From: glevy@PRATT.EDU
Date: Sat Feb 04 2006 - 10:18:25 EST
(NB: I wrote a longer reply with additional points, but it 'vanished'. So here's a shorter version.) > Jerry, you wrote: >> That is, the equality would only hold in general for the world market >> as a whole (and even then, not all the time), not its component parts. > That sounds really good, but I don't think it holds true, if you > introduce the time-factor and such things as credit-money and capital > gains into the analysis. Hi Jurriaan, You will note that that my statement above had a qualification which concerned the time factor -- "and even then, not all the time." I agree that when we consider the temporal factor then the influence of credit-money should be analysed. My point, though, concerned primarily the *spatial* dimension -- a dimension that has to be considered when referring to unequal exchange. The equality between the sum of surplus-value and the sum of profit is asserted by Marx at the level of *capital-in-general* (although, I am aware that there are listmembers who disagree with that statement). What I am suggesting is we have to ask whether this equality holds at what I called the "true macro" level -- the level of world markets and capitalism as a whole. It seems to me that the quote from the _Grundrisse_ and the aggregate equality are not _necessarily_ mutually exclusive if viewed within that context. Whether there actually is or has been an equality at any moment in time or as a historical trend between the sum of s and the sum of profit for the world economy, of course, requires empirical verification and can not be presumed. > There is, I think, no necessary equality between total > surplus-values contained in outputs, and total profit incomes, though you > can hypothesize, that total profits will normally track total surplus- > values across time. Besides the "time factor and such things as credit money and capital gains", what from your perspective can lead to an inequality between the sum of s and the sum of profits in the world economy as a whole? In solidarity, Jerry
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