I tend to agree with Duncan in the sense that Paul C's empirical study
raises more questions than it answers. I would say that the issue here
doesn't concern the relation of value to prices of production. The issues
that Paul poses are more concrete. Questions such as restrictions imposed
on capital mobility by the nature of constant fixed capital,
actual variations in the rate of profit by branch of production, and
varying market structures all relate to the more concrete question of
competition under late capitalism.
These *are* important questions which I hope will we address, in due
course, as we continue. The very process of dialectical inquiry leads us,
for every question that is theorized, to consider the incompleteness of
the theory and the need for further investigation.
In OPE-L Solidarity,
Jerry