With regard to the discussion on the valuation of input prices between John,
Duncan, and Alan, I would first like to clarify Marx's own interpretation of
the valuation of input prices (especially the prices of the means of
production), and then we can move on to a consideration of the
interpretation appropriate for today.
As I understant it, John seems to be suggesting that:
1. Marx assumed that the prices of previously purchased means of production
fell along with technological change. This assumption was perhaps
appropriate for Marx's day of competitive capitalism.
2. However, in today's monopoly capitalism, the prices of previously
purchased machines no longer fall with technological change
3. Therefore, we should abandon Marx's assumption about the valuation of
input prices in order to retain "Marx's notion of accumulation" (which
remains unclearly specified, at least from recent posts).
I would first like to discuss (1) (Marx's interpretation), and then (in
later posts) move on to points (2) and (3).
My main point in this post is that I agree with (1) - and would argue even
more explicitly that Marx assumed that the price of the means of production
were determined at the time of the sale of the output (i.e. simultaneously
with the prices of output), as the current reproduction costs of the means
of production.
I offer as textual evidence that Marx assumed that the prices of the means
of production are determined simultaneously with output prices (i.e. as the
current reproduction costs of the means of production) the following passages:
The most important of these passages is from Chapter 8 of Volume 1 of
Capital, where one would explect a discussion of this issue since the
subject of this chapter is the definition and determination of constant
capital and variable capital. Here Marx wrote:
The definition of constant capital and variable capital given above
by no means excludes the possibility of a change of value in its
elements. Suppose that the price of cotton is one day
sixpence a pound, and the next day, as a resulr of a failure of the
cotton crop, a shilling a pound. EACH POUND OF THE COTTON BOUGHT AT
SIXPENCE, AND WORKED UP AFTER THE RISE OF VALUE, TRANSFERS TO
THE PRODUCT A VALUE OF ONE SHILLING; AND THE COTTON ALREADY SPUN
BEFORE THE RISE, AND PERHAPS CIRCULATING IN THE MARKET AS YARN,
SIMILARLY TRANSFERS TO THE PRODUCT TWICE ITS ORIGINAL VALUE...
The value of a commodity is certainly determined by the quantity of
labor contained in it, but this quantity is itself socially
determined. IF THE AMOUNT OF LABOR-TIME SOCIALLY NECESSARY FOR
THE PRODUCTION OF ANY COMMODITY ALTERS - and a given wright of
cotton represents more labor after a bad harvest than after a
good one - THIS REACTS BACK ON ALL THE OLD COMMODITIES OF THE SAME
TYPE, because they are only individuals of the same species, and
THEIR VALUE AT ANY GIVEN TIME IS MEASURED BY THE LABOR SOCIALLY
NECESSARY TO
PRODUCE THEM, I.E. BY THE LABOR NECESSARY UNDER THE SOCIAL CONSITIONS
EXISTING AT THE TIME.
AS THE VALUE OF THE RAW MATERIALS MY CHANGE, SO TOO MAY THAT OF THE
INSTRUMENTS OF LABOR, THE MACHINERY, ETC. EMPLOYED IN THE PROCESS; and
consequently that protion of the value of the product transferred to
it from
them may also change. If, as a result of a new invention, machinery
of a
particular kind can be produced with a lessened expenditure of
labor, THE
OLD MACHINERY UNDERGOES A CERTAIN AMONT OF DEPRECIATION, AND THEREFORE
TRANSFERS PROPORTIONATELY LESS VALUE TO THE PRODUCT. (C.I. 317-18;
emphases added)
Another important passage in which Marx discussed this issue is in the
earlier draft of Chapter 8 of Volume 1 in the 1861-63 manuscript (in a part
of this manuscript not included in the Theories of Surplus-Value and
published for the first time in English in 1988). It is clear once again
from this passage that in the case of technological change, the prices of
the means of production are determined by their current replacement costs.
It is also clear that Marx nonetheless considered the prices of the means of
production as "given preconditions."
But the values of the material and means of labor only reappear in
the product of the labor process to the extent that they were
pre-posited to the latter as values, i.e. were values before they
entered into the process. Their value is equal to the social
labor time materialised in them; it is equal to the labor time
necessary to produce them under given general social conditions of
production. IF LATER ON MORE OR LESS LABOR TIME WERE TO BE
REQUIRED TO MANUFACTURE THESE PARTICULAR USE VALUES, OWING TO SOME
ALTERATION IN THE PRODUCTIVITY OF THE LABOR OF WHICH THEY ARE THE
PRODUCTS,
THEIR VALUE WOULD HAVE RISEN IN THE FIRST CASE AND FALLEN IN THE
SECOND; for
the labor time contained in their value only determines it to the extent
that it is general, social, and necessary labor time. HENCE
ALTHOUGH THEY
ENTERED THE LABOR PROCESS WITH A DEFINITE VALUE, THEY MAY COME OUT OF IT
WITH A DIFFERENT VALUE THAT IS LARGER OR SMALLER, BECAUSE THE LABOR TIME
SOCIETY NEEDS FOR THEIR PRODUCTION HAS UNDERGONE A GENERAL CHANGE...
But
this change in the value of the material and means of labor involves
absolutely no alteration in the circumstance that in the labor
process into
which they enter as material and means they are always PREPOSITED AS
GIVEN
VALUES, VALUES OF A GIVEN MAGNITUDE. For in this process itself
they only
emerge as values in so far as they entered as values. A change in
their
value never results from this labor process itself but rather from the
conditions of the labor process of which they are or were the
products and
to which they therefore are not preposited as products. IF THEIR
GENERAL
CONDITIONS OF PRODUCTION HAVE CHANGED, THIS REACTS BACK UPON THEM.
THEY ARE
AN OBJECTIFICATION OF MORE OR LESS LABOR TIME, OF MORE OR LESS VALUE
THEN
THEY WERE ORIGINALLY; BUT ONLY BECAUSE A GREATER OR SMALLER AMOUNT
OF LABOR
TIME IS NOW REQUIRED THAN ORIGINALLY FOR THEIR PRODUCTION. This
reaction is
due to the fact that as values they are a materialisation of social
labor
time but the labor time contained in them only counts to the extent
that it
is reduced to general social labor time ... These changes in their
value,
however, always arise from changes in the productivity of the labor
of which
they are products, and have nothing to do with the labor processes into
which they enter as finished products with a given value. Their
change of
value stems from alterations in their own conditions of production,
which
occur outside and independently of the labor process into which they
enter
as material and means; not as a result of an operation occurring
within the
labor process. FOR IT THEY ARE ALWAYS VALUES OF A GIVEN, PREPOSITED
MAGNITUDE, EVEN THOUGH OWING TO EXTERNAL AGENCIES, ACTING OUTSIDE
THE LABOR
PROCESS, THEY ARE NOW PREPOSITED AS OF GRETER OF SMALLER MGNITUDE
THAN WAS
ORIGINALLY THE CASE. (MECW.30. 79-80; emphases added)
In another passage from the 1861-63 manuscript (this one included in the
Theories of Surplus-Value), Marx stated again that technological chnge
alters the price of the means of production, but that these prices are still
taken as a "condition" or a "postulated value".
If we take society at any one moment, there exists simultaneously
in all spheres of production, even though in very different
proportions, a definite constant capital - presupposed as a
necessary condition of production - that once an for all belongs to
productioin and must be given back to it. as seed must be given back
to the land. IT IS TRUE THAT THE VALUE OF THIS CONSTANT PART CAN
FALL OR RISE, DEPENDING ON WHETHER THE COMMODITIES OF WHICH IS IS
COMPOSED HAVE TO BE REPRODUCED AT LESS OR GREATER COST. This change in
value, however, never alters the fact that in the process of production,
into which it enters as a condition of production, it is a
postulated value
which must reappear in the value of the product. (TSV.I. 109;
emphasis
added)
Another passage in which stated again that a change in the price of raw
materials also affects the price of raw materials previously purchased and
currently being utulized at some stage in the production process is from
Chapter 6 of Volume 3 of Capital (on the subject of the effects of changes
in the prices of raw materials on the rate of profit).
If the price of a raw material changes - cotton for example - the
price of cotton goods rises as well: both semi-finished goods
suchas yarn, and finished products such as cloth, etc. which
are produced with this more expensive cotton. And cotton that
has not yet been worked up, but is still in the warehouse, rises
just as much in value as cotton that is in the course of
manufacture. AS THE RETROPSECTIVE EXPRESSION OF MORE LABOR-TIME,
THIS COTTON ADDS A HIGHER VALUE TO THE PRODUCT WHICH IT GOES INTO AS A
COMPONENT THAN IT POSSESSED ORIGINALLY AND THE CAPITALIST PAID FOR IT.
THUS IF AN INCREASE IN THE PRICE OF RAW MATERIAL TAKES PLACE WITH A
SIGNIFICANT AMOUNT OF FINISHED GOODS ALREADY PRESENT ON THE MARKET, AT
WHATEVER STAGE OF COMMPLETION, THEN THE VALUE OF THESE COMMODITIES
RISES AND
THERE IS A CORRESPONDING INCREASE IN THE VALUE OF THE CAPITAL INVOLVED.
(C.III. 107; emphases added)
It seems to me that all the above passages make clear that, in the case of
technological change, Marx assumed that the price of the means of production
are determined at the time of the sale of the output (i.e. as the current
replacement costs), and NOT at the various times "in the past" in which the
means of production were purchased (i.e. not at actual historical costs).
Fred Moseley