From: Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@BERKELEY.EDU)
Date: Mon Mar 26 2007 - 11:32:10 EDT
>>But that still leaves unaddressed this point: you are just >>asserting--not demonstrating or proving--that the prices of >>production of the mop and mos bought with the initial M had to have >>been the same as the >>prices of production which you derive with your sequential monetary >>macro method predicated on the LTV. >> >>Simply put, there is a difference between assertion and demonstration. > >Hi Rakesh, > >I am not sure what kind of “demonstration” you are looking for, but >attached is a simple two-sector numerical example, in which C = Pmp and >(V + S) = Pms. > >Is this the sort of thing you have in mind? No. Are K and Z sectors capital good and wage good sectors, Div I and Div II? I can't follow this example. It's not that we differ about monetary macro vs inverse; we also differ about whether prices of production are long term center of gravity price. I think not, as I think equilibrium price for Marx means not stationary price but a tendency for price and output adjustments over the long term to equalize profit rates. But since you accept that equilibrium price is stationary price, you have to show that those prices that you derive via your method could have determined the prices of the goods bought directly and indirectly with the initial M. You say that we change our understanding of what determined the initial M, but what grounds have you given us for believing that the initial M could have been determined by the prices for mop and mos that your method would allow us to derive? I don't see how this two sector model gives us grounds. But if no one else sees a problem in the argument here, perhaps it's best to ignore my complaint. I think you are putting an unnecessary burden on yourself by arguing that the prices you derive had to have been the same prices which roughly determined the market prices of the mop and mos bought with the initial M. It's not that I believe that Marx is transforming prices into prices. He's deriving new prices of production from the initial M based on whatever the prices of production in the previous period were. Indeed the transformation chapter dwells on length not on equilibrium prices of production but on the causes of their change over time! So Marx's analysis of the transformation is not simply logical and timeless and static as Allin has suggested. Moreover, we have to begin with the price data and infer values from that. So I agree with taking M as a given precondition, not unknown values or modal techniques of production. The unknowns are not the prices or even the average rate of profit but the value transferred, the rate of surplus value. It could not be otherwise in a fetishistic economy. If you drop the neoclassical equilibrium assumption, then I agree with your monetary macro sequential method. Yours, Rakesh > >Comradely, >Fred > > >---------------------------------------------------------------- >This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. > > >Attachment converted: Macintosh HD:numex.doc (WDBN/MSWD) (0021C501)
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