May be someone on the list wants to play with me awhile. I ask:
(i) who are the authors behind the following quotes?
(ii) do you think that the content of the quotes is a fair interpretation
of Marx?
Especially, I would be happy to have at least the guesses by Alan, Andrew,
Massimo, and all the TSS (or TA? I hate all these acronyms) people.
A. "This misreading - on which a surprising consensus seems to exist among
both critics of Marx and Marxist writers - consists of interpreting Marx's
values and his prices of production as two alternative systems. For Marx
the rate of profits on which prices of production depend could not have
been determined by means other than the labour theory of value".
B. "The expression 'transormation problem' is not Marx's ... there never
was for Marx a 'problem' of transforming values into prices of production.
There was only a problem of correctly determining relative prices and,
therefore, of correctly determining the rate of profits"
C. "Unlike Ricardo's, Marx's argument is explicitely framed in two stages.
Since the prices of production differ from the values only on account of
the different distribution of the overall surplus-value of the economy,
according to Marx the rate of profits is accurately determined, for the
economy as a whole, on the basis of the labour theory of value. The prices
of production are then obtained from the value by replacing the
surplus-value produced in each branch of production with the part of the
overall surplus-value of the economy belonging to that branch according to
the general rate of profits."
D. "What constitutes the substance of value cannot, in fact, but constitute
the substance of revenues, as the latter stem from the breakdown of the
value of a given set of commodities. It follows that the conception of
abstract labour as the substance of value necessitates that the whole of
this substance be found in the prices of production, having merely been
partly diverted away from some commodities and channeled into others (as
the enlightening comparison with the 'conservation of energy' shows)."
E. "It has been seen that Marx's basic insight was correct in that the data
from which individual labour values and the aggregate magnitudes S, V, C
are derived, do suffice to determine the rate of profits and relative
prices."
There is no prize.
Thank to those who will be so kind to participate.
riccardo
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Riccardo Bellofiore e-mail: bellofio@cisi.unito.it
Department of Economics Tel: (39) -35- 277505 (direct)
University of Bergamo (39) -35- 277501 (dept.)
Piazza Rosate, 2 (39) -11- 5819619 (home)
I-24129 Bergamo Fax: (39) -35- 249975
Italy
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