Re: [OPE-L] workers' consumption and capitalists' consumption

From: Ian Wright (wrighti@ACM.ORG)
Date: Fri Jun 23 2006 - 12:52:23 EDT


Hi Ajit

I will reply in full to your message when I get the chance, although
there are points in my last message you have not addressed. For now
I'd like to correct some factual inaccuracies.

> you have desolved the notion of surplus and thus
> exploitation, and then you tells us that labor theory
> of value is valid.

In the circular flow:
- there is a surplus
- there is exploitation
and it is a theorem that surplus value is conserved in total profit,
total value is conserved in total price, and the value rate of profit
is equal to the price rate of profit. How could such a theorem be
derived if the notion of surplus and exploitation is "dissolved"?

> You do not formally want to go beyond Sraffa's 1st chapter and tell me
> that I'm begging the question; but Sraffa and most of us want to go beyond that.

The circular flow is constructed from Sraffa's surplus equations,
presented in chapter 2. The deduction of the existence of the
commodity money-capital in Sraffa's framework is an example of my
engagement with Sraffa, post chapter 1 subsistence equations.

> This time you have introduced technical change to attack Sraffa.

I explicitly stated in my last message that I choose not to critique
(I prefer "critique" to "attack")  Sraffa's (single production) theory
on the grounds that it cannot handle technical change in the
production period. In contrast, by introducing changes in the real
distribution of income in a production period, you are "attacking"
Sraffa's theory applied to the case of self-replacing equilibrium.
(The circular flow is Sraffa's theory when workers and capitalists
consumption is specified -- a special case if you will.)

Best wishes,
-Ian.


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