From: Ian Wright (wrighti@ACM.ORG)
Date: Thu Feb 09 2006 - 13:08:33 EST
Hi Fred
> But this is not the end of the story. The given cost price is also
> eventually explained by Marx's theory, in a somewhat complicated manner,
> that involves two stages. In the first stage, it is assumed that the
> given cost price is equal to the values of the means of production and
> means of subsistence.
OK, first stage, prices are proportional to labour-value.
> However, the important point is that this provisional assumption about the
> actual magnitudes of constant capital and variable capital does not
> determine the magnitudes of constant capital and variable capital in
> Marx's theory of value and surplus-value in Volume 1.
Did you mean Volume 3 here?
> Instead, the
> magnitudes of constant capital and variable capital are taken as given, as
> the actual quantities of money-capital consumed in production.
OK, second stage, cost-price is money-capital advanced. This nominal
representation may not be proportional to labour-value.
> These
> initial actual given quantities of constant capital and variable capital
> then become determining factors in the value and surplus-value and price
> of production of commodities.
I'm not sure I understand you correctly ... If that part of
money-capital advanced for workers subsistence is not proportional to
value then it cannot determine the surplus-value produced. In Ch.9,
Vol 3, Marx's sectoral rates of surplus-value are assumed uniform and
calculated on the price of variable capital, which is initially
assumed to be proportional to the number of actual hours worked. The
rate of surplus-value describes labour-time transfers, not price
transfers. Hence, if the price of variable capital diverges from its
value then Marx's initial assumption of a uniform rate of
surplus-value in each sector doesn't make much sense, for it could
mean that those rates refer to very different amounts of
surplus-labour produced.
> In the second stage, after prices of production have been explained in
> Volume 3, Marx provides a more complete explanation of the given actual
> magnitudes of constant capital and variable capital - that these actual
> magnitudes are equal to the prices of production of the means of
> production and means of subsistence, not equal to their values. But the
> important point is that this more complete explanation of the given actual
> magnitudes of constant capital and variable capital does not change the
> magnitudes of constant capital and variable capital themselves. The
> magnitudes of constant capital and variable capital remain the same - the
> actual quantities of money capital costs consumed in the production of
> commodities, which are taken as given. What changes is the explanation
> of these given actual magnitudes - from a partial explanation to a more
> complete one.
I find this hard to understand. Is your MELT constant across the
transformation ?
> I think this is what Marx meant by the "modification of the determination
> of a commodity's cost price", on p. 264 of Vol. 3 (Vintage edition), which
> is perhaps the best known of Marx's alleged "admissions of error". The
> magnitude of the given cost price does not change, but the explanation of
> this given magnitude is modified.
I have to say that the traditional interpretation of those passages
seems simpler: Marx is saying that the cost-price must also diverge
from value, and hence his derived prices of production aren't quite
right.
> I think this logical procedure - of first taking the actual cost price as
> given and then later in the theory explaining this initial presupposition
> - is an example of what Hegel and Marx called the method "posit the
> presuppositions".
Ch. 9 has the structure of a proof by contradiction. Marx assumes (i)
price-value proportionality, (ii) uniform rates of sectoral
surplus-values. He deduces non-uniform rates of profit (this
contradicts reality, according to Marx). Hence, he concludes, both
this assumptions (i) and (ii) must be modified, and constructs a
theory of PoP in which PoP diverge from labour-value and sectoral
rates of surplus-value ("realised" by individual capitals) are
non-uniform. Then he notes that his transformation procedure is
incomplete. That's the way I see it. I am happy to be corrected,
however, because interpreting these passages is difficult. They do
have ambiguity and a number of different readings are possible.
-Ian.
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