From: Fred Moseley (fmoseley@MTHOLYOKE.EDU)
Date: Sun Jan 29 2006 - 10:53:36 EST
Hi Rakesh one more time. On Tue, 24 Jan 2006, Rakesh Bhandari wrote: > If the profit rate did not equalize, the value of a commodity would > be represented as > or (more accurately resolved into) c+v+s, what Marx calls simple > price; however given the tendency towards the equalization of the > profit rate, a tendency which grows stronger with the development > of capitalist markets and the mobility of labour, the value of a > commodity is now represented as m[(1+r)(c+v)], m as the monetary > expression of labor time allowing for the translation between price > of production and labor magnitudes. As Fred has argued, m is given > throughout Marx's theory, and depends in the contemporary economy on > the quantity of fiat money. I think there is a bit of confusion here. The expression m[(1+r)(c+v)] seems to suggest that c and v are defined in units of labor-time, and are transformed into quantities of money by multiplying them by m (i.e. the MELT). But I argue that c and v are instead defined in units of money - as the two components of the initial money capital M at the beginning of the circulation of capital. So m is superfluous in your expression. Secondly, you call this expression the "value" of commodities. But isn't it an expression of the price of production of commodities? Or do you want to interpret (as I sense from your other messages) that the value of commodities IS the price of production of commodities? If so, then I think this is a mistake, which obliterates the crucial distinction between the surplus-value produced in each industry and the average profit received in each industry. Thanks again. Comradely, Fred
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