From: Paul Cockshott (wpc@DCS.GLA.AC.UK)
Date: Mon Mar 19 2007 - 18:44:39 EDT
If you are considering a single firm then the stash of money seems fine for pedagogic or explanatory purposes. When you consider the economy as a whole, which is what is being considered at the level of the transformation problem then it becomes less easy to see what it means. Paul Cockshott www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~wpc -----Original Message----- From: OPE-L on behalf of Jerry Levy Sent: Mon 3/19/2007 6:25 PM To: OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: Re: [OPE-L] questions on the interpretation of labour values > That is, a stash of "money to be advanced" can be said to exist > _prior_ to production only (a) at the micro level of individual > firms (perhaps!) or (b) in a fictional economy on a synchronized > annual agricultural cycle. Hi Allin and others: I think this issue arises in Fred's perspective because he takes the analysis of Volume 1 and capital-in-general to concern the macroeconomy. Suppose instead that the issue of where the initial M comes from and what its quantity is in the formula M - C - M' comes up in the context of what modern economists call a "representative firm". In more Hegelian language, it might be thought of as a capitalist firm in the context of simple, undifferentiated unity. This isn't exactly a real firm because it is presented at a stage when competition has not yet been posited. If this were the case, then the macro issue in terms of stipulating the initial quantity of M doesn't come up: one could plug in _any_ number so long as a) the number is assumed to be sufficient to purchase C (MP, LP) and b) so long as M' is larger than M. The issue, after all, for Marx wasn't what the quantity of M in the beginning of the formula is; the issue was what is the source of delta M at the end of the formula. The micro/macro distinction that we're all familiar with doesn't work very well in terms of interpreting Marx's theory, imo. In solidarity, Jerry
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