From: glevy@PRATT.EDU
Date: Wed Apr 04 2007 - 18:02:15 EDT
> I haven't been clear enough. The question is how, ex post, to distribute > value transfer over the life of an asset for the purposes of value > accounting. If we have no way of doing that we are unable to draw up ex > post value accounts. Hi Phil: The current value post moral depreciation could be considered to be the *current re-sale value of the means of production*. However, as Michael noted, the re-sale value could simply be its *scrap value* (minus transport and processing costs). Note that this could mean that the morally depreciated means of production could come to represent *negative value* since the owners of the means of production might have to pay another capitalist to transport and safely dispose of the machinery. This could, also as Michael suggested, be thought of as a form of economic waste and the value that the means of production represented prior to moral depreciation should be considered to be a *loss* in the national accounts. The idea advanced by some Marxians that there is no net loss of value because of moral depreciation but simply a redistribution of value among capitalists can not be supported empirically or historically, imo. In solidarity, Jerry
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