From: ajit sinha (sinha_a99@YAHOO.COM)
Date: Tue Jun 06 2006 - 06:40:27 EDT
--- Ian Wright <wrighti@ACM.ORG> wrote: > Hi Allin > > > "Where is the labour-time that was expended in > previous rounds > > on the production of capitalist consumption goods > in Sraffian > > labour-value accounting?" > > > > It's in the labour-value of those consumption > goods. > > Not in Sraffian labour-value accounting. This is a > key point. > > The Sraffian labour value of any bundle of > commodities, be it consumed > by capitalists or not, does not count the indirect > labour that went > into the production of the capitalist consumption > goods of previous > rounds. ________________ Ian, now I'm almost convinced that you are making a conceptual error. Take for example Sraffa's two-sector subsistence example: 280 qr. wheat + 12 t. iron --> 400 qr. wheat 120 qr. wheat + 8 t. iron --> 20 t. iron This is self-replacing subsistence economy. Here you have no problem with the price solution of 1/10. Now, let's make it a surplus economy by making one sector more productive such as 280 qr. wheat + 12 t. iron --> 400 qr. wheat 120 qr. wheat + 8 t. iron --> 30 t. iron So the system has 10t. of iron as surplus and let us assume that the capitalists consume the 10 t. of iron, so it is a system of simple reproduction. Now, how do you solve for prices in this system? Sraffa says that you write the system as: [280P(w) + 12P(i)](1+r) = 400P(w) [120P(w) + 8P(i)](1+r) = 30P(i) This solves for r and P(w)/P(i) But you want to put the 10t. of iron back on the left hand side of the equation so that it becomes like the first subsistence equations. However, the question is how do you allocate the 10t. of iron to the two sectors? You agree that it has be to allocated in terms of the profits received by the capitalists in the two sectors and the rate of profits on the value of capital investment must be equal. But then there is no way of finding how to allocate the 10t. of iron to the two sector capitalists unless you solve Sraffa's equations. But once you have done that the 10t. of iron must be treated as 'surplus' and cannot any longer be treated as cost. That's why Sraffa said that once surplus emerges in the subsistence system, the system becomes self-contradictory. This conceptual error of your must show up in your mathematics. And as I have suggested in my previous mail, I think your system must be short of one equation. Cheers, ajit sinha __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
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