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

From: Ian Hunt (ian.hunt@FLINDERS.EDU.AU)
Date: Wed Oct 05 2005 - 23:49:04 EDT


Aren't there a number of options? (i) go under if the standard non-
basic commodity had a rate of profit less than the maximum rate in
basic goods; (ii) accept a profit rate less than the maximum rate of
profit in basic products; (iii) not treat the wage as a share of the
surplus but as a basic good; (iv)  organize a wholesale market among
themselves where they charge each other the "imputed" price of their
part of the self-reproducing non-basic?
On 06/10/2005, at 7:17 AM, Paul Cockshott wrote:

> The answer surely is to drop the profit rate equalisation assumption.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: OPE-L [mailto:OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU] On Behalf Of Ian Wright
> Sent: 05 October 2005 19:53
> To: OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU
> Subject: Re: [OPE-L] basics vs. non-basics
>
> Hi Ajit
>
>
>> The bean producers do not have to buy the beans in the
>> market. They simply use the beans they have produced
>> as inputs. So the cost of beans is always based on
>> imputed price of beans for the bean producers. In this
>> case they impute a price of beans that are different
>> from the price of beans they sell it in the market.
>> ajit sinha
>>
>
> Arguably that may work for the special case of a single
> self-reproducing non-basic. It doesn't work for the general case of
> systems of self-reproducing non-basics.
>
> For example, suppose that beans are not directly required for their
> own production. Instead, they are inputs to n other non-basic sectors,
> of which m<n of those non-basic sectors are inputs to the bean sector.
> In which case, beans are indirectly required for their own production.
>
> The bean producers buy the m non-basics as inputs in the market. Is it
> the "imputed price" or the "market price" of beans that indirectly
> appears as a part of the cost of those inputs?
>
> -Ian.
>


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