Paul,
I do not think we differ. See below.
John writes
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I am starting with prices of production. How did I get there?
Start with the concrete and abstract from all else till you get
there. Now what do we have? Workers laboring for various
capitals of differing compositions each of which is earning the
same rate of profit is the object before us. Based on the
price of the net product of the total labor, we can say what
amount of "value" is created in the given period of production.
For that period, we could then say that the "value" added
Paul c
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I beg to differ John, you are not starting from the concrete
at all, but from an extreemly abstract system indeed - that
of prices of production. This is by no means what one
encounters concretely in the real world, it is a theoretical
model constructed by Marx in Vol 3. In the real world we
do not see that capitals of different compostions earn the
same rate of profit, we see a wide dispersion of
profit rates, and in fact those of high organic composition
tend to earn a lower rate of profit.
John now says:
I agree that prices of production are an abstraction. However,
they are more concrete than what we find in Vol. I and Vol II of
CAPITAL. That was my point. To be clearer, let me say start
from the real world you describe and abstract until you get to
the level of PoP. You are still at a level more concrete than
that which comes before PoP in CAPITAL.
John