From: Paul Cockshott (wpc@DCS.GLA.AC.UK)
Date: Fri Jan 11 2008 - 12:40:07 EST
Jerry Levy wrote: >> No V does not figure, or 'reckon'. > > > Hi Paul C: > > > How would you logically demonstrate the existence of exploitation > under capitalism and surplus value _without_ reference to the category of variable capital? > One does not have to demonstrate it logically but empirically. One measures the person hours per year consumed by the working class, and takes this away from the person hours per year in the total social product. If one fixes the 'person year' at not 365 x 24 but at wd x wh where wd is the number of working days per year, and wh number of working hours per year, ( which I implicitly assumed in a previous post ) one can then dimensionally reduce the consumption of the working class to a number of people - the number of people whose normal working year is required to support the consumption of the working class. I explained in a previous post that one can express surplus value in a similar way - as so many million people. One then expresses exploitation as number of people producing accumulation and luxuries ---------------------------------------------------- = rate of exploitation number of people producing wage goods Using I/O tables and statistics on the average working week, number of days holiday per year, all of this is reasonably easy to do. > Without V, what is your formula for the rate of profit? > > > The formula I use now for profit would be s/K where K is the capital stock. The dimension of profit should be 1/t since it is a rate growth per year. If you just say the rate of profit is s/(c+v) there is a potential confusion between stocks and flows. If s, c and v are all taken to be flows of value (= number of people) then the rate of profit is a dimensionless number, which contrasts with the normal usage of the term rate of profit as for example 5% per year. What, in the case of simple reproduction s/(c+v) actually measures is the number of workers working in department iii divided by the numbers of workers working in the other two departments. This is an interesting measure but it is not equivalent to the rate of profit. I have, in various publications since the 1970s, called s/K the stock rate of profit, and s/(c+v) the flow rate of profit. Strictly speaking the ratio s/(c+v) is not a rate of profit. In the simple model used in much of Capital where no clear distinction is made between stocks and flows it has a didactic value, but as one comes to do empirical work one needs to do a proper dimensional analysis and distinguish stocks from flows. >> If one employs flow accounting rather than stock accounting, there is a flow of wages, there is a flow of means of production etc, and in this accounting framework it is useful to label the flow of wages as v and the flow of means of production as c, but these distinctions are not applicable to analyzing what has been accumulated, since what has been accumulated is a stock. < >> > > > > Capital exists as both a stock and a flow. No, capital is a stock. The owners of capital recieve a flow of income from it. > I think it's one-sided to just conceive of capital (or capital accumulation) in terms of just one or the other. The problem, I guess, is that these different concepts (and realities) give rise to measurement difficulties that are difficult to deal with in an accounting framework. I can see this both in terms of practical problems re > the calculation of the technical composition of capital (TCC) and the value and organic compositions of capital. I don't know of anyone who has ever suggested a meaningful way to calculate the TCC, for instance [which is because there are so many problematic conceptual issues associated with the economic meaning and (ir) relevance of the 'units' being measured]. > The problem is that the TCC is not a scalar. > In solidarity, Jerry >
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