Re: [OPE] Open problems in Marxist economics: Workers' savings

From: Dave Zachariah <davez@kth.se>
Date: Wed Apr 07 2010 - 16:36:50 EDT

On 2010-04-07 21:44, Ian Wright wrote:
> Just for clarity, profit is a flow of income, consumption is a flow of
> spending, but "net savings" is a change to a stock (e.g., the current
> value of my bank account).
>
> The Kaleckian identities don't hold out of equilibrium.
I can't see that. An accounting identity does not require equilibrium.

> which is equivalent to
>
> Net savings by workers = Net dis-savings by capitalists
>
> I'd suggest that this describes a situation where the distribution of
> income is moving in favor of workers.
>
I think this is clear but I would not say that it is the distribution of
income (flow) that is moving in favor but the distribution of credit
(stock). But I think this misses the point that I raised. The basic
problem with net savings of workers' in the orthodox formulation is that

    'total surplus value' no longer equals 'monetary value of surplus
    product'

which was the main point of the theory of surplus value (Volume 1, ch.
18), i.e. to show how the extraction of surplus labour-time worked in
capitalism.

//Dave Z
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Received on Wed Apr 7 16:46:19 2010

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