99@YAHOO.COM)
Date: Wed Oct 05 2005 - 06:21:08 EDT
--- Allin Cottrell <cottrell@WFU.EDU> wrote: > On Mon, 3 Oct 2005, Ian Wright wrote: > > > Before talking of "beans" again, I just want to > reiterate that the > > problem can arise with an arbitrary number of > commodities, because > > the difficulty arises from the existence of > self-reproducing > > non-basic systems, of which there are arbitrary > hierarchies.... > > OK, but let's consider the "beans" a little further. > > > Sraffa wants to investigate uniform prices and > uniform profit > > rates. He knows that beans cannot fulfill these > conditions. So > > Sraffa argues that a producer of beans can fulfill > these > > conditions if beans are sold at a higher output > price than the > > input price attributed to them as means of > production "in his > > book-keeping". > > My point is that if this is to make any sense, it > has to mean that > there's a continuous appreciation in the price of > "beans." That > figures: by virtue of the technical structure of > production a > certain non-basic (or class of non-basics) cannot > earn the average > rate of profit, at constant prices; but they _can_ > achieve that rate > if they are progressively appreciating relative to > other > commodities. > > Then my further point is that any commodity that is > continuously > appreciating relative to others is probably not long > for this world. > The demand will be choked off. > > Allin Cottrell _______________ Allin, I think it is always dangerous to interpret Sraffa by bringing in "adjustment mechanism". There could be very profound methodological and epistemological reasons why Sraffa does not consider "change". The bean example only shows a logical case where it is imposible to maintain equal prices and equal rate of profits accross sectors. It also points to the fact that Sraffa is following Adam Smith in maintaining equal rate of profits as a mark up on costs for quoted supply prices. In this case, the producers of beans could still qoute a price by marking up the costs by the normal rate of profit, by adjusting the price of the beans on the cost side. Chers, ajit sinha ______________________________________________________ Yahoo! for Good Donate to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort. http://store.yahoo.com/redcross-donate3/
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