From: GERALD LEVY (gerald_a_levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Tue Nov 27 2007 - 07:56:00 EST
> 2) The profit rate in the fully automated economy> ------------------------------------------------
Hi Anders:
Marx did not analyse the (science fiction) case of a "fully automated
economy" and hence it can *not* be claimed that what AK wrote on
this topic is about the internal *consistency* of Marx's thought.
Here it is simply Dimitriev v. Kliman, not Dimitriev v. Marx/Kliman.
> Ajit argues that Kliman's line of argument against Dimitriev is just> dead wrong. I will not go into the details of Kliman's argument. But> I just note that Ajit and I think very differently, because to me a> thing which is produced without labour (full automation) has a zero> price, because like Smith (and IMO also Marx) I believe that "labour> is the only real social cost" - so when there is no labour such a> process is outside of the field of economic science (not all social> sciences of course) since every economy is basically an "economy of> time" = that is labour time.> > When blueberries generate new blueberries as they do in the woods> around Oslo where I live - and if I like a Jedi in Star Wars could> pick them only by using a negligible amount of "the Force" - they> would be free, prices and profit would not be part of the picture -> so Dimitriev's example has no bearing on the labour theory of value> - if labour is the fundamental and only real cost to society. (See.> Marco Lippi's book on "Marx, il valore como costo sociale> reale" translated as "Value and naturalism in Karl Marx", Verso 1979.> > I think I would have argued a little bit different from Kliman> regarding Dimitriev, but I would have reached the same conclusion,> that even though Dimitriev's example is internally consistent, given> the way D. and most economist think - Dimitriev's "case" is> irrelevant ("defined away") in a Marxian "time as the only real> social cost" paradigm. In a fully automated economy there is no> labour = no scarcity = no prices, no profits. 0 = 0.
I made these points many times re the meaning of the assumption
of V = 0. It would be consistent for you to write that Kliman's
illustrations where v = 0 are "irrelevant ('defined away')" in a Marxian
paradigm.
In solidarity, Jerry
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