Paul says,
John, I suspect that you may be unduly complicating
the issue of price rises by discussing them in the
more general context of crises. Before we get to that
we have to asses the validity or otherwise of Marx's
criticisms of Ricardos quantity theory.
These are posed at the level of commodity circulation
rather than the aggregate circulation of capital. I
would suggest that it is simpler to follow Marx and
try to look at it at this level first.
John says,
Perhaps you're right. However, the discussion between
Andrew and me concerned which comes first -- a fall in
the rate of profit or falling prices. The only way I
saw to go about answering this was to briefly describe
the over-accumulation of capital and the consequent
rising prices to show how the crisis brings about the
fall in the rate of profit that makes itself manifest
as prices fall.
If you can find a way to make all this less "unduly
complicated", I'll listen.
Cheers,
John