From: Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@BERKELEY.EDU)
Date: Tue Apr 03 2007 - 16:49:14 EDT
So Phil and others, Interesting Phil that we can only know the historical costs of capital retroactively! But history can only be told once the narrative has ended. As Hegel thought it had. For clarification: are you measuring the profit as new value added plus the replacement value of the means of production divided by variable capital + the ex post determined historical costs of constant capital? Rakesh On Tue, 2007-04-03 at 14:06 -0400, glevy@PRATT.EDU wrote: >> > Have you seen what I have written on this? >> >> Hi Michael: >> >> >> Only what you've written on OPE-L about moral depreciation. When the >> topic was discussed at length many years ago on the list I recall >> that we were making similar points. >> >> >> > Even here, you are the only one who seems to have understood. >> >> >> I'd like to find out _why_ there has been resistance to this idea among >> Marxians, which seems to me to be so basic to a comprehension of the >> process and effects of technological change in means of production. I >> have my suspicions, of course .... >> >> >> In solidarity, Jerry > > Jerry, > > I agree with you and Michael. > > I dub this approach "strictly ex-post value accounting". > > Suppose a capitalist buys an asset and expects it to last 5 years. Let > the depreciation shown in the accounts be 20% per annum linear, for the > sake of the argument. Due to unanticipated technological progress, the > capitalist is forced to replace the asset with a new and better one > after 4 years. I think that the way that this should be accounted for is > by prior year adjustments. Depreciation is 25% per annum and value added > and profit must be retrospectively adjusted. > > In general, long lived assets should be depreciated in proportion to > revenue. If sales revenue, in value terms, is: > > year 1 : 100 > year 2 : 50 > year 3 : 150 > year 4 : 100 > > Then ex-post depreciation is: > > year 1 : 25% > year 2 : 12.5% > year 3 : 37.5% > year 4 : 25% > > > > > > > ___________________________________________________________ > To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all new > Yahoo! Security Centre. http://uk.security.yahoo.com >
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon Apr 30 2007 - 00:00:16 EDT