Re: [OPE-L] Marx on the general rate of profit/rate of interest: a translation error

From: Paul Cockshott (wpc@DCS.GLA.AC.UK)
Date: Thu Nov 01 2007 - 11:15:51 EDT 

The first point is that the empirical evidence collated for some 28
countries
By Dave Z indicates that the tendancy, if it occurs, only occurs in a
few
Capitalist economies, not in all of them.

As to why, one can think of several reasons:
1. Physical capital is not easily mobile. The Channel Tunnel for example
earns a very low
Rate of profit, but EuroTunnel can not readily convert the invested
labour embodied in tunnels and train lines into , for example,
restaurants even if the latter are more profitable.

2. If a sector is earning a higher rate of return per worker than the
average, then the relative position of labour vis a vis capital in that
sector improves, and workers are able to win higher wages. This tends to
frustrate a tendancy for high organic composition industries to earn
higher profit per worker.

3. If the composition of demand is constantly changing, sectors with
high capital to labour ratios will find it harder to shift output than
those with low capital to labour ratios. This will again impede
profitability in high organic composition sectors. It is easier for the
toy car industry to adjust the models it makes in response to achange in
fashion than it is for the car industry for example.

-----Original Message-----
From: OPE-L [mailto:OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU] On Behalf Of Rakesh Bhandari
Sent: 01 November 2007 15:04
To: OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU
Subject: Re: [OPE-L] Marx on the general rate of profit/rate of
interest: a translation error

Paul,
I don't see how you are providing an explanation for what is frustrating
the tendency towards
an intersectoral equalization of the profit rate. Occam's Razor aside,
it's easy to see why there
would be such a tendency but you are not making it easy to see why such
a
tendency has effectively no kind of existence. Which is what you seem to
be implying.
Rakesh



> You have to realise that there will not be a single rate of profit
> within a sector. The rate of profit within sectors will itself be
> normally distributed. A sector where the mean rate is low, has two
> possibilities:
> 1) Either a significant fraction falls into the loss making state, in
> which case the sector will contract.
> 2) The sectoral coefficient of variation of the profit rate may be
> narrower than the economy wide dispersion which may be enough to keep
> only a small proportion of the firms loss making. This second
> alternative seems less likely unless one can produce specific reasons
> for it.
>
> Note that I am not disputing that an almost equal rate of return can
be
> achieved on equities -- this is what 'shareholder value' achieves, but
> the means by which this occurs is the writing up or down of the
> valuation of the companies share capital. This rate of return on
> equities is quite distinct from the rate of return discussed by Marx
and
> the Classicals.
>
> You are right in saying that random fluctuations around prices of
> production are just as likely as random fluctuations around values. If
> the random fluctuations of market around prices of production are just
> as great as the random fluctuations of market prices around values,
then
> prices of production have no additional explanatory power as compared
to
> values, and by Occams razor, we should prefer the simpler theory -
that
> labour values determine prices.
>
> The only justification for the additional complexity of price of
> production theory would be if it significantly improves our predictive
> ability with respect to real prices. If it does not, then it is not
even
> an epi-cycle, it becomes in Gould's terms a Spandrel.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: OPE-L [mailto:OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU] On Behalf Of Rakesh
Bhandari
> Sent: 30 October 2007 22:50
> To: OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU
> Subject: Re: [OPE-L] Marx on the general rate of profit/rate of
> interest: a translation error
>
> Paul,
> I must say that I am not following your explanation of what is
> frustrating
> even in this day age of unleashed capital flows and shareholder value
> the
> tendency towards an equal profit rate.
> I don't get the point about firm death either. Wouldn't there be some
> tendency for all firms which within a branch are not achieving average
> profitability to die? Why would that disrupt the tendency to the equal
> profit rate?
> I am distracted, and I am asking you to start the argument from
scratch.
> I
> apologize. I know for years you have said that Marx had no need to
> transform (just as for years Gil assailed Marx's assumption of price
> value
> equivalence, these two points have been defining criticisms for OPE-L,
> so
> I want to understand what you are saying because I just don't get the
> logic of these defining criticisms). So if possible I would just like
a
> post which explains why. Random fluctuations around value are no less
> likely than random fluctuations around price of production?
> Sorry to take the discussion back so far.
> Rakesh
>

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